Alexina Levesque and Pierre Valcourt - Another great mystery solved

Pierre (Peter) Valcourt and Alexina Levesque

22 February 1916

The above photo of Pete Valcourt and my aunt Alexina Levesque has been in my collection of photos for years.  Unfortunately, I did not know who they were.  My aunt Alexina died at the young age of 22 a result of child birth complications.  Therefore, I had never known her but had heard a good deal about her from my mother who was her sister.  I also have a note book Alexina wrote in - what she wrote is quite poet and I think she could have been a great poet had she been so inclined.

So how was I able to finally identify this photo?  Every so often I get together with my mother's first cousins Toni and Rita née Monfet.  Their mother was my grandmother's sister so they are my first cousins once removed.  What they have shared with me these past few years has been invaluable.  So it occured to me when we were getting together last month that I had never taken out some of the photos that have no identification.  As soon as I showed them the wedding photo of "Pit" and Alexina, my cousin Rita who is in her 90s immediately said "that's Pit Valcourt and your aunt Alexina".  Woohoo!!!

After Alexina passed away, Pierre boarded with the above cousins' family for some time so they got to know him quite well. Pit, as we use referred to him, later married Clara Michaud and they had three children:  Theresa, Jacqueline and Leonard.

When I was a little girl I spent a great deal of time with my Levesque grandparents while my mother worked in the mills.  Some evenings my grandmother Arthémise (née Dumais) would take me with her to visit Clara.  For the longest time I could not understand the connection until I began to do our family genealogy.  As long as my grandmother lived she remained attach to Pierre Valcourt and his family.

My aunt was born Alexina Marie Arthemise Lévesque 17 August 1896 in Lawrence, Massachusetts and was the eldest of the children.  Her parents were Étienne Levesque and Arthemise Dumais.  She married Pierre Valcourt 22 February 1916 at Ste Anne Church, Lawrence.  He was born 30 July 1891 at Ste-Rose, Notre-Dame du Lac, Québec, Canada and died 07 October 1954 in Methuen, Massachusetts. As of yet, I have no exact date for his marriage to Clara Michaud but given the death of Alexina, and the birth of their first child in 1924, it has to have been 1923.  His parents were Edouard/Edward Valcourt and Marie Voisine.

Another great mystery solved... for now...

Love,

Note:  As you can see it is very important to identify and label all  photos you have from the past, present and future. Sometimes we take photos thinking there will always be someone who can identify them.  I was fortunate to have the input of my cousins but I have other photos that will likely never be identified that I inherited from my mother.

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Lucie's Legacy

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino

2010