John was born on Feb. 11, 1879

John and Odelide had mainly girls for children. I never met most of them. Two I did meet however, were Michael Leross, son of Therese and also Roger Renaud, the son of Florence. She was dying of cancer in the Vancouver General Hospital when Roger came over.

From a discussion with Cecile Kofoed on October 19, 1998, I learned the following:

John worked first on the railroad (C.N.R.), as an apprentice engineer. It was his vocation. His wife Odelide had a small store in Aubigny, when she was already married. (They married in 1907). One time John got blamed for a railroad derailment, got angry and quit. She feels that there was some discrimination against French Canadians in those days, especially, so why he got blamed, why he got angry and quit. He quit in 1916. He moved to Terrace in 1921. John first went in 1920 then moved his family in 1921.

John cleared his own land. There were a lot of trees in those days so everyone basically cleared his own land. He had 5 acres. He worked in the coal mines for awhile. They had seven girls and two boys.

Terrace is a logging community