My maternal grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at our home in the Southern Suburbs of Chicago back in 1968, and I have a box of slides of that occasion taken by Mr. Hess, the stepfather of my cousin Betty's husband. Seated on the couch in the above photograph - from left to right - are my Great Aunt Babe (Florence) McNally, Viola Miller (an old family friend), and my Grandmother Louise Spillard. Aunt Babe and Grandmother Spillard were the last of 6 children. They were born in St. Estache, Quebec, on the family farm, but the family would travel to Chicago during the winter, where my Great Grandfather Charles St. Pierre, worked as a carpenter. Until I recently read my mother's notes about the family, I had no idea that my grandmother and her sisters were born in Quebec, and later became naturalized US citizens. One time many years later, Aunt Babe, her husband, and children went to Canada on vacation, and when they came back, the US border agents - learning that Babe was born in Canada - refused to let her back into the country. It was a very emotional scene, from what I heard, but they finally relented and let her back in. Ever vigilant, these border patrol guys.
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