Today I am featuring a photograph of my Great Aunt Babe (sitting on the left) , my Grandmother Louise Spillard (on the right), and their friend Viola Miller, sitting in the middle, taken at our house in Country Club Hills, Illinois, on the occasion of my grandparents wedding anniversary in November of 1968. Babe and my grandmother had two other sisters, Irene and Allie, as well as a brother - Uncle Charlie. I knew Irene, but not Allie or Charlie. My Great Grandfather Charles St. Pierre (their father) was a carpenter, and also owned a farm in Saint-Eustache, Quebec with his brother. They would work the farm in the summer, and come to Chicago during the winter, where "Pa," as he was known, would work as a carpenter. He even worked on the construction of Cook County Hospital, where, ironically, he passed away at 99 years old, back in 1952. Eventually Pa sold his interest in the farm to his brother, and the whole family - except for Allie - moved permanently to Chicago. All of them still spoke French when they didn't want their children to know what they were saying, or when they swore, which is why both my mother Mary and sister Susan took French in school, in order to find out what the hell they were saying. It is good to be motivated to learn, right?
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