I’ve heard about Tingwick, Quebec almost my entire life. It was where my dad’s family was from in Quebec. Imagine being a little kid and the fun of saying the word: Tingwick. Say it out loud! Although there was no family left in the town, my dad wanted to visit when I was quite young, 5 or 6. All I remember from the trip was my dad taking me to the barn and fields. He said I could touch the cows, but never touch a bull – they could be dangerous. When I asked him how I could tell the difference, he paused and said something like: ask your mother.
Tingwick today…
I’ve mentioned before my dad’s uncle Orad, who was a genealogist. He traced the Frechette family back to their roots in Quebec in 1655. They were all farmers, and all Catholic (translation: large families). From some notes Orad added to the genealogy, it appears my great-grandfather, Achille Frechette, was adventurous. Born in Tingwick, a small farming community in the eastern townships in 1882, he moved to Lewiston, Maine, then got a job with the railroad in the US from around 1900, traveling regularly from Florida to Montana. When he married my great-grandmother Rose-Emma Houle in 1906, he bought a farm where they settled in Tingwick on Chemin Craig/Craig Road. Together, they had 7 children before Rose passed away. He then married Marie-Anne Michel and they had 2 more children. Check out the photo of the house on Chemin Craig – two adults and 9 children!!!
My grandfather, Felix, was the oldest of the 9, born in the house on Chemin Craig in 1907. In 1925, at the age of 18, he married my grandmother Marie Moreau, and the following year the young couple moved along with Achille, Marie-Anne and the rest of the family to a farm in Dalton, NH. Apparently, the farms were struggling to support the expanding, larger families while fewer people were needed to run farms with improving farm techniques and machinery. In addition, there were no non-farm jobs in eastern Quebec while factories and mills in New England were hiring.
It was in Dalton that my dad, Robert, was born in 1930, the 4th oldest of Felix and Marie’s 16 children. And the rest is history…
In addition to my childhood memory of the trip with my father, my grandfather spoke often of Tingwick, so it has a significant place in my sense of family history. Pushpin! It was fun to finally see the familial stomping grounds!
My cousins Suzanne and Normand visited Tingwick after our last meetup. With help from the municipal office, they were able to find the address of Achille’s house, built in 1880 on Chemin Craig. They sent us photos and the address, so we had a head start on finding this bit of history. As I walked by the house, a fun, energetic small dog came out to greet me. His human, Catherine, came out and we chatted a bit. She and her family rent and love the house! And yes it was ok to walk around and take photos.
Genealogy notes also indicated that Felix was baptized in St. Paul church in Chesterville (back then, a part of Tingwick). We drove out to see it and were in awe of this structure built in 1895. On our return to Tingwick, we passed the church cemetery. There were at least 5 Frechette gravestones, however all appeared to be on different branches of the family tree than mine.
After Achille and his family left in 1926, the last Frechette on our branch of the family tree remaining in Tingwick was Achille’s father, Honoré, who died there in 1932. An internet search indicated he was buried in the St Patrice cemetery, which was an easy walk from where we were staying in Tingwick. We found no Frechette gravestones, nor Moreau or Houle or McNeil* (direct ancestors). We re-checked the website and noticed it said ‘CR’ by Honoré’s name. A footnote read: ‘CR – church record only, no gravestone.’ There were a lot of names with the same notation. Thinking about this, Quebec was hard hit by the depression and a gravestone was likely an extravagant expense for a family of farmers at that time.
According to historical society records, there were 2 Frechette families in Tingwick at the turn of the last century, and one was ours. Before we left, we were able to find roads with family names, not knowing if they were named after my family or the other Frechette’s. Still, it was fun to find them. It was like a scavenger hunt through the delightful hills and tiny back roads of the eastern townships.
Another bit of family history…
For anyone interested, more Tingwick pix…
*Tingwick included a small Irish settlement. It appears my great-grandmother, Hectorine (quite French) NcNeil (quite Irish), shows the 2 groups intermarried.