William & Pulcheria Gregoire

GREGOIRE HUBERT

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/7/2010 at 18:57:38

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

William and Pulcheria Hubert Gregoire
By Ann McAnally

William Gregoire was born August 22, 1855 in Wotton, Canada, a direct descendant of Mathurin Gregoire, who in 1667 at the age of nineteen migrated from Poitiers, France. William, a trapper and guide, arrived in Woodbury County in 1880 to join the growing French-speaking colony there. He worked as a farm hand, first on the ‘Gibeau’ farm and later for Theophile Brughier, whose trading post at the confluence of the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers evolved into what is now Sioux City.

At the home of Theophile and his third wife, Victoria, he met Pulcheria Hubert, born in Ham Sud, Canada, September 10, 1868; died December 16, 1946, the daughter of Francis and Aglae Hubert. Francis was born in Contre Couer, Canada, February 16, 1834, died April 8, 1910, and married Aglae La Croix in October 1869. They came to Woodbury County with several small children and settled on a farm three miles southwest of Salix. Francis was a carpenter and cabinet maker, furnishing as well as building many pioneer homes in the area. A number of pieces of his furniture are still in use.

‘Cherie’ Hubert and William Gregoire were married in Salix, February 7, 1886, a union that produced ten children: William Wilfred, 1887-1977, Eva Rosanna, 1889-1974, Clerce Ella, born 1890, Alfred, 1890-1892, Raoul Joseph, 1894-1983, Joseph, born 1895 and died in infancy, Ernest, 1897-1968, Amelia, born 1900, Ophelia, born 1902, and Erienne, born 1907.

The three older children attended a country school at first, where they were taught by an Irish émigré, Ellen Walpole, who learned French from them as she taught them English. Later they were to ride a pony cart to town to attend St Josephs School, staffed by nuns from France. Travelling in an open cart in Midwestern winter weather proving impractical; they moved to town where Gregoire became a blacksmith. Eva nd Clerce had a very close call one Sunday afternoon; they had been diriven by their uncle Fred Pepin in his surrey to view the capricious Missouri on one of its spring rampages. Moments after passing along the edge of a cornfield on the Hubert farm, they turned to watch cornfield on the Hubert farm, they turned to watch cornfield and road fall away into the river.

In 1908 the family moved to South Dakota, making the move by ‘train, boxcar and two farm wagons’. They first lived on a farm near Burbank, then bought a farm near Wakonda and built a modern five-bedroom home. Only Raoul and Erienne were still at home when William died in October 1928. His wife and youngest daughter then moved into Vermillion, living there until Cherie Gregoire’s passing in 1946.

William Wilfred married Delvina DesLaurier; they had one son, Doanld. Eva married Delvina’s borhter, Vetal DesLaurier, they had five childen: Yvonne, Rene, Olive, Lauren and Marie. Clerce married Walter Knudsen; their three children are Ann Marie, Walter Raymond and Knud William. Raoul married Blanche Seney; their three sons are Hubert, Robert and Richard. Ernest married Ida Larsen; they had six children, Elsworth, Hubert, Ilene, Lowell, Ernest, Jr, and Gloria Ann. Amelia ‘Mil’ married Otto Tonne; their chidlren are James and Jeanne. Several years after Ott’s death, Mil married E H McCain. Ophelia ‘Phyllis’ married Richard Zalesky; their children are Dean and Marianne. Erienne entered the Benedictine order, receiving the name Sr M Rene.

William and Cherie’s twenty-two grandchildren have so far produced forty-three ‘great-grands’ and new ‘great-great’s’ are arriving with regularity. But not a one of any of the generations lives now in Woodbury County.