Laurent & Prudence Hubert

HUBERT PEPPIN MENARD

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/22/2010 at 17:27:50

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

Laurent and Prudence Hubert
By Rosemarie Marley

Laurent Alfred Hubert was born October 9, 1899, at the family farm, Lakeport Township, Woodbury County, Salix, Iowa. He was the son of Napoleon Joseph and Rosanna Peppin Hubert. (See N J Hubert family.)

His boyhood days were spent in the company of neighbors Bub Devin, and Lucien LaCroix, swimming in summer and skating and trapping on Sand Hill Lake in the winter.

Following country grade school at Lakeport School 1 and graduation from St Josephs High School in the class of 1916 with classmates Herbert and Clara Every and Lois Chicoine, he enrolled in Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. While in college he was a member of the United States Army, being discharged in 1919.

Upon his parents’ retirement to Salix he returned to the family farm and on September 10, 1925, was married to Prudence Emma Menard of Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. Prudence, the daughter of George Napoleon and Maria Lamoureux Menard, was born January 12, 1901, in Kankakee County, Kankakee, Illinois. She attended the Ladd Country School; St Josephs, Salix; St Josephs, LeMars, Iowa; and graduated from St Angela, Carroll, Iowa.

They remained on the Hubert farm until 1934 when they moved to his grandfather’s land near the Missouri River. They eventually purchased the Sam Cone house in Salix. Besides farming he also drove the Salix Public School bus and during the World War II years was employed by Cudahy Packing in Sioux City, Iowa.

In the spring of 1950 they purchased the Newhouse Grocery and continued this in conjunction with farming the bar until Laurent’s illness and death January 5, 1965.

Six children were born to Laurent and Prudence, a son Laurent and a daughter Pauline dying in infancy. The children attended and graduated from St Josephs School, and as their parents, were all married in St Josephs Church. Laurent and Prudence were the last couple to be married in the old church before demolition in 1925.

Daughter of Rosemarie Evelyn, born September 6, 1926, married on September 14, 1946, Leo Wilbur Marley, a Blencoe, Iowa, farmer. They have one son.

Daughter Joan Yvonne, born October 21, 1927, married Thomas John Burns on April 4, 1951, a native of Sheldon, Iowa. They have always made their home on a farm in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Three daughters and five sons complete their family.

Son John Menard, born August 6, 1933, married Maurine Madonna Choquette of Salix, Iowa on June 14, 1958. He is vice-president and cashier of the Blencoe State Bank, Blencoe, Iowa, where they made their home with three daughters and five sons.

Daughter Suzanne Frances, born February 12, 1935, married Edwin Carl Ellensohn on February 11, 1956. They are farmers east of LeMars, Iowa, and are parents of four daughters and six sons.

Extended trips encouraged by membership in the Sioux City Camera Club enriched their lives. The birthplaces of their French Canadian parents were photographed; Napoleon’s home in Vercheres, Quebec, the church of his baptism containing the table and well-worn kneeling benches used by generations of their families, the home and mercantile business of Maria Menard’s parents at St Sebastien, Quebec. Other memorable trips were to the primitive areas of central Mexico, the Civil War battle and burial grounds and the Indian culture of the southwest.

Laurent and Prudence built a new home in 1959 on an adjoining lot. She continues to reside there with various community activities, the Tabernacle Society, the Entire Nous 500 Club for forty-seven years, Bridge Club, Study Club and beating the drums of the Salix Kitchen Klutter Band.