Jeannette Coulombe Valliere and her seven daughters lived in this Mt. Vernon Avenue tenement from the early 1930’s into the 1950’s.  Jeannette was among the thousands of French Canadians to immigrate to Augusta from Canada, coming with her family when she was around ten.  By age 13, Jeannette was working in the cotton mill, then married before eighteen.  By age twenty-nine, Jeannette was a widow with a young family to support, which she did by working in the mill, working for the Sisters at St. Augustine’s, and at various other enterprises.  She never remarried.  An account of her life, “Four Generations of Augusta Women,” from the perspective of her two youngest daughters, can be found at the Franco-American Women’s Institute website - http://www.fawi.net/ezine/vol3no3/Contents.html.

 

Site #36.1 Sources:

	Allen, James P. "Franco-Americans in Maine: A Geographical Perspective." In Acadiensis, vol. iv, no. 1 (Autumn 1974), 47.  Department f History, U`niversity of New Brunswick (reprint).
	Chartier, Armand. The Franco-Americans of New England: A History.  Translated by Robert J. Lemieux and Claire Quintal. Revised and Edited by Claire Quintal (Manchester, NH, and Worcester, MA: ACA Assurance and Institut Francais of Assumption College, 1999).
	Dickson, Pauline Coulombe, Pat Coulombe Knox, and Melanie Knox LaPierre. Interview by Phyllis vonHerrlich, 8 November 2000, Augusta, Maine.