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Note: Montreal. Her adoptive parents were Samuel Parent and Eugenie Defresne. When Cecelia grew up, she married Alexander Lasser and they had one child, Eugenie Catherine Lasser. She married Kenneth Albert Parent, the son of Samuel's brother Alexander.
=========================================================================== K-11 CECELIA PARENT Lasser
Family tradition has it that Cecelia was adopted out of a Montreal convent about 1874. Skipper's family book shows her birthdate as 20 June 1873, but her official death certificate shows 20 June 1874; the birthplace is given as Montreal. Upon her marriage in 1896, she claimed an age of 22 (i.e., born 1874).
No Quebec civil records of the adoption exist as it became a state concern only in 1924. Requests for information from convents operating in those days (The Grey Nuns of Montreal, Society for the Adoption and Protection of Children, and the Sisters of Providence Mother House) came back negative.
Cecelia was adopted by Samuel Parent and wife Eugenia Defresne (called "Mimi"); Gramps speculates that Samuel and Eugenia never legally married, so they went far from home, from Sandwich East to Montreal, to adopt a child. The 1880 Census for Muskegon City, Michigan shows:
1st Ward, Muskegon, Muskegon Co, MI 1880 FHL Film 1254597 National Archives Film T9-0597 Page 179A Relation Sex Marr Race Age Birthplace PARRENT, Samuel, self, W M, married, age 36, b. MI, carpenter fa/mo CAN/CAN , Janie, Wife, W F, married, age 32, b. CAN, Keeping House fa/mo CAN/CAN , Selia, dau, W F, single, age 6, b. CAN, fa/mo MI/CAN The family later moved to Chicago and shows up in the street directories. Samuel died there 14 March 1915. Eugenie was enumerated in 1920 with Alex and Cecelia on Avenue L, and was still with them in the April 1930 enumeration. Eugenie Parent would pass away in Northfield, Cook County, 26 June 1935, aged 87 (Cert. # 24680). Her husband, Samuel, died 14 March 1915 in Chicago.
In July 1979 I spoke to Gramps about Cecelia and asked if she ever had talked about the orphanage from which she was adopted. He said no, but that she had told one story to her daughter Genie that she had repeated to him. She was at a Catholic orphanage staffed by nuns. At Christmas the nuns would give each girl orange peel, which they should eat. The nuns would then eat the rest, the meat and juice. [Comment: To remember that, Cecelia must have been at least three or four when she was adopted out.]
In November 1985 Gramps wrote of Cecelia and Skipper:
"It is my belief that when they were married while living in Muskegon. They moved to Chicago, lived on the South Side ... and Skipper went to work at U.S. Steel Carnegie Plant, South Works located in South Chicago for $50 per month. During the first year Cecelia saved $50. When Genie was a baby in a baby carriage Cecelia stopped at a candy store and had her first ice cream soda (cost five cents) in, if I remember rightly, two years."
Gramps was correct -- the marriage of Alexander Lasser (age 20, of Grand Rapids) and Cecelia Parent (age 22 of Muskegon) was recorded on page 188 of the Muskegon, Michigan marriage register, record item 2724 on 8 February 1896. The groom was born in Montréal, Canada, to Nelson Lasser and Mary Lafrenge and is by occupation a car inspector. The bride was born in Montréal, Canada, to Samuel Parent and Eugenie Dufresne, and has no by occupation. The marriage took place 10 February 1896 in Muskegon, performed by J. R. Magnan, pastor. Witnesses were Edward Lasser and Anna Kirkpatrick, both of Muskegon.
Gramps told me how Skipper would earn extra money by diverting the raw steam he worked with to launder his co-workers' overalls. Live steam in a pail of water and caustic for a dollar or a little less. Some nights he'd bring home three or four dollars that way.
Cecelia managed the money well and would not let Skip cash his pay check at the corner tavern as was then the custom, because the men tended to stay for a drink or three. Skipper brought the check home, gave it to Cecelia, and she'd cash it at the tavern and bring home a bucket of beer to share. A bucket cost a dime; she'd smear the inside of the bucket with lard, which stopped the beer from foaming and you got all beer, no head!
Gramps wrote:
"Had a Model T Ford, touring car. Cecelia loved to go for a ride on Sunday. A lunch would be packed away and off we'd go. The further we went the happier she would be ... cuz after the food was spread and eaten we would head for home and she wasn't the same sweet gal on the return trip.
"Skipper bought a Ford one day. Genie driving and Cecelia had a problem - dented fender. Didn't want Skip to know about it. So they took it to Fred Ludulph's shop for repairs, immediately, cuz they didn't want him to learn that they'd had the car out. Skip never learned about this so Fred must have done a real good job."
Note: Cecelia was adopted from a Catholic orphanage, family tradition says in
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