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| Misc. Notes | ||||||||||||||||||
| "Francis Campau was reared upon this place and after arriving at years of maturity he was married to Miss Lauria (sic) Mayhew, who was born in Montreal, Canada and is likewise of French lineage. When a young man of twenty years, Francis Campau went aupon the lakes, and for eight years was captain of a sailing vessel. He then settled upon the old homestead farm, where he reared his family, carrying on agricultural pursuits throughout his remaining days. His death occurred December 14, 1899, and his is still survived by his wife, who rseides with their son, Frank Campau. ... "17 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Family appears in US 1870 Census, Twp of Harrison, County of macomb Campau, Francis, 45, Farmer Louisa, 35, keeping house Mary 11 Emma 10 Ada 8 Frank 5 James 3 Julia 1 From JS VanLooy's paper on the use of French Patois in the Campau family: "In 1857 John Baptiste's son Francis (Erancois), who was born in Detroit in 1825, was married to Louisa Mayhew (Mallou). His wife was a French Canadian who had come to Harrison Township with her parents from Montreal. The eldest of their nine children, Mary, born in 1859, was my great-grandmother. The youngest, born about fourteen years later, was Lena (Eleanor) Campau. When the children were growing up there were factors outside the home which helped to prolong their use of the patois which was their first language. An 1875 map of the township reveals the extent of French settlement in the area. The Catholic church which they attended, St. Peter's in Mt. Clemens, had a French-speaking Belgian priest, Father A. J. Lambert, from 1847 to 1897. The children attended a public grammar school in the township. They had learned some English at home, but the small extent of their knowledge may be suggested by the fact that one of the sons, Frank, had to be tutored by his brother-in-law when he was elected supervisor so that he could carry out his duties. This election occurred years after his education in English, and his need for tutoring attests to his use of the patois. The males of the first two generations of the family in Detroit were literate in French. Surviving family documents include a small leather-bound journal and other financial records. The first John Baptiste was a Royal Notary. In the Nineteenth Century none of the family was literate until Aunt Lena and her brothers and sisters attended public schools. Seven of the nine children married, but of those who had children only two, Emma Campau Chartier and Delia Campau Neveux, had husbands who spoke the patois. Clyde Neveux relates that his parents never spoke "French" in his presence. They were afraid it would be a handicap. The Chartier children spoke the patois at home. Their father, Antoine, was an educated man who also spoke modern French. But according to Mrs. Lowe, the children were made to feel ashamed of the patois by their contemporaries. Thus through marriages and social pressure the generation of the second John Baptiste Campau's great-grandchildren, with the exception of the Chartiers, did not learn the patois. Through the years the Campau sisters and brothers remained close. They met frequently at the family home which Frank remodeled into an inn, at the Detroit house of their mother, who lived until 1919, and in the Mt. Clemens home of my great-grandmother, where my grandmother lived with her two daughters. My mother recalls them coming to the house to play cards and to discuss the management of their father's estate, which wasn't settled until 1957, when Lena was the only surviving child. As the members of her generation of the family passed away Aunt Lena became more and more of a recluse in her Detroit home. When her sisters were all dead she was cut off from the telephone contact which they had all enjoyed for the opportunity of speaking their patois. The niece and nephews who came to live with her did not speak it, and relatives report that there wasn't much conversation in the house."19 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Last Modified 5 Oct 2004 | Created 11 Feb 2006 by Reunion for Macintosh |