| Summary: | Lake for supplies. As a last survivor of her family, Cleo's education served her well and proved an important link to her grateful grandchildren as she sent many letters to them after they had left home to seek educations and jobs or were called to the military. Although little means of livelihood existed on the Turtle Mountain reservation during this era, Frank provided well for his wife and two surviving children (four died in infancy). They had a son, Francis, who married Marguerite Jollie, and a daughter, Virginia, who married William Davis. Also living with them until his death on July 29, 1925, was Angelique's brother, Norman Gingras, who had worked with the U.S. Indian Service for many years. Frank built a large frame house five miles west of Belcourt on a knoll overlooking the farmland alloted him by the government. He labored long hours making his farm profitable, surviving the Depression so well that the future appeared rosy for them. Besides providing his own meat, milk, various fowl, eggs, and garden foods, Frank hunted and supplemented their table with wild game, supplying Cleo with fine hides for tanning from which she made beautiful deerskin jackets. However, as the Depression ended with its promising future, Frank's life ended on April 23, 1934. Cleo struggled on through that summer with the help of her son but as neither of her children wished to continue on the farm, she was forced to move to Belcourt where she lived for the remainder of her life except when she braved a journey by train to Arizona, Oregon, or Devils Lake to visit her grandchildren. She died while visiting a granddaughter at Glenburn, North Dakota, on June 9, 1958. She and Frank are buried in the old cemetery on the hilltop behind their beloved St. Ann's Church. Angelique Delorme Liza Delorme Malaterre Pierre Delorme and son, courtesy of Manitoba Archives. Angelique Delorme, Liza Delorme Malaterre, sisters believed to be oldest living twins in nation. ANGELIQUE DELORME (1882 - 1983) Angelique Delorme was born July 4, 1882 at Pembina, North Dakota, to Joseph Delorme and Angelique Gingras. She never married. Her twin sister Eliza Delorme Mataterre (Phillip) and her family looked after her in her late years. The twins lived to celebrate their 100th birthdays together and were believed to be the oldest living twins in the nation. They were the last survivors of 12 children, including four brothers and six sisters, all of whom lived in the Belcourt area on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. They were half Chippewa and half French. They moved with the family to the Belcourt area after the Red River land was ceded to the U.S. Government. Both girls attended "Sisters' School" at Belcourt for four or five years and both knew how to read and write, although they hardly spoke English. When she was 21, after her mother's death, she moved to Rolette and was on her own. She worked very hard for many years for various farmers in the Rolette area, and as a housekeeper for Dr. Cook. She made her own lye soap. She was famous for her apple pies. She worked in Devils Lake for five years for attorney Frank Foughty and stayed with the Foughty family. Angeline entered the Dunseith Nursing Home following a stroke in the 1960's. Liza continued to visit her sister each week until 1981 when she, too, moved to the home. Angelique died July 25,1983. Angelique and Eliza were descendents of Sebastian Gingras who came to Quebec from France in the late 1600's. Angoine Gingras, their maternal grandfather, was born in 1821 in Red River Settlement. In 1841 he and his family were sent to Oregon by the Hudson Bay Company. When he returned he established a trading post near St. Joe (Walhalla) and owned Red River carts which operated from Winnipeg to St. Paul. He also owned a chain of 326 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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