| Summary: | Dorothy and Ernest Gendreau wages, then renting until 1960 when they bought Ed Green's farm northwest of Olga. They spent winters in Milwaukee, Spokane, Kalispell and California. They have lived in Walhalla for the last nine winters. They bought their own home in Walhalla in 1980. LOUIS GODON Louis Godon, Metis hunter and early settler at St. Pierre (now Olga) was the son of Louis Godon, French-Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, and Isabella Macdonnel, Scotch-Ojibwe also of northern Minnesota. Louis was descendant of Louis Godon, voyageur with Alexander Henry at Pembina before 1800 until the post was abandoned. When 12-years-old, young Louis and his family returned to Pembina and St. Joe (now Walhalla) from the Red River Settlement (now Winnipeg, St. Boniface, Portage LaPrairie, etc.). This was in the 1840s when Joseph Rolette, Norman Kittson and others were establishing American fur trading posts in the Pembina area which was then a part of Minnesota Territory. It was also at this time that Father G. Anthony Belcourt, missionary priest from Quebec to the people at Baie St. Paul (St. Francois- Xavier mission), came to Pembina and St. Joe with families who had previously lived and hunted in the Pembina area when it had been a trading post, and there established his mission and school. This group of families petitioned the U. S. Government for protection from unlawful harassment and seizures of their goods by the Hudson's Bay Company. Under whom they had been governed since the abandonment of the Pembina post and mission when they were found to be south of the International boundary by the surveys of 1818-1821. Young Louis, no doubt, continued in the family tradition of hunting and trapping in the Pembina Hills, or the "hair hills" as the French referred to them. He married Lissette Grandbois at the mission, daughter of Michel Grandbois and Genevieve Dauphinais, both French-Ojibwes of Pembina. Daughters, Ellen and Justine, were born of this marriage. Lissette Grandbois died in 1866. In 1867 Louis married Marie Larocque, daughter of Joseph Larocque and Sophia Marchand, also of French- Ojibwe ancestry from Minnesota. The children of this second marriage were Virginia, Phillip, Moses and Veronica. Louis filed on a homestead near Olga in the early 1880's and the children attended the first school which had a French teacher, Mr. Dorval. The family moved to Belcourt and Rolla, N. Dak., in 1890. JOSEPH LAROCQUE Joseph Larocque, father of Marie Larocque Godon, was in the business of constructing wagons, buggies, cutters and sleighs, a major industry in Olga during this time. He was also in business as a general blacksmith, formerly a wheelwright. His father, also Joseph Larocque (La Roche), born in Canada, had been an Indian trader in the Minnesota- Dakota country since before 1818. ARCHIE AND VICTORIA GOSSELIN Victoria Gosselin of Goleta, California, was Victoria Marie Dumas, the eighth member of a family of 22 children born to Oliver J. and Mary Jennie Verville Dumas of rural Walhalla. Of those 22 children there were three sets of twins. One can hardly imagine how a household could run smoothly with such a large family, but as Mrs. Gosselin says, "Grandma lived with us part of the time and mother was a good manager and us kids had to pitch in and help by doing the house work and caring for baby brothers and sisters." Fourteen children survived. Oliver J. Dumas, her father, made a living for his family on a farm. One of Cavalier county's earliest settlers, he was the son of Joseph and Esther Dumas who lived at East Douglas, Mass. He came to the Dakota Territory in 1883 with his parents and was married to Marie Verville in 1888. Victoria and her family lived on farms near Walhalla and Olga for some time where she met Archie Gosselin. Archie Joseph Gosselin was born at Biddeford, Maine, the son of Ulric and Emelie Parent Gosselin. He was born May 18, 1896, one of 13 children. His mother died June 16, 1912, and his father died Feb. 12, 1917. Archie came to North Dakota in 1925, stopping off at Fargo. He came north by train to Walhalla, where he met Adelard Benoit, and came to 146 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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