Télesphore Gagnon

Born in Ste. Philomène de Fortierville on July 11, 1883. A farmer, carpenter, woodworker, blacksmith, and woodcutter. He married Marie-Anne Caron, his first wife, in 1906. Marie-Jeanne, Aurore, Georges-Étienne and Joseph were born of this marriage. His wife died on January 23, 1918, and on February 1 of that same year, he married his second wife, Marie-Anne Houde, a widow who had been living in his house for two years. On April 29, 1920, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter in the death of his daughter, Aurore, and he was imprisoned in the St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary. He was released in 1925 for good behaviour. Some versions have it that he was also suffering from throat cancer and it was presumed that he had little time left to live. He returned to live in Ste. Philomène de Fortierville, where he married his third wife, Marie-Laure Habel, on January 8, 1938. They had a child who died at a very young age. Télesphore Gagnon died on August 30, 1961, at the age of 78.