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36__Nashua Telegraph, Friday, August 25,1978(uviL;stn;ttrrr«hiala:ngdThen and NowMr. and Mrs. Samuel Moreau, who will celebrate their 65th anniversary Sunday, look seriously to the future in their wedding picture at the left. At right they relax on the porch of their home at 18 Arlington St. as they talk over their many years of marital togetherness.Parents of 16; Grandparents of 102Moreaus Wed 65 YearsBy CLAUDETTE DUROCHER Telegraph Staff WriterSixty-five years, 16 children. 59 grandchildren and 43 greatgrandchildren ago, Samuel Moreau wed Angelina Tanguay.Mr and Mrs. Moreau of 18 Arlington St. will be honored Sunday for 6V2 decades of married life but they discourage any talk their life has been one of extraordinary endeavor.In comparatively good health — he is 84 and she. 83 — they asked that the celebration be held down to a mininum-fuss eventAbout 250 members of the “immediate family’’ are expected to attend the anniversary reunion in Holy Infant Jesus parish school hall immediately after the 11:45 a.m. Mass which will be dedicated to the couple. At 3, the reunion will give way to an open house for friends and acquaintancesThe actual date of the Moreaus' anniversay is Sept. 15 but the celebration was moved up several weeks to take advantage of the summer vacation and traveling season.Longevity has not shrouded their wedding memories. Husband and wife can remember the small details of their 7:30a.m. nuptials in the Catholic church in Acton Vale, Quebec, Sept. 15,1913.For Mrs. Moreau marriage was a second preference. One of a family of 12, she yearned to be a nun but her mother strongly objected because she felt “that was a fate worse than death.’’Dark-haired Samuel, 19, and his 18-year-old bride, both factory workers, began wedded life in a two-room apartment. It was like the “little house on the prairie” chuckles his sister, Mrs. Corona Demers, visiting from St. Hilaire, Quebec.By 1923, they had seven children and they came to Nashua to escape widespread unemployment in Canada.At that time, immigration to the United States was difficult. Many were turned back at the border and Mrs. Moreau still marvels that the family made it to the United States.Nine more children were bom to them after they settled here.Of their nine daughters and seven sons, one son has died. Paul Moreau died in 1967 at age49.Moreau toiled 41 years as a foundry worker at N.Kamenske Co. to support his large family.He rejects any suggestion of heroic endurance. “I simply had the strength to provide for my family,” is how he sums it up.Mrs. Moreau equally minimizes her efforts in raising 16 children. “I was never tested beyond my strength.” she says, adding: “We didn’t start out with much and we’ve never been rich, but there was always food on the table and we had a home.“But life was in many ways different back when our sons and daughters were growing up, she adds. “You seldom bought store made goods. I made most of their clothing by taking apart used clothing and remaking it into new garments.”The Depression was the family’s hardest time, says Mrs. Moreau, who remembers it as a distressingly lean period.She wouldn’t recommend a family as large as hers. “Each generation does what it has to do, and, well, things were different when we started out. ..But there is no need now to have that size family.”In conversation, the Frenchspeaking grandparents many times over assume distinct roles. He comes across as the reserved but vital backbone of his extended family. She is its vibrant heart.They actively cultivates the ties that bind. At the holidays, the Moreau children — the eldest is 64, the youngest is 41 — have a reunion in their parents’ big white house. The Moreaus’ annual gift to their numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren is a catered reunion New Year’s Day in a rented hall.Last New Year’s 135 came to the party.All the couple’s children live in New Hampshire.Their daughters are Mrs. Jeannette Torrey, Mrs. Dolores Anctil, Mrs. Theresa Levesque, Mrs. Noella Michaud, all of Nashua; Mrs. Vivian Guerette and Mrs. Julienne Cloutier of Hudson; Sister Estelle Moreau C.S.C., of Franklin; Sister Angela Moreau C.S.C. of Pittsfield and Sister Lorette Moreau, a Joan of Arc nun stationed in Manchester.Their sons include Gerard, Armand, Lucien, Bernard, Romeo and Raoul Moreau, all of Nashua.
Newspaper Details
Nashua Telegraph
Nashua, New Hampshire, US
Fri, Aug 25, 1978
Page 36
Full Page
Clipped by
Nashua P.
NH, USA 30 May 2024
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