By MICHAEL F. DWYER
Matilda Billings sounds deceptively like a Yankee name—but we know that was neither her true first nor last name. Unable to speak English at the time of her marriage in 1846 to Austin [Gingras] Shangraw of Pittsford, Marguerite Bélisle may not have realized how the justice of the peace wrote her name. Her backstory provides another chapter in the saga of French-Canadian immigration to Vermont. Marguerite’s father, impoverished farmer Michel Bélisle dit Levasseur of St. Hyacinthe, Québec, married his third wife, Louise Bernard, at the age of 44. Catholic baptismal records of their ten children allow us to follow their frequent moves, bringing them close to the Vermont border by 1840. Their eleventh child, Appoline (“Polly”) was likely born in Pittsford in 1842. With no Catholic church nearby to register baptisms, Appoline is their last child whose life we can trace through later records. After moving several times between Québec and Connecticut, she spent the last twenty years of her life in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
From Pittsford, “Mitchell Belille,” wife Louise, and seven children ranging in age from 2 to 19 moved to Southbridge, Massachusetts, where they were counted in the 1850 census. Thereafter, with fluctuating spellings of their names, some members of this family, including father Michel/Mitchell Bélisle, seemed to have disappeared. One son, Olivier Vasseur, lived in 1860 in Charlotte, Vermont, where he was recorded as “Oliver Belish.” He, his wife, and several of their children eventually returned to Abbotsford, Québec. But as a widower in his old age, Olivier moved to Ware, Massachusetts, to join his son Oliver’s household. The flipflopping of names had not abated with time. Olivier Vasseur’s will, dated January 1913, left bequests to seven sons with the Belisle surname, one who went by Vasseur, and another as “Johnny Vasseur or Belisle.”
Back in Pittsford, Margaret Shangraw’s death certificate cited her maiden name as “Vasseur.” Juxtaposing Margaret (Bélisle dit Lavasseur) Shangraw’s life with that of her siblings underscores a notable difference. Aside from the fact that Margaret was the only one among her family to remain in Vermont all her adult life, she also was the only one to leave the Catholic Church, which certainly would have set her at odds with her brothers and sisters. Margaret’s funeral in 1912 was conducted from her home in Pittsford with Rev. Charles Smith, head of the Anti-Saloon League as well as Pastor of the Pittsford Congregational Church, officiating. The Rutland Herald reported the names of various out-of-town guests at her funeral; no Bélisles or Vasseurs present.
At first glance, it would seem unlikely that Napoleon Sisters (1858–1940) of Brandon shared a unique bond with Margaret Shangraw. Not only did they once share a common surname, originally Vasseur, Napoleon also had ancestors who hailed from St. Hyacinthe, Quebec—a common point of exodus for many other immigrants who settled in Rutland and Addison counties. Napoleon’s stately monument with its cross of Calvary in Brandon’s St. Mary’s Cemetery gives us the bare bones of his life yet is a secret puzzle box waiting to be opened.
It requires explanation how Napoleon, born in Williston, Vermont to immigrants Joseph and Sophie (Millet) Levasseur, adopted the surname Sisters. The last syllable of Levasseur sounds like the French word soeur, which means “sister.” And so, it stuck with this family. Napoleon wed a second-generation Vermonter, Filinda [Felanise] Zeno in 1883. Her true surname, however, was Lusignan, pronounced Loo-ZEEN-yon. Hence they came up with Zeno, two syllables instead of three. Let me interject here a question sometimes asked by students: “How do we know you are not making this up?” The answer is found in the Catholic church baptismal records, which almost always recorded the true French name and not an Americanized version.
As another example, Filinda Zeno’s mother, née Mary Goodrich, seemingly had a Yankee-sounding name. Peeling back several more layers of Mary’s Canada-born Goodriches revealed the real surname was Goddu, yet another family from St.-Hyacinthe! Filinda died in 1954, age 93, her date of death not engraved on her cemetery stone. At the time of her death, she had seven great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandchild. Though I didn’t know it at the time, a genealogy acquaintance of mine, Patience (Norton) Sisters (1923–2013) was married to Napoleon’s grandson, Robert Sisters.
The inscription for Napoleon and Filinda’s son, Earl C. Sisters, has its own story to tell. With his parents, he moved from Williston to Brandon in 1913. At the age of 18, he enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Ethan Allen and served briefly in Mexico. After the United States entered World War I, he sailed to France. In a letter to his parents, written in July 1917, he indicated that he was “enjoying himself immensely” as he played ball with French soldiers outside Paris. Alas, in the last winter of the war, he contracted pneumonia that culminated in tuberculosis. He died at the military hospital in Koblenz, Germany, when the United States Army occupied the Rhineland after the collapse of the German Empire. A Rutland Herald typesetter erred in writing the name as Listers [see photo].
Lost names, whatever the reason, represent a break in one’s personal history. When names from one culture, like Billings and Goodrich, get appended to those not born with those surnames, they mask their subjects’ ethnic identity. Many Vermonters have thus been deracinated (i.e., cut off from one’s roots), a seldom used but apt vocabulary word to describe these case studies.
With thanks to Barbara (Cole) Crowley for her collaboration with details of the Bélisle dit Levasseur family.
