Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthFebruary 6, 1898
Place of BirthKenora, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinErnest Paquette, father, Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingTelegrapher
ReligionRoman Catholic
Service Details
Regimental Number3213032
Service Record Link to Service Record
BattalionCanadian Engineers Training Depot
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Engineers
Enlisted / ConscriptedConscripted
Address at EnlistmentInnisfail, Alberta
Date of EnlistmentMay 7, 1918
Age at Enlistment20
Theatre of ServiceGreat Britain
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathOctober 10, 1938
Age at Death40
Buried AtSaint Francis Xavier Cemetery, Winooski, Vermont, USA

Paquette, Aime Ernest

Aime Ernest Paquette was born on 6 February 1898 in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora), Ontario. He was the only child of Joseph Ernest Paquette and Delina Rancourt, both born in Quebec. Delina had married Pierre Ildevert Baribeau in 1874 in St Tide, Quebec although she had been living with her family in Winooski, Vermont at the time. Together they gave birth to known children Catherine (1877-1890), Frederick (1880-1897), Joseph (1887-1921), Joseph Emile (Joe) (1890-1950), and Mary Rose (1891), the latter three in Rat Portage where some of   Delina’s family were living. Pierre, a retail grocer, died in 1891 in Rat Portage. Aime’s father Ernest was a lumberman/labourer in a sawmill, settling in Rat Portage around 1885. Both the 1901 and 1911 censuses found Ernest, Delina, and Aime as well as Baribeau children Albert, Joseph, Emile, and Mary Rose living in Rat Portage/Kenora, on 1st Street North by 1911.

As voluntary recruitment was failing to maintain troop numbers, the federal government decided in 1917 to conscript young men for overseas military service. Drafted under the Military Service Act of 1917, Aime signed his recruitment papers on 7 May 1918 in Calgary, Alberta. At the time he was living in Innisfail in Alberta and working as a telegrapher. He gave his father Ernest back in Kenora as next of kin. His regimental number indicated he was assigned to the 1st Depot Battalion Alberta Regiment.

With the 86th Draft to the Canadian Engineers, Aime arrived in England aboard the Corsican  on 8 August 1918. He was taken on strength with the 3rd Canadian Engineers Railway Battalion upon arrival, transferring to the 1st Canadian Engineers Railway Battalion for a short time in October before returning to the 3rd. Having served in Great Britain, with the end of the war Aime returned to Canada aboard the Belgic, disembarking in Halifax on 1 July 1919. He was discharged from service in Montreal on 7 July, unit given as Canadian Engineers Training Depot.

Aime’s cousin Alphonse Derry (son of Norbert Dery/Derry and Aime’s mother’s sister Jane/Jeanne Rancourt) enlisted with the 53rd Battalion in Dauphin, Manitoba in September of 1915. Serving overseas with the 28th Battalion, Alphonse was reported as killed in action on 15 September 1916 at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. With no known grave Alphonse is commemorated on the Vimy Memorial in Pas de Calais in France. He is also commemorated on the Kenora Cenotaph and the Kenora Legion War Memorial.

Aime returned to Kenora after the war, found living with his parents at the time of the 1921 census and working as a salesman. In February of 1923 he moved to Winooski in Vermont where some of his mother’s extended family were still living. On 8 May 1923, in Winooski, Aime married Nolia Gamelin. Nolia’s parents Joseph and Christiana (née Lord) Gamelin were both from Quebec but had moved to Vermont by the time of the birth of their first child in 1899. Nolia was their second child, born in 1901. At the time of the marriage Nolia was working as a music teacher and Aime as the local agent for an aluminium cooking utensil company.

Aime and Nolia were to make the Winooski/Burlington area their home, giving birth to five known children: Joseph Ernest Aime (1924), Jean Paul (abt 1926), Gerard (abt 1927), Marie Jeanne (1928), and Armand (1930). At the time of the US 1930 census for Winooski, Aime was working as a bakery delivery man. In a naturalization session in February of 1932 Aime was admitted as a citizen of the United States of America.

Aime died on 10 October 1938 of heart failure, contributory factor given as delirium tremens on his Vermont death record. At the time of his death the family was living in Burlington where Aime had been working as a salesman. Aime was predeceased by his brother Joseph in 1921, his father in 1926, and mother in 1931. All are interred in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery in Kenora. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Nolia and the children, brother Emile (Joe) Baribeau, a renown motorcycle racer of Winnipeg, and sister Rose Baribeau of Kenora. By the time of the 1940 census Nolia and the children were living with her widowed mother Christiana in Winooski where Nolia was working as a sewer in a woolen mill. A 1951 city directory for Burlington listed Nolia as living on North Pearl Street where the family had been living at the time of Aime’s death. Nolia later died on 4 October 1981 in Winooski. Aime and Nolia are interred in the Saint Francis Xavier Cemetery in Winooski.

By Judy Stockham

Gravemarker photo: courtesy of Ron Jackson on findagrave.com

Paquette-Aime-Ernest-2 Paquette-Aime-Ernest-3 Paquette-Aime-Ernest-4


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