Marie BRUCE born 1892

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	NAME: Marie Adele BRUCE Metis
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	BIRTH: 1892 Leroy, ND
	BAPTISM: Feb 05, 1893 Leroy, ND Baptism at St. Joseph. Pembina Co: B-2, Marie Adele Bruce, born 5 Feb 1893, baptized 8 Feb 1893 daughter of Joseph Bruce and Marie Jane Bourrassa of St. Joseph, Godfather: John Bruce, Godmother: Lucie Godon. M. Z. A. PERRON priest. Register of St. Joseph, Leroy, North Dakota, Diocese of Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1888-1900, Book 2, page 56
	MOTHER: Mary Jane BOURASSA More than 1/4 INDIAN b.1873 or 1875 d. 1896 Father: Ambroise BOURASSA Metis Mother: Genvieve OUELLETTE 1/2 INDIAN
	FATHER: BRUCE, Joseph 1865 Metis
	SIBLINGS: Joseph Bruce had 16 children from his 3 marriages. his 3rd child, (the 1st of 3 by his second wife) is our Marie. Marie has 2 full siblings: BRUCE, Marie Albina ~ lived less than a year BRUCE, Guillaume Joseph ~ lived less than 4 years
	MARRIAGE: November 10 or 26, 1910 Walhalla, ND Wieghed just 97 pounds at the time of her marriage, and was 4'10'
	SPOUSE: BOUVETTE, Charles Emile 1887 Metis
	CHILDREN: METIS INFORMATION ON ALL THESE CHILDREN AND THIER DESCENDANTS AVAILABLE ONSITE in the LIVING LEGACY SECTION BOUVETTE, Emma Esther 1912 BOUVETTE, Lawrence Edward 1913 BOUVETTE, Raymond Chester 1915 BOUVETTE, Mary Martha 1916 BOUVETTE, Benjamin Franklin 1918 BOUVETTE, Eleanor Doris 1920 BOUVETTE, Charles Garnett 1922 BOUVETTE, Edmund Bruce 1924 BOUVETTE, Mabel Marie Isabel 1926 BOUVETTE, Clifford Joseph Louis 928 BOUVETTE, Robert James 1929 BOUVETTE, Evelyn Arlene Marie 1931 BOUVETTE, Beverly Pearl 1934
	LIFE EVENTS: Mom was seut to Morris, MN to a catholic school. later returning to Pembina where she was raised by an allnt and uncle. Spent most of married life in Pembina They lived in Grand Forks for a number of years, moving closer to some of their children. Dad passed away in Feb, 1969 and mom con tinued to make her home there. Mother lived with our oldest sister Emma for a few years, then residing with another daughter Mabel in Grand Forks. She spent the last year of her life with daughter Beverly at Emerson, Manitoba.
	QUESTIONS & NOTES:
	DEATH: Sept 06, 1984 Grand Forks Co, ND
	BURIAL:
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	ADDITIONAL & UNPROCESSED INFO BELOW...

Here are Marie's Parents.....

BRUCE - BOURASSA

     With Respect to Ancestors, we want to tell you that during her
     lifetime Marie Bruce did not acknowledge any Native Heritage,
     her children did not grow up looking at her as a Native Person.

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Marie Bouvette is mother to 13 and grandmother to 151. She has 52 grandchildren, 88 great grandchildren and II great, great grandchildren. (note date of this article)

"I'm real proud of my family," she says. "I love them all."

On Mother's Day, the cards, phone calls, flowers and gifts flow in from all over the United States and Canada. In her rocking chair at her daughter's apartment in Grand Forks, Mrs. Bouvette savors them on by one. Before the week. is over, she will be writing the thank you letters on her lined tablet paper.

She was married in 1910, and the children just kept arriving. Thirteen of them between 1912 and 1934. She figures that's the way God wanted it.

Mrs. Bouvette washed clothes on a washboard and sometimes baked as many as 22 loaves of bread at one time. There were times when she cleaned ducks into the wee hours of the moming. She canned and she sewed for her family.

"We raised pigs and chickens," she says, "and in the fall my husband would bring home a quarter of beef."
"He'd buy flour in 100 pound sacks. Once he came home with ten of those sacks at one time. We needed them."

Her life is a direct contrast to that of her grandchildren like Nancy Bouvette Hensrod of Grand Forks. Where Grandmother Bouvette had 13 children, Nancy has two and will settle for that. Most of Nancy and Lloyd Hensrud's friends have one or two children. The people Grandmother Bouvette knew had many more.

"One woman down home in Pembina had 22," says Mrs. Bouvette. "They didn't stop at one or two children in those days."

Nancy Hensrud says she has seen a washboard, but she uses an automatic washer and dryer. Her family eats "store bought" bread. In grandmother's day, the children wore hand-me-downs. The boys would go out and work with their dad and give him their wages to help ont with the family. In these times, Nancy says she worries abut children having too much.

Wearing an apron and a hair net over her dark brown hair, Marie Bouvette remem- bers the day she was married. As she rocks in her chair, she says, "It was 1910. The 26th of November."

She always gives the year first, then the date and the monthe when she talks of things past.

She says she was born at Leroy, ND, near Walhalla, to French-Scotch parents who came to the States from Canada. She met Charles, her late husband, when she was living with an aunt and uncle at Pembina, ND.

After they were married at Walhalla, they made their home in Pembina until 1962 when they moved to Grand Forks.

"He'd go out threshing in the summer. He hauled ice in the winter," Mrs. Bouvette says. "Later on he was manager of the airport at Pembina."

Marie Bouvette seems proud of the fact that she "had the doctor" for all of her babies. "The doctor would come to the house," she says. "My mother-in-law would stand by him to take care of the baby."

She says, "They would hold something up to my nose just before the baby would come. I think it was ether."

A tiny woman, Mrs. Bouvette weighed only 97 pounds when she was married. Now she carries a pleasing 139 pounds on her four-foot, ten-inch frame. She has thrived on a life of hard work. Her only health problem in her 86th year is high blood pressure. So she checks with her doctor each time before she flies off somewhere to visit children or grandchildren.

"I just love those airplanes," she says, her dark eyes gleaming.

"We call her the 'flying nun'," says Mabel Zelmer, the daughter with whom Mrs. Bouvette makes her home in a big green apartment building at 525 9th Avenue North.

Also living in Grand Forks are Robert, Raymond, Edmond and Benjaman and Emma Walker.

Others in Mrs. Bouvette's family of seven boys and six girls (all living) are Clifford Bouvette and Eleanor Green, Minneapolis, Charles, Seattle; Beverly Kantimere, Emerson, Manitoba; Evelyn Spangrud, Karlstad, Minn.; Martha Olson, Perry, la., and Lawrence, Pembina.

Mrs. Bouvette's husband died in 1969. As a widow, she is never lonely, She is surrounded by a family that finds her "very special and very dear."

"We try to take very good care of her," says Mrs. Zelmer. "We want to keep her around for another 86 years."

Mrs. Bouvette enjoys her days watching the soap operas on television and writing letters. Bread baking is in the past, but she still occasionally bakes a batch of bannock - a flat, Scotch bread.

She'll tell you how she does it: "I just put flour in a pan and a little handful of salt. Then about five tablespoons of baking powder."

She cups her hand to show how much lard to melt in a pan. "Then," she says, "put a little milk in it. Mix it in with the flour."

Mrs. Bouvette rolls her bannock out like pie crust, bakes it in a pie tin, and waits for one of the family to drop by.