Spring Break Visit

Marie's family was aware that her health was failing. Three of her granddaughters and their children came to visit on the Spring break from school. Marie's great great grandson, Orion was also able to visit as well.

Memories were made at that visit. Marie was well enough to visit and enjoy the children. She told me that she was impressed with the children's behavior. "They were respectful of my home."
Many pictures were taken that day. Here are a few of them. Sometimes the children liked to go in the camper and watch movies or play video games.

Tina Lizotte And Her Me'me

When Tina visited our house with her family for Marie's hundredth birthday she sat at this very computer and downloaded pictures she had taken for me. I was sitting at the kitchen table watching her. I decided to ask her some questions. I said, "You are very fond of your grandmother, aren't you Tina?" She turned to me and smiled and said, (I will paraphrase this for you. It has been a few years.) "Oh yes, I spent a lot of time with Me'me when I was little. She always let me "help" her do things and explained what she was doing at the time. She had love for her family with no exceptions. If you did something wrong when you were little she explained why it was wrong and not to do it again.  She knew all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Loved them unconditionally."
I know this to be true. In her later years, I lived just across the road from her. I was married to her son, Francis. We visited back and forth a lot.
At the age of 102 she told me what her great great grandson's name was and where he lived and who  his mother and grandmother were. She was intrigued with Tina's twins. She had their pictures in her living room, photo books and in her bedroom. She kept everything that her grandchildren sent her.
At the age of 102  her grandson, Robert had some heart surgery. She had me pray with her at every meal until she was made aware that he was going to be alright. She always told me that her family was very important to her.
This is a picture of Marie and Tina on her 100th birthday.

Marie's Family Spoke French

Marie Aubin
Age 8

Marie Aubin
Age 5

When Marie was a child she spoke only French because that was the language that was spoken in her home. Her mother and father both were from Canada where French was the common language. Her family went back for generations. I think she told me clear back to the 1600's that she knew of. She has the Family Book or the Generation Book full of pictures and programs and invitations. It has grown in size. The picture of Marie at the age of five is the youngest picture of her that I could find. There were some unmarked photos of babies. She may be one of them, but I actually doubt it. She labeled the majority of her photos.


Her father was a stern man and was the head of the household. He was determined that Marie would speak English and therefore learn her catechism in English. That was very very difficult for her, but by sheer determination she did just that at the age of eight years. I left her writing at the top of the photo of her in her First Communion gown. The Catechism book that she is holding was given to her brother, Charles Aubin shortly before she passed away at the age of 103 years two months and fourteen days.
She had another prayer book that she kept by her side until the last day. It had her son's obituary and picture in it.
Marie is sitting in the back seat of this old car at the age of three.
Her mother's father was a fireman. His name was Joseph Antil. She was very proud of that fact.
Here is a picture of her own writing in her catechism book. It names the church where she received her First Communion.
She was very proud of the fact that she learned English at such a young age. She had every reason to be.

Joe's Visit In June

Joe and his family were not able to come for Marie's 100th birthday celebration in July because of his work schedule. So they came in June. Joe, Brenda and her daughter and her daughter's friend had a good time visiting with Marie.
They enjoyed her crocheted hats that she makes. Joe and his family all modeled her cute little hats. She makes them out of plastic shopping bags. Sometimes she asks me to shop at different stores so that I come home with yellow and red and gray bags for her to blend in. She cuts strip after strip of these bags in about 2" strips and crochets them together.
These pictures say it all. Everyone has so much fun wearing and modeling her hats for pictures.
She is especially fond of telling the story about her hats making the newsletter of a little grocery store that she shopped in years ago. What special memories.

She Stood Her Ground

Marie has told me countless stories over the last almost eleven years. Some have lessons for us to learn and some are humorless and some are fun. She does not complain about her hardships for the most part. She just states the facts that this did indeed happen.
She and her husband lived in a cold water flat four stories up. If you have read the previous posts, this particular apartment cost five dollars a month.
Their first child, Marie, was very tiny. She had been in an incubator for sever weeks. That incubator had to be borrowed from a Jewish hospital because the hospital where Little Marie was born did not have one.
Marie, being a normal mother was very protective of her new baby. Marie told me that the landlord was a "slumlord." He insisted on his rent and would not do any updating. She told me that she had been commissioned to bake a special cake for five dollars. That equaled a whole month's rent. She baked the cake in the evening and was going to frost it in the morning.  The next morning when she went into the kitchen the cake was black with ants.
Those of you that know Marie personally know that the ants were the last straw. It was not only the lost five dollars she was very upset about, but she found ants in her baby's crib.
She found the landlord and explained to him in no uncertain terms that he would exterminate the building or she would tell the Housing Authorities about the way he took care of his tenants and his building. He was unhappy but had exterminators come to the building. That was worse than the ants in some respect. Her family could not tolerate the spray they used, so they had to go to her parents for awhile until "the dust settled" so to speak.
When she got home the ants were dead, but she decided that she was going to wallpaper the walls and have a fresh start. It seems that there were fifteen layers of wallpaper; behind each layer of paper were dead bugs.
She went to the basement and there were bags and bags of trash that had been left to rot and accumulate.
There is a lot of the story missing, but I wanted to tell you about some of the things that she had tolerated and worked through to get to 102 years of age.

The Rocking Chair Has Many Stories

Marie's rocking chair is making it's third appearance on a blog. The first was on Lu's Place. The story is a fun one. I wrote it on June 19, 2018 in response to one of my daughter's daily Facebook questions. Her question was something like "what was your greatest life lesson by a family member?" go to website Lu's Place mrsfrenchie1.blogspot.com to see what happened to me. I also used the picture of Marie's father's rocking chair in my children's blog as well.
So just a few days ago I asked Marie's brother, Charles Aubin, AKA Uncle Charlie about her rocking chair. No one was allowed to sit in it and always had an afghan on it sitting behind her chair. Evidently that was to ensure that no one sat in it... It was his and Marie's father's chair and had many stories connected to it.
The story Charlie told me was about his daughter, Karen. She was about seven years old. At school they had been taught that smoking was very bad for your health and could even kill you to put it bluntly.

Charlie had taken his family to visit his parents. His father was a smoker and of course, I have told the story about his fun ashtrays. Well, Charlie's daughter, Karen, had crawled up on her Pepe's lap and took his cigarette's out of his shirt pocket. This was not acceptable and he told her to give him back his cigarettes. She said, "No!" He again told her to give him back his cigarettes in a very stern voice. She began to cry. He asked her why she was crying. Her response was this: "Because if you smoke cigarettes you will die and I don't want you to die."
Charlie said his father was taken aback but did not quit smoking.
The other story is about Marie's son, Roger sitting in that rocking chair, rocking his son, Roger Jr., whom had the chicken pox. Roger's son can remember that. Isn't that interesting? I think there are two reasons at least about that. It seems that Marie's son caught the chicken pox from his son and he was sick! I even think I heard that he had caught them twice, but I may be mistaken about that.
 But I think that the most important memory is again the legacy that Marie has left us all; the love of family. That legacy will never die as long as the Aubin/Lizotte families continue on into the future generations. Those values were instilled into their children and their children as far as I heard the other evening for 6 generations, maybe even 7 if you count the great grandparents that came to the United States from Canada. They continued to love and cherish their children as long as they were able. In the meantime their love has carried through some really tough trials and tribulations, but has endured.
Marie will never be forgotten.

His Eulogy For His Sister By Charles Aubin

At Marie's funeral Marie's brother, Charles Aubin, her youngest brother, gave us her last story. One none of us had ever heard. In a short five minutes he summed up her life with love and emotion. We were all just spell bound listening to him.
When Charles was about 6 or 7 years old he would go with his brother, Joe, to what Charlie called, "peddling papers." Of course, papers had to be delivered no matter what the weather was. On this particular day, Charlie rode on a sled to help his brother. The weather was frightfully cold. He said it was below zero.

 Marie Rose Aubin Lizotte
Charles Aubin
July 6, 2018

He was just a little boy and contracted frost bite in his little legs. He was unable to walk for two days or more.
Marie carried her brother everywhere she went for two days. I am having a bit of a problem typing this because stories always give me a picture in my mind. Marie was little more than 5'2". She was sixteen years older than Charles if I am correct. If I am not it makes no difference because she was in fact old enough to be his mother.
Charles talked about that. He told us that Marie was another mother to him. Yes, she was his oldest sister, but she cared for him since the time of his birth. She was not allowed to bathe or change him because he was a boy, but she cared for him in all the other ways. I am sure she rocked him, fed him, played with him etc.
Charles has always loved his sister. He sent her cards, money when she needed it, and  phone calls when she could hear. When Marie was not able to hear on the phone he called us regularly to check on her and also on us. He made scheduled appointments with me so that he could Facetime with her on my IPad. Invariably she teased him about his neck. I thought that was hilarious because she had the identical neck.

 He drove and/or flew to attend as many birthdays that he was able. He was here for her hundredth birthday as well as her hundred and third. He was at her house to celebrate many other birthdays as well.
On her hundred third birthday he came in gave us all a hug and went immediately to her bedroom and visited with her. All the time wishing and hoping that she would/could visit with him again. That was not to be. However, she did act like she knew him and held his hand. Her last act of love.