Véronique Bouchard

Biography

Véronique Bouchard's burial record preserves a name that a simple family tree might miss: “Monique alias Véronique.” The entry identifies her as the widow of Pierre Poissant and records her burial at La Prairie, across the St. Lawrence from Montréal in present-day Québec, Canada, on March 19, 1840. She had died two days earlier in another parish, whose name the entry does not supply.

Born at La Prairie on September 30, 1757, Véronique was the daughter of Louis Bouchard and Marie-Josephte Boyer. She married Pierre Poissant in January 1776. Their family grew through the late eighteenth century and into the next, with children born from the 1770s to 1804.

The family account records both adulthood and early loss. Several children married, while an infant Pierre, followed in later years by Jean-Baptiste, Antoine and Marie-Suzanne, died young. Véronique also outlived her husband, who died in 1818.

The priest recorded her age at burial as eighty-two. Pierre Poissant and Ignace Poissant attended as witnesses; the entry says that neither could sign. Its distinction between death in another parish and burial at La Prairie preserves her final connection to the place where her life had begun.