Anne-Marie Fiset

Biography

At ten, Anne Fiset was one of eight children counted in Abraham Fiset and Denise Savard's household on the Beaupré coast, the north bank of the St. Lawrence River downstream from Québec city in present-day Canada. Her father was a carpenter. The 1681 census records four cattle and twenty-five arpents under cultivation, placing her childhood in a household that combined a skilled trade with farming.

Anne was born at L'Ange-Gardien in 1671. She later formed a household with Aimé Jolivet dit Mitron, an immigrant from Jargeau in the Orléans region of France. Their marriage contract was made before the notary Jacob on August 15, 1689. Anne was still a teenager; Aimé was roughly thirteen years older.

Children followed over nearly two decades. Those who later married included Marguerite, Joachim, Marie-Josèphe, Marie-Françoise, Charles-François, Joseph and Barbe. The family reconstruction also records infant losses, including a daughter Marie and an earlier daughter named Barbe. The younger Barbe was born in June 1708, less than three years before the family lost both parents.

Aimé appears in the Hôtel-Dieu's register of patients in 1703 and again in 1711. The final hospital entry records his death on May 7, 1711. Anne's burial was entered at L'Ancienne-Lorette, just west of Québec city, on that same date. The two records concern different events—his death and her burial—but together they establish how closely the parents' deaths occurred.

Their children ranged from young adults to small children. Anne's eldest surviving daughter Marguerite was twenty, while Barbe was not yet three. Later marriage records follow seven of the children into households of their own.