PAQUETTE o@ca.on.grey_county.owen_sound.the_sun_times 2007-12-21 published
O'BYRNE,
James
Brendan
At the Southampton Care Centre, on Thursday December 20, 2007.
James O'BYRNE of Southampton in his 80th year. Beloved Husband
of Rita for over 50 years. Loving father of William of Hamilton,
Padhraig and his wife
Guylaine of Ottawa, Jennifer
PAQUETTE and
her husband Chuck of Port Elgin. He will be sadly missed and
remembered by his grandchildren Joey, Nicole, Daniel, Leana,
Ronan, and Shane. Survived by his sister Bernadette and her husband
Joe CLEARY of Dublin, Ireland, and his brother Frank and his
wife Sue of London, England. Visitation from the Eagleson Funeral
Home, Southampton, on Saturday December 22, 2007 from 7-9 p.m.
Funeral Mass to be held at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church,
Southampton, on Sunday December 23, 2007 at 2 p.m. Parish Prayers
will be offered at the Funeral Home on Saturday evening at 8: 30 p.m.
Expressions of Remembrance may be made to the Alzheimer's Society
of Grey-Bruce. Condolences may be forwarded to the family through
www.eaglesonfuneralhome.com
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PAQUETTE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-01-02 published
GRENON,
J.
Émile
By Aline GRENON,
Page
A14
Father, cribbage player. Born June 17, 1909, in Casselman, Ontario
Died August 22 in Montreal, probably of heart failure, aged 97.
The son of an enterprising farmer turned carpenter, Émile was
born the second of seven children. Graduating with a commerce
degree from Bourget College, in Rigaud, Qué., in 1933, at the
height of the Depression, most of Émile's first year out of school
was spent looking for work. It was not until he heard of a Sudbury
merchant in need of a bookkeeper that things began to look up.
Telephoning from the Casselman general store, he was asked "How
soon can you get here?" He responded "Within 24 hours."
After a year bunking out in the back-room of the place where
he worked, Émile acquired a surrogate family when he moved into
the boarding house operated by Mme. Clémentine
LEFEBVRE-
PAQUETTE,
a remarkable woman for whom Émile developed a high regard. However,
it was her entrepreneurial son Roméo who would change Émile's
life. The two struck up a Friendship and one day, Roméo let drop
that a well run grocery business in the then-booming mining town
of Larder Lake stood a good chance of success. Émile agreed that
it probably would and promptly forgot about it until Roméo informed
him that he had purchased the lot that would hold their store.
Although taken aback, Émile felt obliged to honour his unintentional
promise and, with a small sum of borrowed money, he left Sudbury
to join Roméo in business. Thus was born Paquette and Grenon
(or P and G as it soon became known): the result of one man's vision
and another's commitment to Friendship.
The initial years were difficult. To make ends meet, the partners
delivered firewood house-to-house with a horse and wagon. At
the best of times, the future appeared uncertain, and at the
worse it was downright bleak, particularly when a bank manager,
convinced that French-Canadians lacked business acumen, cut off
their line of credit without warning. Luckily, a local bootlegger
named "Black Nellie" lent them sufficient money to permit the
business to survive and thrive. P and G eventually grew to eight
stores.
With the advent of the Second World War, Émile enlisted in the
Canadian army. Although he had no medical training, he was posted
to the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. He often joked that
this was because his brother was a doctor and one of his sisters
a nurse! His was, in the parlance of the times, a "good" war.
Stationed mainly at Camp Borden, Émile continued to look after
P and G's accounting needs. On three occasions, he received orders
to ship out to Europe, only to have them rescinded. It was during
one such occasion, while awaiting transportation in Québec City
that he met the charming and attractive Berthe
SAMPSON/SAMSON, who was
working in a munitions factory. They wed in 1946. That she married
him in spite of a mix-up as to his background (the result of
a letter from a confused Casselman priest who mistook him for
an unsavoury cousin with a similar name) proves the extent of
her faith in him. Together they would have three children. Sadly,
Berthe died in early 1967, after a struggle with breast cancer.
Émile's loneliness over the next 20 years was mitigated somewhat
by frequent travel, his love of golf, curling and cards, a close
circle of Friends and the presence of his children. However,
the next milestone in his life occurred when he met the remarkable
Phyllis FRISBY, whom he married in 1986. Fun-loving and strong-willed,
she reintroduced a degree of warmth and bustle into his life.
He found it difficult to recover from Phil's death in 2002.
Émile's last years were spent in Montréal. Possibly his greatest
joy during this period came from the countless games of cribbage
he played with his children and his grand_son, Daniel.
Aline is Émile's daughter.
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PAQUETTE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-11-29 published
PAQUETTE,
Hector
Cameron "
Cam"
It is with great sadness that we announce our dear father Cameron
PAQUETTE has passed away peacefully. He was predeceased by his
devoted wife
Bertha
BASLER in 1995. He will be sadly missed by
his sons Richard (Marika) and Andrew (Judy). Much loved grandfather
of Jennifer, Jessica, Lisa and Taylor.
Cam was co-owner of Pyramide Rental with Richard, and Bravo Rental
with Andrew for over 20 years. He believed in sharing his wisdom
by working on behalf of a number of organizations including The
American Rental Association and The Canadian Rental Association.
He was also a founding member of Lou-Tec in Quebec.
Cam was a wonderful, kind and loving man who enjoyed life to
its fullest. His favorite place was Lac Gustave spending time
with family, Friends, and watching the sunset. He will be missed.
Visitation is on Friday, November 30th, from 4: 00 to 9:00 p.m.
at Rideau Funeral Home, 4275 boul Des Sources in Dollard-des-Ormeaux
(514) 685-3344. A private family service will follow at a later
date. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the
Shriner's Hospital for Children or the American Rental Association
Foundation.
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PAQUIN o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-12-20 published
BYERS strummed a happy tune
By Randy RICHMOND, Sun Media, Thurs., December 20, 2007
The people of the street gathered for a Christmas party and Sean
BYERS was there, of course.
Eating platefuls of food, making people laugh, he won the Christmas
carol trivia contest at the party run by Streetlight.
Each player got more points for singing the answers and even
more points for getting everyone to sing along.
"Sean got everyone singing," remembers Gil
CLELLAND, the director
of Streetlight ministry.
When CLELLAND went home that night, Tuesday, December 11, he
thought of the joy at the gathering.
"I thought maybe this is that peace that we all hear about at
Christmas," he said.
Then came Wednesday.
"And I thought, where is that peace today? I asked God. Where
are you? What happened?"
What happened?
BYERS left the party and went to a Unity Project crash bed that
night.
Sometime the next morning he left the shelter, then snuck back
in. A worker found him in a locked bathroom.
Maybe BYERS, 28, took his own life. Maybe it was an accident.
The needle never cares.
The death of the engaging young man has rattled the street to
its supposedly hardened core. More than 100 people, from the
homeless to the workers helping them, gathered at the Central
Library this week to remember.
"Sean was a really awesome guy," said Trevor
JOHNSON, a transition
services manager at Youth Action Centre.
"He was generous, very well spoken, very well read, intelligent.
He struggled at times and made mistakes."
It's hard to pinpoint where and when the struggle began, his
mother, Myra
GARNETT, told The Free Press. There were problems
at home that hit her son hard, she admitted.
"He was a very, very thoughtful boy."
Although he was identified as a gifted pupil in Grade 1,
BYERS
struggled later in school and by 15 had dropped out and left
home. He took the roads so many lost boys take, sometimes turning
to drugs and petty crime that led to jail, sometimes trying to
make it, getting a job and treatment for his growing addiction.
No matter which way he turned, he played guitar or sketched,
and cared for others.
"No matter how much pain he was in, he would see someone else
and reach right through his pain to theirs,"
GARNETT said.
JOHNSON joined the Youth Action Centre about 10 years ago and
met BYERS, who was doing volunteer work.
BYERS would make ends
meet by busking at the market or on weekend nights outside the
bars on Richmond Row.
The memorial service was held at the library because he loved
books so much,
JOHNSON said.
"Give him his coffee, his paper, a smoke and his guitar and he
was a happy guy."
BYERS always put on a smiling face to the world. But when he
was really down, he took his guitar to the park and played,
JOHNSON
said.
BYERS and a few other young men his age all became hooked on
the needle and hung around together.
One of those men was Jay
DUCKWORTH, a Saint Thomas resident, who
died December 8. He, too, was remembered this week.
"Although they struggled with self-medicating, they had strong
spirits," Jim
WATKIN, executive director of the London Harm Reduction
Coalition, said at the service.
"You would see it in their eyes. That is what we need to remember.
It is not about shame or guilt. We need to get rid of that. We
need to let our spirits flourish."
The world looks at the Seans and the Jays as addicts and nothing
more, said Matti
PAQUIN, once an addict and now a worker at the
Unity Project shelter.
"I loved those two boys. They were good people who tended to
do drugs."
But their deaths must serve as a warning, others said at the
memorial service.
"I cared for these guys for a long time. I hoped a miracle would
happen and these men would excel," said Lawrence
BOOM of Street
Connection, a drop-in centre. "We have to come to terms with
this. We have to start looking at drug addiction as an illness,
not a weakness."
Over the next few months, city council will wrestle with questions
of where to spend this year's budget. The city's community services
department wants politicians to spend more money helping the
homeless and the addicted.
The people of the street think the government should do more
to help as well. In the meantime, they will continue to help
each other the best they can. They will gather.
"I think that is where the peace is today,"
CLELLAND said, his
voice breaking with grief at the memorial service.
"The peace we seek at Christmas is that in these tough moments
we don't leave each other alone. When we say, 'I need you in
my life right now.' "
Who To Call
If you need help:
Youth Action Centre: 519-434-6500
Street Connection: 519-438-7300
Streetlight (Youth for Christ) 686-0093
If you or someone you know is suicidal:
- Distress Centre (24 hours), 667-6711, 667-6600
- London Mental Health Crisis Service (24 hours), 519-433-2023
- Canadian Mental Health Association, 519-434-9191
- Mother Reach Postpartum Depression Line, 519-672-4673
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