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Title
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Photograph
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Description
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Black-and-white studio photograph of Alice (Marie Alice Albertine) (Bibeau/Bibeault) Morrissette, c. 1931. The photo is brown sepia tone, non-glossy paper, in a gray/tan cardboard matte. The matte is stamped "Desmarais, 325 Main St., Norwich, Conn.", presumably the name of the studio where it was taken. The subject is a young woman, well dressed in a dark-colored garment, with styled, short curly hair. She is wearing no jewelry, but has an ornate pompom on her left shoulder. The donor identified her as "Alice Bibeau Morrissette, who worked in eastern CT textile mills c. 1920." At first glance, it looks like a high school graduation photo, but Alice never attended high school. Possibly, it is a wedding photo. The Desmarais Studio appears in the 1930 Norwich city directory. It was owned by Hector Desmarais and his wife Ida, and was located in their home at 325 Main Street in Norwich, CT.
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Identifier
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WTHM.2025.16.03
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Creator
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Desmarais, Hector
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Date
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1931
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Date Created
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1931
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Type
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Photograph
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Format
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Black and white print
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Subject
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Morrissette, Alice (Marie Alice Albertine) (nee Bibeau/Bibeault). Marie Alice Albertine Bibeau/Bibeault was born in St. Cyril/Cyrille, Quebec, Canada in 1906. Typical of French-Canadian girls of the time, she received a grade school education but did not attend high school. In 1923 at the age of c. 17 she migrated to the United States, entering at St. Albans, VT. On her 1940 application for naturalization, she said that she came by herself. She spelled her maiden name "Bibeault on her application. Seven years later in 1930, as Alice M. Bibeau, she was recorded in the Norwich, CT, city directory, living at 4 Terrace Ave. in Norwich's industrial suburb of Taftville, an employee at the Vast Ponemah cotton mill. Early the following year, 9 Feb. 1931, when she was 24-going-on-25, she married Patrick (Joseph Patrick) Morrissette. Like Alice, Patrick had been born in Quebec, in 1907. He was about a year younger than Alice. And like Alice, he worked in a large textile factory, the American Thread Company in Willimantic, CT, only a few miles from Norwich. Patrick was a "card stripper" or "card grinder." Alice and Patrick moved into ATCO company housing at 421 Main Street in Willimantic, where they resided in 1932. In quick succession, they had three daughters: Solange, Yvette, and Jeanne, all born in Willimantic. As the family grew, they moved into a privately owned rental at 42 Jackson Place, a street that no longer exists, having been demolished in urban renewal in the 1970s. Later, they moved out of the city and into a more rural part of Windham. Alice left factory work and became a full-time homemaker. In 1940, when she was 33, Alice filed for naturalization and became a U.S. citizen, following Patrick, who had been naturalized a few years earlier. She died in Windham in 1998 and is buried in Willimantic/Windham's Roman Catholic St. Joseph Cemetery.
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Coverage
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North America : Northeast : Norwich, CT
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Rights
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Copyright status not evaluated. Please contact the Windham Textile and History Museum for permission to use.
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Relation
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Colbert-Johnson Collection
