By Nancy Miller Chenier
In December 1980, a Notice of Intention to Designate 224-226 St Patrick Street was published in the Ottawa Citizen. It noted that the building was erected prior to 1864 as a three storey with a pitched roof, and that the fourth floor was added later. It also mentioned the architectural detail of the ornate second-floor balcony. There was a brief reference to the fact that the original building known as the Hôtel de Rigaud was owned by Mr. Alexandre Chevrier.
The designation did not happen and the Chevrier story was not elaborated. So, this is a brief story about another eminent Lowertown family and another Lowertown building that reveals so much about the Ottawa of the day and the place of our Francophone families in its history.
In the mid-1860s, the Chevrier family moved to a community experiencing significant growth as Ottawa took on its role as the permanent capital of Canada. In Lowertown, the Roman Catholic diocese was well established; the Sisters of Charity were enlarging their hospital and establishing other institutions; and the opportunities for individuals with a talent for business were considerable.
Famille Chevrier, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1900. Back row, from left to right : René, Lorena Agläe (Dollee) Chevrier, Marguerite Gingras-Chevrier, Horace, Annie, and Bella Chevrier. Middle row, from left to right : Agnès Champagne-Chevrier, Juge Napoléon Champagne, Agnès McMillan-Chevrier, Noé Chevrier, Aldée Chevrier-Champagne, Rodolphe Chevrier. First row, from left to right : Eudore Chevrier, Anita Champagne, Maurice Champagne, Agnès Chevrier, Béatrice Champagne, 1900 (Trudel family)
The 1861 census documented the presence of Alexandre Chevrier and his wife Mathilde Gauthier in the County of Vaudreuil with their family of six boys and three girls. Once in Ottawa, the family immediately connected with the established Francophone families in the city. Sons became successful entrepreneurs, civil servants and politicians, and daughters were recognized musicians who married bureaucrats, politicians, and judges.
By the mid-1860s, Alexandre senior and his oldest son Alexandre junior were both signatories in support of Reform candidates like Henry Friel. By the 1870s, both operated hotels across the street from each other on St Patrick. Alexandre junior had married the daughter of François Paul, an early settler who owned Lot 13 on St Patrick Street. Son Noé was engaged as a merchant tailor on Sussex Street before he moved to Winnipeg around 1880 and opened the famous “Blue Store”. Noé’s political career began as an alderman for By Ward in the mid-1870s and ended as a Senator for Manitoba.
The Chevrier daughters – Agläe, Évangeline and Aldée – were part of the vibrant Francophone cultural society. All married well – Agläe with Michel Desjardins, a poet who was also a bureaucrat; Évangéline with Joseph-Alfred Champagne, a lawyer and judge; and Aldée, the youngest sister, with Louis Napoléon Champagne, who became a judge in the Quebec Superior Court.
If some members of the first generation of Alexandre and Mathilde’s family were less publicly visible in their lifetime, the second generation made up for it. The son of Eugene, a long-time post office employee, was the renowned Justice Edgar R.E. Chevrier of the Ontario Supreme Court. In an extensive Maclean’s article entitled “The Terrible Tempered Judge”, Edgar recounted that he was in the third grade before he knew that any Canadians spoke English. The children of Agläe Chevrier and Michel Desjardins included Rosemonde, who sang throughout Europe and Antonio, a poet. Lorena Agläe “Dollee”, daughter of Noé, became active in the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, reportedly chaining herself to the White House to protest delays in granting women the right to vote.
Like so many of our Lowertown buildings, the one at 224-226 St Patrick Street has a story that deserves to be told and a heritage that needs to be preserved.