Céline (Papillon) Fiset: A Woman of Strength
- Karen Inkster Vance
- Mar 8
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 28
In honour of International Women’s Day, I share the story of my 2nd great-grandmother, Céline (Papillon) Fiset—a resilient French-Canadian woman who faced hardship, migration, and mental illness in early 20th-century Canada. From her marriage in Quebec to raising eleven children, Céline’s life reflects the strength and struggles of many women.
Christmas 1929 would have been a sombre affair for the Fiset family. The matriarch of their family, Celine (Papillon) Fiset had died of myocarditis on Christmas Day, aged 56. Now, her body dressed and her face at peace, she lay in an open casket between two sawhorses in the family living room at LaFleche, Saskatchewan.[1]
Granddaughter Simone, then seven-years old, alongside her sister, pulled herself up on the casket to peek at who was inside.[2] Another grandson, three-year-old Floyd (my great-uncle), wondered who that old lady was.[3] The scene remained vivid in their minds for the rest of their lives, perhaps because that was the only memory they had of their grandmother; for the last eight years of her life, Céline had lived about 80 miles eastward, several hours by train, at the Weyburn Mental Hospital.
***
It was Monday, July 14, 1890, when 17-year-old Céline Papillon married 22-year-old Pierre Joseph Fiset, a strong, dark man with sharply defined cheek bones, at St. Basile de Portneuf, Quebec.[4] Her large family had shown up in full force to support her, and although she was the fifth and middle child of Nerée Papillon and Elisabeth Duhault-Jacques, she was one of the first to get married. In contrast, Pierre’s mother, sister Léa, and neighbour Edouard Hardy were his only witnesses.
The Papillon family were moderately educated – both parents and children could read and write. Life was humbler for their Fiset neighbours who lived two miles further north from civilization. As the only surviving boy, Pierre Joseph needed to help his father on the farm, and so he never learned to read and write except for a wobbly signature that he sometimes forewent in favour of a more efficient shaky X. When Pierre Joseph was just 15, his father, Pierre Sr. died. With the need to provide for his mother - older sister Léa had already married - Pierre Joseph was left to clear the heavy stumps and farm the sandy soil. He worked hard and seven years later brought Céline home as his wife.
The year following their wedding, the enumerator for the 1891 census found Céline snuggly settled into Pierre’s family home, along with her mother-in-law, Zoé.[5] It was April, and Pierre, cultivateur, had a labourer to help him on the farm, while young Céline went about her household chores with a looser dress and a rounded belly; she was just two months away from the birth of their first child. At eighteen years of age, she had assumed a large responsibility, one that would test her sorely over the coming years.
The first few years of married life must have been a struggle. Baby Joseph Albert died when he was just two months old, and it was nearly three years later that second child Hector was born. Céline gave birth, not in Ste-Christine close to family, but at Cohoes, New York, an upstate industrial town where Pierre Joseph worked long, regimented hours at a textile mill. The difference between being an independent farmer whose life revolved around the seasons and a millhand whose day was dictated by a timeclock must have been jarring. Like nearly a million other French Canadians, they could easily have stayed. However, they returned to their Ste-Christine farm where third-born, Ernest (my great-grandfather), was born in December 1895.
After that, seven more children joined the family about every 15 to 18 months like clockwork: Hélène (1897), Octave (1898), Jules (1900), Hermine (1902), Joséphine (1903), Alice (1905) and Elizabeth (1907). All these remaining children lived to adulthood except Alice, who died aged three months.
In spite of the industrial changes occurring in urban areas, tradition still played a strong role in rural life. On the habitant farm there was little separation between home and work life, and families produced most of what they consumed. The kitchen was the hub of the home; meals were eaten there, and in the evening family members would sit around and talk while they worked. Nearly all furnishings and objects were manufactured at home: tools, clothing, bedding, utensils, furniture.[6]
It was backbreaking work, the soil was poor, and the weather harsh. During the wintertime Pierre was away for long months, working as a lumberjack in the northern forests. Throughout the 1800s living conditions became dire, with Quebec “in a state of agricultural crisis.”[7] The promise of free land in Saskatchewan was like a dream come true for Pierre. In late summer 1911, he said a temporary farewell to Céline and the family, but not without leaving behind a parting gift: baby Eva would be born exactly nine months later.[8] Like many others, he travelled ahead of his family, so he could start to prove up on his homestead.
***
I wonder about 38-year-old Céline that final Quebec winter with her eight surviving children as she prepared to leave her known existence, friends, family, and community. She was pregnant with her eleventh and final child.
A wife in those days – especially a French-Canadian wife – was expected to follow her husband, so that’s what she did. Once more, Céline packed up her home, her children, and said goodbye to her siblings and friends. She followed her husband to the rolling prairie at Plessis in southern Saskatchewan, a small collection of French-Canadian homesteads about 20 miles south of La Fleche. This time she would never return to Quebec.
***
“You know, Grandma Céline died in a mental hospital” my Great-Auntie May told me in 2019, at the beginning of my search into the Fiset family. Her words shocked me; I hadn’t known. I knew that Céline had died at Weyburn, Saskatchewan, as the location had been written on my family tree for decades, but I didn’t know what that meant. It wasn’t until I ordered her death certificate that Auntie May’s words were confirmed: Céline had entered the Weyburn Mental Hospital just a few months after it opened in 1921 and lived there for the rest of her life, 7 years, 10 months later.
Her struggle with mental illness had started about two years before leaving Quebec.[9] Family members speculate that it could have been linked to post-partum depression, a hormonal imbalance after the birth of a child that was widely misunderstood, stigmatized, and went untreated in the early twentieth century. The compounded loss of her children, the years of childbearing with possible miscarriages, and the sheer mental and physical load she carried every day to keep her household going put her under physical and emotional stress which likely progressed into a deep and long-lasting mental illness.
No stories have been passed down to describe her symptoms, but her death certificate records the contributory factor as “Manic depressive insanity.” Now termed bipolar disorder, those with the illness often exhibit alternating periods of mania (elevated mood, hyperactivity, and impulsivity) and depression (low mood, fatigue, and despair). There is no doubt that Céline’s illness would have impacted the family greatly, especially the youngest children, who would not have remembered her any other way. There is also no doubt that Céline worked hard and did the best she could to care for her family in spite of her illness.
I feel sad that I’ve only found one photo of her, in middle age. I imagine her as a young girl, full of hope and love and passion. Her relatively early death has largely erased her stories and only a few fragments have been passed down to portray the vitality she must have once had.
Cousin Simone told me that her mom, Hermine, had a large linen bedspread that her mother, Céline, had painstakingly spun and woven from the flax they had grown. The bedspread lasted for decades, then was cut down and continued to be used as tea towels.
In a 1986 oral history interview, my mom asked my great-grandfather, Ernest, “What did your mother make that you used to enjoy eating?”
“I don’t know how to say it in English!” he laughed in his rusty, French- tinged English.
“Well say it in French then!”
“Pattes d’ours,” he responded.
But when he tried to explain it, there was confusion and mom interpreted it as bear meat.[10] It wasn’t until I listened to the interview decades later that I was able to figure out that his mother used to make bear paws cookies! I picture her mixing together the ingredients, including sugar, molasses, cinnamon and ginger, forming the dough into the shape of a bear paw, baking them in a fire oven, then sharing them amongst her children who were eager for the treat.
***
A few years ago, I sent away to request Céline’s mental health records from the Saskatchewan Health Authority. After some back and forth emails and phone calls, my request was denied, first on the grounds that the materials were too fragile to handle, and then when I pushed harder, on the grounds of privacy. I could have tried to appeal the decision, but I realized I was content to let her rest. Not all things need to be known to be understood.
After Céline died, her family brought her body back to LaFleche where they held a requiem high mass at the local Catholic Church, then buried her at the St. Radegonde Cemetery. Seventeen years later, her husband Pierre joined her.
***
Céline’s maiden name was Papillon, a word that means ‘butterfly’ in French, the symbol for hope, transformation and freedom. Though I wasn’t there to peer into her casket in December 1929, I now peer into the one photo I have of her and see – not an old lady, but a young bride filled with anticipation for the future, a young mother doing what needed to be done, a wife supporting her husband as best she could. Rather than analyse her final years in an institution, I choose to honour her strength, her womanhood.
I gaze into the photo and see not only my great-great-grandmother but all the women in my life. For we are all her.
Sources:
[1] Gerry Fiset interview with Karen Inkster Vance, 4 August 2019, Barriere, BC.
[2] Simone (Fiset) Kuckartz interview with Karen Inkster Vance, 13 April 2019, Saskatoon, SK.
[3] Gerry Fiset interview with Karen Inkster Vance, 4 August 2019, Barriere, BC.
[4] Ancestry.ca, Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, St. Basile Sud, 1890, Image 17 of 38.
[5] 1891 Canada Census. Portneuf, Portneuf, Quebec. Roll: T-6414, Family No. 254.
[6] Linteau, Durocher and Robert, Quebec A History 1867-1929, p. 169.
[7] Bélanger, Damien-Claude, & Bélanger, Claude. (1999). French Canadian Emigration to the United States 1840-1930.
[8] Ancestry.com. Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968. [database-online]. Baptism record for Marie Louise Eva Christine, who was born and baptised on May 16, 1912.
[9] Saskatchewan Death Registration, Celina Fiset, No. 6454, 1929. Died 25 December 1929 of Myocarditis (6 months), contributory Manic Depressive Insanity (20 years).
[10] Beverly Inkster interview with Ernest Fiset, 1986, Lumby, BC.
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