Derek Logan
Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune

Take a glance at Maurice and Cecile Boivin and you might not guess they’re both in their 90s. Nor might you believe they’ve raised more than a dozen children. They’ve both aged well and on Friday they passed a milestone that not many couples have a chance to celebrate together – a 70th wedding anniversary. It’s the reward of hard work and taking an active role in building a community in a remote part of the Peace Country. The couple formally celebrated their 70th anniversary Aug. 5 in Tangent, located 140 kilometres northeast of Grande Prairie, with literally hundreds of their immediate family attending. Archbishop Gerry Pettipas of the Grouard-McLennan diocese presided over their renewed wedding vows that they originally made to each other on Aug. 10, 1937. Both were born in rural Quebec. Maurice was born in Oct. 19, 1914 in Normandin, Lac St. Jean. Cecile was born Sept. 19, 1915 in St. Majoric Drummondville. Both of their families moved to Eaglesham – Cecile in 1929 and Maurice a year later. Both were teenagers when they first met at a sawmill Cecile’s father owned in the mid-1930s. Cecile cooked for a hired helper while Maurice was working as one of the lumbermen. After a two-year courtship, they were married. Maurice and Cecile have a very large family. They have 16 surviving children (two daughters passed away in infancy), 74 grandchildren, 55 great-grandchildren, and 10 great-great grandchildren. While that seems impressive, Maurice’s parents (who also reached their 70th anniversary) had 17 children, 215 grandchildren, 174 great grandchildren, and eight great-great grandchildren. Still, running a household with nearly 20 kids (eight boys and eight girls) during in the northern community of Tangent was certainly not easy, and certainly left little time to plan for it, said Maurice, 92. “We never had to talk about it. We just took it day by day,” he said. Maurice was often working long hours, sometimes pulling in a 23-hour day, as the town’s electrician among his numerous jobs. Cecile had her kids become independent quickly and assist in looking after the younger siblings while she could focus on the newborns that kept coming into the family. “My oldest kid would help me to do the job,” said Cecile, 91. “With my kids, I was OK. I enjoyed it. I was always there for them. During the night, I would put the cradle next to my bed so if I heard the baby, I could just roll over to the edge of the bed and help him.” Their two-bedroom farm home in Tangent was tiny for the growing family. The house did have an upstairs level and the beds were lined up in the same manner as an army barrack, with a curtain to separate the boys from the girls. Family dinners were more like mess hall. Maurice constructed a table that could hold up to 40 people. Meals were made in bulk - stews, soups, porridge with most on the ingredients coming from a 20-by-20-metre vegetable garden they grew on the property. Supporting the family was a challenge, even though Maurice ran a farm. He became “a jack of all trades,” and over the years, those trades formed quite a list: Carpenter, barber, fire chief, singer, school trustee, and TV salesman, even bank manager and commissioner of oaths. Part of the reason was because two-thirds of Tangent was French-speaking and Maurice had a strong working knowledge of English. Very often when financial or legal forms were mailed to neighbours, they went to him to help them fill them out. Maurice said he had to learn English to translate for his father. “My dad didn’t talk in English,” he said. “I was the only one who could. I never went to a school in English. When I went to school, I was taught in French so I hard to learn it all on my own.” Maurice said his biggest accomplishment was getting power to Tangent and setting the stage of turning the isolated farming community that could only be accessed by the railroad into a vibrant little town. “I built the power line to Tangent all by hand,” he said. “Some guy asked me to do that and I could get the power free of charge so I did that.” Maurice also was the foreman who helped complete the steeple of the town’s church - a job he was most proud of - and several houses, barns, and greenhouses. As the kids grew up, Maurice and Cecile moved to Fairview. Maurice had a hand in building several modern buildings including the Grande Prairie airport tower, the Lodge Motor Inn, a hotel in Grande Cache, the veterinary clinic in Fairview, and apartment building an apartment building in Slave Lake. His last paid building job was the KFC restaurant in Fairview. He was around 70 at the time. “In three months, I made about $10,000 in wages,” he said. With such a large family and so many jobs, Maurice and Cecile worked on keeping their marriage by simply doing things together. Cecile admitted they weren’t much of the talkative couple. “I never was a big talker,” she said. Instead, she was his biggest helper with various projects around the farm in town. Even when they finally retired and moved from Fairview to Grande Prairie, they continued to work as the team, rewiring the lights in the porch and growing vegetables out of old flowerbeds out of their home in the Ivy Lake area. “We never do nothing,” said Maurice. “There are always jobs to do.” Now in their seventh decade together, the couples remain active and independent. However, Maurice most of proudest moments are still in Tangent, which at one time had more than 100 people. Maurice should know: He was the town’s census taker. “That place is my pride and that’s where I’m going to be buried,” he said. Reduced speed limit Motorists who frequent the highway are reminded to pay close attention to reduced speed limit construction signs and slow down when approaching Watino from either side of the roadway. “We’re requesting the cooperation of drivers to help ensure the safety of construction workers and the traveling public,” Saunders says. The existing bridge – completed in 1950 at a cost of $841,000 – will be disassembled and removed from the site by Sept. 15 of 2010.

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