I copied this story from from the LaBerge/LaBarge Library on Rootsweb. It had been submitted there by Gail Hodges who wrote "This is a copy of a story Doris Etu Carpenter has in a handwritten booklet on Joseph and Louisa LaBarge's 59th wedding anniversary. Do not know who wrote it."
I have a copy of it myself somewhere as they are my great great grandparents. I believe it was also posted in the newspaper at the time?




A STORY OF LIFE'S ROMANCE
59TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
OF
Louise LaBarge and Joseph Lacroix
April 1931
Once upon a time there was a little girl who was born July 9,1858, way up in Saint George, Canada, and she was called Mary Louise Margaret Fanny LaBarge, quite a long name for such a little girl, so she was called Louise for short, which we all must admit is a very nice name for a little girl with golden hair and blue eyes.

When Louise was six years old, her parents had decided to move to Sandy Hill, New York, as Hudson Falls was called at that time. Little Louise was upstairs being decked out in her new outfit of red that had been given her by her godmother for the journey. Louise was rather proud of her new clothes and was going to come downstairs to display all her splendor when she tripped on the very top stair and down she came, quite a bit faster than she had planned, but nevertheless the momentous trip was made on birthday, and to this very day if you look very close you will see the tiny little scars where those tiny little teeth came through as the result of the fall, so you see Mary Louise was never to forget her sixth birthday.

There was a little lad also born way up in Canada in a little place called Oka, about twenty-five miles from Montreal on January 14,1854, and he was called Joseph LaCroix. He had dark brown eyes and hair and a sunny disposition—you can tell it by the very merry twinkle in his eye to very day. When he was six, he moved to Montral and lived there about ten years, In Joseph's sixteenth year he went to Salem NY to work on the new railroad between Troy NY and Rutland, Vermont. The spring of 1872 he came to Sandy Hill, NY.

April 21st of that same year, he and Mary Louise were the first couple to be married in the Little-White-Church-at the top of the hill, Saint Paul's Catholic Church of Sandy Hill, NY by Father Huberdault. Incidentally, it was a double wedding—the other couple being Cordelia Coty and Napoleon LaRose.

It is a big event in any girl's life to be married, so this one was properly celebrated by a dinner and dance at the home of a sister of the bride, Mrs Barslow, and when the party was over the bride and groom went to home they had prepared at Green Mills, not for from where the trolley car barns are now. They lived there for twenty –five years and all the children were born there except the twins Philip and Mimmie who were born on Lower Warren Street.

Mr. LaCroix was employed to work on the construction of Howland Bag Mill under Major McCarthy. He then was able to get steady work inn the Waite and Richard Paper Mill, and this was much better than going north each winter, George Ferris to him out of the mill to janitor of the Masonic Hall, and he was there for eight years, For the next ten years he worked at Fenimore for handling color. There he was call "The Yellow Man". (It always took several days to scrub the yellow color off).

During these years, Joseph worked at Green Mills in the summer and winters he walked to the various towns in the North, namely Minerva, Newcomb, North Creek and Blue Mountain Lake to chip trees. He was considered one the best choppers at that time.

During these days at Bakers's Mills they lived on Derby, Sumpter and Lower Warren Streets. They had apartments in the Middleworth House and at the time of fire, they were burned out. They then moved to River Street for several years. Such busy people. They had a family of twelve children, thirty-two grandchildren and twenty great grand children . . .

(the story goes on to list names of the family at the time.)