The Rivet-Rivest-Rivé Families of Repentigny, Québec - PART 1

Note: this is the first part of the story of a weekend trip to share the heritage of the the Rivet Families of Repentigny, Québec.

Fête au Petit Village in Repentigny on the weekend of September 18th and 19th, 2010 brought a few Americans back to the Rivet-Rivest home village.  Ray, Vicky and I traveled to Repentigny and met many members of the Rivet family who remained in the vicinity and greater Montréal area.  The street closed off for the festivities was Rue Notre Dame which runs along the northern  waterfront of the Assumption River.  Much to my surprise, there is a street named Rue Rivet where several brothers had homesteads and leads into Pont (bridge) Rivet.   In the mid 18th century, six Rivet-Rivest brothers, all sons of Maurice Rivé and Marie Cusson, came to Repentigny to raise their families. They were Charles, Pierre, Michel, Alexis, Maurice and Nicolas. It accounts for the large number of Rivets-Rivests in the area.  The Rivest descendants who immigrated to Cohoes NY were descended from Alexis and Marie Anne Migneron dit Lajeunesse.

Cousin Ray looking just like the ancestors who lived on Rue Rivest!

The section of the old village with Rivest Street on the right half of the map.
 Now days,  Rivest Street crosses the river via the Pont Rivest

  

"Rosie the Riveters" in our family

During the early years of World War II (1942?) my mother and my aunt, both named Dorothy worked at the Watervelit Arsenal in Watervelit, NY.  They worked as, what has come to be called,  "Rose the Riveters".  While men were all on the war front in the Pacific, Africa, and Europe, women filled the labor gap in our nation's arsenals where military weapons were manufactured.

My cousin, also a  Dorothy, wrote a beautiful story about her mother during that time of her life.  Our cousin has generously offered to share her story on this blog......Click on the pictures to enlarge the page and you will be able to read it clearly.

and drumroll......our cousin's story about her mother..

Here is a picture of our mothers together (with one other unidentified Rosie) that may have been taken on the grounds of the Watervelit Arsenal

Aunt Dorothy told me that she was very, very good at her job and was swiftly promoted to a more demanding position where she had to be very careful not to "contaminate" the materials with random dust particles.  She was the right person for that job because she was very exacting and precise in her work- and it showed!

Posters, currently on display at the Watervelit Arsenal,  depicting the war effort on the home front and the war front.

The entrance to the Watervelit Arsenal in the 1950s and 1960s