Ths has been edited a few times to add new information (in boldface) and keep it in one place!
Hi Hobbyhorse: You are very lucky that we are snowed in today where I live on the East Coast of the U.S. I was avoiding more productive work, and was about to suggest that you e-mail the city clerks of Lawrence and Methuen, Massachusetts to see if they could provide information on a possible marriage of Elizabeth Leather.
But I decided to look first at the U.S. censuses for the period in question to see if I could find anyone named De Marre in that area. So I went to the FamilySearch Pilot website, run by the LDS Church, to look at the censuses for free. I predict that as soon as you finish reading this post you'll want to go there, too. So here is the link:
http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=0.
Corrected: At any rate: Elizabeth Leather married Napoleon Demers on May
28, 1914. The marriage was registered in Methuen, Mass.
on May 22, 1914, but it seems to have taken place in Lawrence, Mass. (The two cities border on each, about 25 miles northwest of Boston, and Napoleon Demers birthplace of Haverhill, Mass. also borders on Lawrence).
You can actually see the marriage registration book on the FamilySearch website. When you go the above web address, wait until it loads, then click on "Browse our collections" (under the search boxes). On the next page, click on the map of the U.S. and Canada, then scroll down and click on Massachusetts State Marriage Records, 1841-1915.
You can search by name. Elizabeth's marriage is No. 53, near the bottom of the register page. You can zoom in on, print, and save a copy of the record page.
Unfortunately, her sister Ada married in 1905, and that marriage is not covered in the records that are online (mostly 1906-1915). But I dd find the information for Ada's marriage in another index. It is
Town Year Volume Page
Leather Ada Methuen 1905 554 559
Bedford Fred Ball Methuen 1905 554 559
You can contact the City of Methuen (for possibly more information) through the "Contact Us" link at the top of the city's web page at
http://www.cityofmethuen.net/index.php/home-mainmenu-1.htmlI could not locate Napoleon Demers in the 1900 census (which is also on the FamilySearch site) in Haverhill or Methuen or Lawrence. Perhaps someone can search the 1910 census for him or family.
The reason Elizabeth ended up in Canada is probably because Napoleon's family had emigrated to the U.S. from Canada at some point. There was a very nasty textile strike in 1912 in Lawrence (famously called the Bread and Roses Strike), and the bad blood might have lasted well after the strike. That might have prompted them to go to Canada. French Canadians in Massachusetts were simply another immigrant group to be exploited.
Added: Elizabeth's (and hence Ada's) parents' full names, including mother's maiden name, appear in the marriage register.Added: Father was Joseph; name of mother appears to be Mary Coster on the Methuen register..
Added much later: There are two entries in the Massachusetts Marriage Index for Elizabeth Leather and Napoleon Demers. One is the marriage register in Methuen; the other is a marriage registration page in Lawrence, where the marriage took place. On the Lawrence register, Elizabeth's mother is Mary Foster. Added still later: Could it be mere coincidence or is it possible that Elizabeth Leather had a forbear named Elizabeth Leather who married a man named Charles Egerton and emigrated from England to Lawrence, Mass? I mention this because (1) Ada and Elizabeth had an aunt, Sarah Egerton, in Lawrence when they emigrated and (2) there is an Elizabeth Leather (married name Egerton) on the Massachusetts Marriage Index who has two children, Ellen and Herbert Egerton, whose marriages--1909 and 1911--were registered in Lawrence. Regards,
John
