Justine Morenier was born 16 July 1864 in the very south in Belgium, known as the Wallonia (French speaking citizens) region, in the small town of Dampicourt, Luxembourg, Belgium. She was the 3rd daughter of Philippe Alexandre “Léopold” Morenier and Marie Catherine Mahut. She shares the same name as a sister of her father Léopold Morenier. From a photograph taken of her around the late 1890s, she had very dark brown hair, brown eyes and a square jaw line. As with photos taken in that time period, she wasn’t smiling which gave her a look of being very stern!
She was 14 y/o when her mother tragically died 12 days after giving birth to her brother Jean-Baptiste Camille, who also died. In 1882, she, along with her siblings and father, emmigrated to Québec, arriving in the port of Montreal, where they made their way to Saint-André-Avellin, in Papineau county of Québec.
In 1887, she married my great-grandfather, Jules Alexandre Nicolle, lately widowed and 18 years her senior. Jules Nicolle took his new wife back to Sudbury. Justine gave birth to two children. (Both of them died before the couple moved to Michigan). Life was hard during those times, raising children, finding work, contracting a major illness and/or disease was a constant threat.
In 1891, the couple moved to the upper peninsula of Michigan where Justine had 5 more children. She must have been a strict disciplinarian, as her step-daughter, Leonie, thought her mean and difficult.
And finally, in the autumn of 1915, Justine contracted Small Pox, where she developed pneumonia, and died Dec 1, 1915 leaving behind a grieving husband, 3 stepchildren, and 4 children. She was only 40 years old. Justine is buried along side Jules Nicolle in Gwinn Cemetery, Forsyth Twp, in Marquette county, Michigan.