Page Three of The Women in My Family
Catherine Irene Outterson had more education than was customary in her generation, finishing at a young ladies seminary in Syracuse, New York, called the Keeble School. It is not clear whether Catherine moved much as a child. What is known is that her father, Colonel Outterson, moved from village to village building paper mills throughout northern New York State, the last one located in Dexter outside of Watertown, New York. Catherine lived there with her family. When she was twenty-two years old, she met and married Alvin Lee Bernier (baptized Frederick Alphonse Alvin Lee Bernier), a hotel bookkeeper.
Alvin Bernier was born in Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls, New York) in the early 1860s of George Napoleon Bernier and Mary. George's father, Francois, had come to St. Hyacinth, Quebec, from France, moving to Sandy Hill establishing himself as a skilled carriage-maker. The people of Sandy Hill had great difficulty spelling and pronouncing Bernier and so he changed it to Barney. When Alvin grew up and realized what had happened, he took back the original French name.
Catherine and Alvin had seven children, four boys and three girls; James, Marie, Outterson, Carroll, Alvin (born 1900), Susan, and Catherine. As new hotels were built, Alvin moved from city to city, setting up their accounting systems, taking his growing family with him. The birthplace of each child is different from the others. The last child was born in New York City where Alvin was head bookkeeper of a group of hotels, three in New York and others in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Syracuse. At this time, Catherine's older brother, James Andrew Outterson, following in his father's footsteps, had built a paper mill in Pyrites, New York. Catherine longed for open space and green fields for her large, young family, away from the concrete of the big city of New York and so James offered Alvin the job of bookkeeper in the new paper mill. There were no sidewalks, no street lights and no high school and the oldest son, James, went to Canton High School, boarding out with another family. When Marie, the second child, was ready for high school, Catherine and Alvin moved to a rented house in Canton. The children were expected to say their prayers, otherwise religion was left to the Church or Sunday school. They were expected to use their own judgment and develop responsibility at a young age.
Telling the truth and respecting the property of others were virtues highly valued. Catherine and Alvin tried to instill in their children an appreciation of classical music, art works and good literature. They memorized poetry and recited on occasion. My father often told of his fathers’ insistence that the children sing operatic arias before breakfast in the morning.
Catherine's father, Colonel James T. Outterson, died in 1907 leaving her his household furnishings and her share of his money. With some of that money, she bought their first home in Canton and Alvin returned to his hotel work in New York City, coming by train at Christmas time to see his family. Before long, he made his permanent home in New York, leaving Catherine to bring up the children.
As the inheritance diminished, the older boys got jobs to help the family financially. My father quit school in his sophomore year, was employed in a variety of jobs from the paper mills of his Uncle Jim to an undertakers parlor in Canton. Catherine had a part-time job in the town library and sold magazine subscriptions for additional income. The village had great admiration for the way she managed to keep the family together until they were all adults. All but two of the seven children graduated from high school and all three girls graduated from college. My father often told us that Grandma Bernier, was determined that her daughters have a college education in the event they had to earn a living, supporting a family as she had to do. The youngest daughters, Susan and Catherine (Cassie), were assisted financially through St. Lawrence University by their Uncle Jim and by their own summer employment, along with State Scholarships.
During World War I, Catherine, along with other Canton people, staffed a makeshift hospital in Pyrites, her oldest children taking care of the younger ones. Cassie remembers working with her mother for the Red Cross during the war. They knitted wool helmet-type head gear and sweaters for the boys in the trenches as well as fine cotton yarn bandages for chin dressings. Two of the older sons, Outterson and Carroll, were in the Army. The oldest, James, was excused as he was married with a baby by this time and worked in an airplane factory in Hammondsport, New York. My father was drafted but saved by the Armistice. He was 19 at that time.
Catherine was very active in everything she felt was constructive — especially Votes for Women. Her daughters remember working with their mother for Women's Suffrage. She was active in the Library Association and belonged to the Grange, involving the whole family. Generally, women were expected to work to earn money or to marry. Few married women worked in her generation. When the daughters finished college they entered the teaching world and Catherine put the household furniture in storage, spending her remaining years visiting with the various children and grandchildren and other relatives. All of the children eventually married, the girls marrying between twenty-five and thirty-three years of age.
The Sullivan and Bernier families came together through my mother, Marguerite Katherine Sullivan, and my father, Alvin Joseph Bernier. Mother was two years older than Dad; they were teenagers when they met. She was cool to his attentions, calling him "knee-pants" from the knickers he wore; but he persisted and they eventually married in 1925, she was 27 and he, 25. During the years, even before their marriage, they seemed to be the focus for drawing the two families together. Many stories are told of the Bernier children joining the Sullivan family at their home in Canton after Mass on Sunday where four generations might be gathered there. The Sullivans became an extended family for the Berniers, who had no relatives nearby. Conversely, the Berniers supported the Sullivans by their presence. Evelyn, younger sister of Marguerite, recalls many times when Al would drive her back to the hospital in the next town where they were in nurses' training, singing all the old songs as they went. When she spent three months in Cleveland, Ohio, for pediatric affiliation at Christmas time, Al's brothers, Jim and Carroll, eased her homesickness by bringing her home for dinner, taking her out to the shows, again singing the songs she loved.
Marguerite and Alvin were married June 27, 1925 with her sister, Myrtle, and his brother, Carroll, their attendants. They had five children, two boys and three girls; Joseph Carroll, Mary Katherine, Therese, Genevieve, James Thomas and Elizabeth Irene. Marguerite, Al, and Myrtle went into business together in 1930 selling Ford cars. Marguerite did the bookkeeping for the business; Myrtle and Al handled the rest of the operation. Myrtle (Moie, as was known by all) lived with us the first three years of my life. She was the family caretaker, at times for all the Sullivan family. She remained single and died young (48); she was cherished, dearly loved by all who knew her. She seemed to be a third parent for us as we grew up.
