52 Ancestors: Long-lasting
Check out the 52 Ancestors category for more of my writings from this year, and head over to creator Amy Johnson Crow’s website for more information on the initiative.
When I saw the theme for this week was “Long-lasting,” one thing came immediately to mind: the 71-year marriage of my paternal grandparents, Leonard Asselin and Eileen O’Rourke.
Eileen O’Rourke and Leonard Asselin, probably around the time of their marriage in 1935.
My grandpa, Leonard, was born in Calumet, Michigan, on 12 May 1912 to Joseph Asselin and his third wife Claudia Caron (who I wrote about for a previous entry that you can find here). He was the oldest child of that union, although his father had six children from his previous two marriages. Joseph owned a meat market in Calumet and the family lived above the store. Three stories I heard about my grandfather’s childhood were: the family was so well-off, he was driven to school in a limousine; they had a summer house in Eagle Harbor (just north of Calumet and on Lake Superior) that they spent a lot of time at; and that when the crash of 1929 hit, my 17 year old grandfather followed his dad around after reading stories of people dying by suicide because of financial losses and he was concerned for his father.
My grandma, Eileen, was born in Hubbell, Michigan, on 19 July 1912 to Thomas O’Rourke and Mary Dubuque. She was the middle child of five kids, with two older brothers and two younger sisters (I wrote about her youngest sister, my dear Aunt Marie, on my first 52 Ancestors post this year. Their father owned and operated a bar, which they also lived above. One of my great uncles, Gordon, ran the bar with their father for decades. Although not as financially well-off as my grandpa’s family, they led a comfortable existence. The youngest daughter, Marie, was significantly younger than the others, but they were all close-knit.
I’m not entirely certain how my grandparents met, but I know they began “courting” as teens. One of my favorite parts of their love story is that there’s a big hill between the towns of Calumet and Hubbell, along MI-26, which was serviced by a streetcar type rail service. Sometimes my grandpa would have to walk back up that hill if he stayed too late and missed the last car, but he’d do it just to see her.
In 1930, Leonard began studying civil engineering at Michigan Tech University in Houghton. Their love story continued, and in a particularly sweet image below, if you look closely, you can see my grandpa kept a photo of my grandma on his desk in his dorm room.
Leonard Asselin, photo taken between 1930-1934 at Michigan Tech University’s dormitory. He has a photo of Eileen O’Rourke on his desk as he’s doing homeework.
After graduation, Leonard got a job at Bundy Tubing in Detroit, working in more of a factory engineering role than the civil engineering he had studied, which would be true through his entire career. On Valentine’s Day, 1935, he and Eileen applied for a marriage license, and then they were married on 27 February 1935 in Detroit with her eldest brother Mort and sister-in-law Grace as witnesses. They were both devout Catholics throughout their lives, so it was a religious ceremony, although it’s a little surprising they weren’t married near their families in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. However, given that this was still during the Great Depression, this may have been for economic reasons.
Just a few days shy of exactly nine months after their marriage, on 23 November 1935, they welcomed their first child, Leonard Junior. My Uncle Len would pre-decease his parents, dying unexpectedly in 1995. After Len, another son (still living) followed in 1938, then daughter Diane in 1941. Aunt Diane, who I have fond memories of, including her at one point comparing a back brace she wore due to having polio as a child to Darth Vader’s armor which really amused kid me, passed in 2021. After Diane came another daughter in 1942, a son in 1943, another son in 1945, and finally my father in 1949 (all still living).
The whole family at my father’s baptism in 1949.
All of Leonard and Eileen’s children were born in the Detroit area, where the family lived for many years. However, as their kids grew, the family would move for a period of time to Chicago and St. Louis for Leonard’s work. As time went on, the older kids got married and started their own families, and eventually Leonard and Eileen and the remaining children moved back to Michigan, living in South Lyon, which is where my dad went to high school.
My grandpa was at times a gruff and stern-seeming man, but he had a heart of gold and was kind underneath an exterior I found a little scary as a kid. Meanwhile, my grandma seemed like a kind, soft-spoken lady and was all of 5 feet tall, but she could be very stern when she needed to be. Even as a child, I could tell that in my grandpa’s eyes, my grandma was the center of the universe, and although he took his role as the financial head of the household seriously throughout his life, she really ruled the roost.
One of Leonard’s hobbies throughout his life was photography, which I’m delighted to have inherited, and even more delighted that it means I have a wealth of photos of our family throughout the years.
Above, L to R: Row 1. My father and grandfather, around 1951; my sister and grandfather around 1975; my grandmother and sister around 1975; my grandmother (kneeling) at an event probably in the 1940s. Row 2. My grandmother with my grandfather’s shadow in the early 1930s; my grandmother fishing probably in the early 1940s; the family in the upper peninsula in the 1940s; all the kids in the mid-1950s.
Upon retirement in the late 1970s, my grandparents retired back where their love story began: the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. They had a prefab house brought over the Houghton lift bridge and placed on a lot on Bootjack Road, very close to where both of them had grown up. See the map below for just how close this was to their hometowns. This is the house I remember them in.
Google Maps screenshot indicating the Asselin home in Calumet, Michigan where Leonard grew up, the O’Rourke home in Hubbell where Eileen grew up, and where they built their home for retirement.
In retirement, my grandparents spent time doing what they loved, particularly enjoying the outdoors. My grandmother grew beautiful roses in her garden and my grandpa fished. They spent time with family. Family reunions began around the week of my grandmother’s birthday starting in 1980 and occurred officially every 5 years after that, although over time, many family members went there every year. At every family reunion, there were photos of the two of them with all their children and then of each child’s family. They kept these photos on their wall and updated them after each family reunion.
In 1998, Leonard and Eileen sold their home on Bootjack, deciding it was time to move into “the city” (Houghton) due to the long, snowy winters and their advancing ages. By this point, they were both 87, and my grandpa was still mowing his own lawn (on a riding mower, but still). In 2000, the family held a 65th anniversary party for them as part of the family reunion. By that point, my grandparents’ final grandchild, my younger sister, was 6, but they also had a handful of great grandchildren as well.
A few years later, they decided to move into an assisted living facility. In 2006, my grandpa passed away, leaving all of us worried how his wife of 71 years would manage after such a loss. But my grandma also loved her siblings and her offspring, and she told us in so many words that she wasn’t done yet. She would pass in 2012, and that summer, over her birthday week, the family gathered to honor the end of an era. Today, they are buried in the Lake Linden, Michigan cemetery, along with their eldest son and many other family members from the O’Rourke side, including Eileen’s parents and some siblings.
I feel lucky to have gotten to spend as much time as I did with my grandparents, given that I was their second youngest grandchild and we lived about a 13 hour drive away from them. I’m sure I’ll always wish there was more time, that I’d asked more questions, that I’d visited more often, but I do have some really lovely memories of them. Below, I’ve shared some photos of myself with them, photos my grandpa took of me, and photos I took of them.
In Eileen’s obituary, it stated that she was survived by not just her children (other than Len), but by 24 grandchildren and 43 great grandchildren. I’d often tried to do the math myself, because I knew there were many people at every family reunion, but that surpassed even my expectations. My grandparents were an excellent example of love and fidelity—after all, not every couple who has been married for decades is a happy one. I saw firsthand their love for one another, and by my earliest memories, they’d already been married for 50 years. To me, the most important part was not just that they had a long-lasting marriage, but that their love and care for each other and their family was long-lasting.
