Joe and LorettA (GALLANT)
Married on August 12, 1945
There was not much in the way of detail at the time of publishing. Like many of the families, there was little, if any, conversation about what the courting or dating scene was like for many of the parents. It seems meeting at church or community events, going to a local movie theater or dancing at the Gordon Lodge, were the sources of courting venues in those days. Loretta shared with her grand-daughter Debbie that she fell in love with Joe after he saved her life in a snow storm.
"LE CLAN DE" Joe and LorettA
Known to us as "Joe", his birthname was Joseph Emile (Joe-Emile to his siblings), born on May 3, 1921. Joe worked on the family farm until he met and married his wife Lorretta in 1945. Loretta May Gallant was born on Dec 24, 1923. A fun fact - Joe's older bother John married Loretta's sister, Alice, the following year in 1946 after John returned home after the end of WW2.
Joe worked on a farm in Mermaid, PEI for a few years before moving to Meadowbank where he and Loretta lived, ran a farm and raised their children. Loretta’s brother, Alfie, convinced Joe to move to Alberta to work on the oil rigs so he moved his wife with their four children, Lena, Clifford, Paula and Lawson to Olds, Alberta in 1962. He spent his life working for various oil companies as a field hand. Joe died of a massive heart attack at age 59 on May 13, 1980. Two of the children, Lena and Lawson, were inflicted with a rare disease at an early age known as Fanconi syndrome. Lena had a kidney transplant in 1983 with a donated kidney from her sister Paula. Eventually both Lena and Lawson would contract cancer. Lena passed in 1984 at age 38 and Lawson passed in 1995 at age 36.
Loretta eventually remarried to Steve Flessatti of Olds Alberta in 1996 and Steve brought 3 children to the union: Larry, Sharon and Evelyn, 13 grand-children and 12 great-grand-children. Their granddaughter Debbie (Reid - Lena's daughter) chuckles as she tells the story that Steve and Loretta had to keep the priest at the Olds Catholics Church happy by getting married because he didn't like to see them living together, at age 61 and 71. Steve passed away at age 89 on August 29, 2014.
Loretta lived a full life and passed away on May 4, 2018, at age 94, in Olds, Alberta.