Lareau family history

To highlight some of the archive’s holdings, the Hownikan is featuring photographs and family history of every founding Citizen Potawatomi family. If interested in assisting preservation efforts by providing copies of Citizen Potawatomi family photographs, documents and more, and to schedule family interviews, please contact the CHC at 405-878-5830.

Potawatomi and French-Canadian roots

The Lareau family are among the Oklahoma Potawatomi with connections to French-Canadian forebears. Joseph Bertrand Sr. (1778-1865) was the son of Joseph Laurent Bertrand and Marie Theresa Dulignon. In 1804, he married Madeline Bourassa (1781-1846), daughter of Daniel Bourassa and a Potawatomi woman who resided in the village of Potawatomi leader Topinabee.

This Bourassa-Bertrand union brought together two well-known fur trading families of the Great Lakes area. These kinship ties created and amplified successful fur trading commerce for many CPN ancestors.

Joseph Bertrand Sr. was employed with the American Fur Company as early as 1804 and again in 1821-22. By 1833, the town of Bertrand was incorporated, with Joseph and Madeline having established a home and fur business on the west bank of St. Joseph River just below Pokagan’s Creek. Joseph and Madeline were the parents of Joseph Jr., Samuel, Benjamin, Laurent, Therese (Schneider), Alexander and Julia Justine.

Julia Justine Bertrand (1823-1866) married Alva Higbee (1817-1884). Together, they had Josephine Lucille (Mainey), Mary Anastasia (Lareau), Joseph, Lewis Benjamin Delaine, Robert Alva, Lucy Emelia, George Albert, Therese and Julia.

Mary Anastasia Higbee married Joseph Lareau on July 25, 1871, in St. Marys, Pottawatomie County, Kansas.

Mary was born Sept. 25, 1853, near Bertrand Township, Berrien County, Michigan. She lived in Michigan, Kansas and, finally, Oklahoma. She attended school in St. Marys, Kansas, until she was 16.

Joseph was born Nov. 27, 1849, to Casimir Lareau and Marguerite Benjamin. Joseph spent his younger years in Canada, Michigan and Illinois. After he married, he lived in Kansas and Oklahoma. His occupation was harness maker.

After the Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, they lost millions of acres through land cessions. Many were forced to relocate further and further west. Mary’s family eventually moved to Kansas, where a Potawatomi reservation had been established.

Encroachment continued as Potawatomi lands were located along the California and Oregon Trails. Settlers began pressuring the federal government to open Potawatomi lands to white settlement. The Treaty of 1861 played a pivotal role as it established allotments in Kansas and formally divided who would be Prairie Band Potawatomi and who would be Citizen Band Potawatomi. After the Treaty of 1867, the Citizen Band began preparations for the move to Indian Territory, or what would later become Oklahoma.

When the Oklahoma allotments were offered, about a quarter of the Tribe chose to leave Kansas in 1870 and 1871, according to the Chronicles of Oklahoma. Documents in the CHC archives reveal that Mary Lareau received allotment number 961 on Feb. 8, 1887.

Challenges in Oklahoma

Many Potawatomi families first settled in the southern part of what is now Pottawatomie County. As individual allotments were secured, families moved to different parts of the county.

Life on the Oklahoma prairie was challenging. Those who took allotments had to carefully plan to make the journey. Moving was expensive, and some families had to save for years to afford the move. They also had to try to avoid poor weather, including snow and ice as well as extreme heat, or thunderstorms and mud.

Once they arrived, families found that allotments, some consisting of hundreds of acres, had to be cleared by hand prior to farming and building homes and infrastructure. Some families quickly built Potawatomi wigwams to live in while they completed their houses or planted crops.

Joseph and Mary Lareau came to the Wanette area with their family in 1896. They lived on a farm east of Wanette for many years where they raised their children. Some of their children settled in the same area to raise their own families.

Their son Joseph Alva was born in 1872 in St. Marys, Kansas. He was married to Rose B. Kitz. Joseph started a livery stable and feed store in Wanette. Joseph died in 1935.

Another son, Francis Casimir, was born Dec. 22, 1875, in St. Marys, Kansas. He married Sarah Elizabeth Sullivan on Dec. 8, 1908, in Wanette, Oklahoma. Francis “Cass” Lareau was a merchant in Wanette for many years. He had four children, but sadly, one son died in infancy. His youngest son Charles was born in Wanette on June 4, 1916. Charles Lareau was the postmaster at Wanette for several years. Charles died on Oct. 21, 1951.

Joseph and Mary Lareau’s daughter, Mary Johanna, was born in 1879 in St. Marys, Kansas. She married Dr. John Henry Royster. Together, they had a son named John H. on Dec. 17, 1922. Mary appears on the 1940 U.S. Census at the age of 61 as residing in Wanette, Oklahoma, with her son. Mary died in 1954 in Oklahoma.

A third son, Louis Edmond, was born July 28, 1881, in St. Marys, Kansas. He married Martha Emma Bird, and together, they had Helen, Mary Alice, Joseph, Emery, Emma and John. Martha died in 1919, just a few years after John’s birth. Louis married Lela Van Ness on Sept. 6, 1921. Louis Lareau died Oct. 29, 1954, and was buried in Wanette, Oklahoma.

A daughter, Lucy Isabella, was born Feb. 16, 1884, in St. Marys, Kansas. She married Robert Homer Grimmett on Dec. 1, 1901. Their children were Robert Pierre, Wanda Bernice (Jennings), Homer Delaine, Rose Marie (Edwards), Joseph Thomas, Jack Louis, William and Geraldine (Coffman). Lucy died on Nov. 11, 1953, and was buried in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

Another daughter, Annie Gentleleska, was born Nov. 28, 1886, in St. Marys, Kansas. She married William O. Newell in 1904. They were the parents of Joseph, William, Anna, Gerald and Edith.

The family’s youngest, Julia Cordelia, was born Dec. 6, 1893, in St. Marys, Kansas. She married Burke Bond Wyatt, and together, they had Eloise, Burke and Robert. She later married Jack Ketzler, and they had a son, Jon Roland Ketzler.

The family matriarch, Mary A. Lareau, died on Jan. 10, 1919, in Wanette, Oklahoma. She was buried in the Wanette Cemetery. Her husband, Joseph Lareau, died on April 14, 1923, in Wanette, Oklahoma. He was also buried in the Wanette Cemetery.

Through their early years in Potawatomi ancestral homelands in the north, a forced migration to Kansas and many challenges creating a new legacy in southern Pottawatomie County, the Lareau family drew upon their strength and resolve to persevere.

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Cultural Heritage Center provides resources to keep the Tribe’s history safe and accessible for generations to come. One key way the Nation does this is through the CHC’s archives and family interviews. If interested in assisting preservation efforts by providing copies of Citizen Potawatomi family photographs, documents and more, and to schedule family interviews, please contact the CHC at 405-878-5830. Schedule interviews online at portal.potawatomi.org. Learn more about the Family Reunion Festival at cpn.news/festival, and find research resources online at potawatomiheritage.com.