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Jackie Beaulieu came into this world with five $10 bills and a partially empty milk bottle.
Eighty years later, Jackie left surrounded by the love of family and people who will miss her.
No one would have predicted the life Jackie would have, but it’s safe to say she had a tough beginning.
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That’s because Jackie, who was 80 years old when she died on Nov. 9, was barely a newborn when she was left abandoned inside a car near the steps of St. Boniface Hospital on July 23, 1942.
No one knows why the baby was left. A Free Press front page story was published the next day under the headline “Abandoned Baby Girl Gurgles In Hospital.” The article said she was found at about 2:30 p.m. with a note pinned to a car cushion beside her, the five $10 bills, and a partially full milk bottle.
“Please have her baptized and be adopted by a good family,” the note said.
Four hours after the baby was found, a woman, who didn’t identify herself, called the Free Press.
“(She) asked whether her baby, which she said had been lost near the St. Boniface hospital, had been found. After being informed that it had, she rang off and efforts to trace the call proved unsuccessful.”
From the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press, July 24, 1942.
The article stated nurses at the hospital believed someone else other than the mother would have had to abandon the child because “from the size of the infant — she weighs five pounds six ounces and is only 18 and a half inches in length — they expressed belief that her mother would have been unable to be up and around.”
The story said both Winnipeg and St. Boniface police, as well as the RCMP, were trying to find the baby’s parents or relatives.
A large photograph showed a nurse holding the baby to get her picture taken.
It wasn’t until Jan. 23, 1943, that a short story in the Free Press detailed what next happened to that little girl.
Under the headline, “Meet Marie Georgiana Jacqueline Beaulieu,” the story started by asking, “remember the little girl who was left abandoned?
“Well, today she has a name, and it’s official. By order of the Court of the King’s Bench, issued two days ago, the little girl is registered as Marie Georgiana Jacqueline Beaulieu.”
The article said the baby was turned over to the Children’s Aid Society and, shortly after, a couple, identified as Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Beaulieu, of 513 Langevin St., took her in and, after a year’s probation, they were able to adopt her.
And that’s where Jackie’s life began anew.
Her obituary says the adoptive parents “were the best parents a girl could hope for. Their love nurtured and helped develop Jackie’s special talents.”
Jackie attended Ecole Menagerie in the early 1960s and became skilled at needlepoint.
And when Jackie became an adult, she returned to St. Boniface Hospital — to work.
She worked in housekeeping and then transportation, and loved both jobs.
“There was nowhere in that big hospital where she could go without staff saying “Hi Jackie”,” the family said.
Jackie continued living in St. Boniface to the end of her life, and her family says she found a special enjoying going through her photo albums which “tracked our family history and her adventures for many years.
“She enjoyed looking at them till the very end.”
No one knows what circumstances would have persuaded a new mother to abandon her baby so many years ago, but when Jackie died, she was surrounded after a lifetime of love from her adoptive family.
She is survived by her three sisters, as well as nieces and other family members.
Read more about Jackie.
How They Lived
Richard Burleson played music from another era.
Richard, who was 81 when he died on Oct. 30, loved early music and studied the lute at the University of Hartford and the University of Washington before coming to the University of Manitoba in 1970 and teaching as a professor at the School of Music for four decades.
With his former wife, a soprano, they performed across North America and Europe until 1985 He founded the U of M Early Music Festival, led the school’s Collegium Music, and researched early music, folk song, and First Nations music.
Read more about Richard.
Roz Usiskin was a teacher and researcher of Jewish history.
Roz, who died on Nov. 2 at the age of 94, taught at the Peretz and Shalom Aleichem schools and was director of Camp Husavik. She was also the Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada president, the founding executive director of the Manitoba Multicultural Resource Centre, and member of the national editorial board of the Canadian Jewish Outlook.
Read more about Roz.
The Bunkowsky family band was like a local Partridge Family and Robert Bunkowsky was their leader and patriarch. Robert, who was 82 when he died on Nov. 15, was a farmer who taught his six kids to play songs and instruments and eventually the band became The Family Spectrum, performing on hundreds of stages.
The multigenerational band is now called Legacy.
Read more about Robert.
Evelyn McConnell stopped teaching when her kids were born and began volunteering — a lot.
Evelyn, who died on Nov. 12 at the age of 88 began with the church, curling club, and hockey rink in Neepawa and it grew from there.
She later judged at the Festival of the Arts, delivered Meals on Wheels, volunteered for the Lily Festival and, for all her hard work volunteering, was nominated for a Women of Distinction award in 2008 and awarded the Rotarian Paul Harris Award.
Read more about Evelyn.
Dr. Manny Matas was in a hurry to be a psychiatrist.
Manny, who was 77 when he died on Oct. 30, graduated from medicine at the University of Manitoba before specializing in psychiatry at McGill University.
By the age of 23 he was a psychiatrist and the youngest practising in Canada.
Manny went on to care for patients at the St. Boniface Hospital, and became acting head of psychiatry there.
He also published many peer-reviewed works in medical journals and wrote the book The Borders of Normal: A Psychiatrist De-Stigmatizes the Paranormal.
Read more about Manny.
A Life’s Story
Anna Maendel was a trailblazer in education for Hutterite students.
Anna, who died on Aug. 9, went to school in the two-room school at the Fairholme Colony near Portage la Prairie, with her dad being one of two teachers there.
Most students there stopped at Grade 8, but Anna went further, to Grade 10, and when the colony lost a teacher because some families moved away, she joined her dad to teach — without being paid.
But later, after auditing an education course at the University of Manitoba, she convinced her sister to join her in getting their education degrees, becoming the only Hutterite women in the faculty at the time.
Anna returned to the colony and not only taught students, but also worked with an outside biology teacher to use televised classes to bring his courses to the colony as well as creating a Hutterite-focused teaching program at Brandon University.
“Anna said ‘I’ve been praying for this for 20 years,” her sister Dora said.
Read more about Anna’s life.
Anna Maendel (supplied).
Until next time, I hope you continue to write your own life’s story.
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