Ben LaPorte of Inwood, MB
Back to his father
Ernie LaPorte, The LaPortes of
Inwood or to The LaPortes of Manitoba Family Tree
In 1914 when Ernie and Leah were expecting their first
child, Leah went to stay at her parent's house in Wild Rice, ND.
At that time with the lack of rural medical facilities and the cost of
city hospitals it was common for an expectant mother to be aided by her
mother and the local midwife. The baby was baptized Joseph Ulphie
LaPorte at Wild Rice. Joseph for Ernie's grandfather who had died
in 1894 and Ulphie for Leah's father. When Leah returned to Inwood
with the weeks old baby Ernie was unhappy about the choice of names and
insisted on calling him Benoit (pronounced Ben-O) which as a young boy
became shortened by his friends as Ben. Many years later when he
needed to apply for a Canadian passport he was unable to obtain a birth
certificate from the Wild Rice parish office for 'Ben LaPorte' the only
name he had ever known but was advised that his name was actually Joseph
Ulphie LaPorte. He was able to get his birth certificate under
that name, changed his name as a Canadian citizen and was able to get
his passport. He also obtained a rubber stamp for the name J. U. LaPorte,
LaPorte's Garage, Inwood, MB to use in his business but he was still called Ben
for the rest of his life.
Ben grew up in Inwood, the eldest of four
children. School in Inwood only went to Grade 9 after which many
children there would remain on the farm helping their parents or seek
some other employment but only a few from families who could afford it
were sent on to higher education. When Ben easily handled his
Grade 9 schoolwork in 1929 his parents decided to send him to St
Boniface College for a two year Commercial Course. As his mother
wouldn't allow him, at age 15, to be unsupervised in the big city she
moved herself and his three sisters with him to rented rooms in St
Boniface for two years. The plan was for Ben to then return to
Inwood to help run his father's businesses while Ben's secret hope was
that he would find a job in Winnipeg after his graduation from the
business school. However when he graduated in 1931 the Great
Depression was in full force and there were no jobs to be had anywhere.
Ben writes in his memoirs that several friends of his jumped onto
freight trains to hopefully find jobs out West or back East where it was
rumoured that things were better but that wasn't for him so he ended up
back in Inwood after all.
When Ben's eldest sister Hermina, called
Toupie, finished her Grade 9 in 1932 she was sent on to the Catholic
Girls School in St Norbert and his next eldest sister Leah was due to
follow her there in 1934 but then tragedy struck the family. That
Spring Leah and the youngest sister Caroline were playing in the yard
when they decided to try to collect the sap from a large maple tree in
their yard to make into maple syrup. Leah brought a chair from the
house to stand on while she tried to attach a can to a lower branch of
the tree. However in reaching backward for a branch the chair toppled
over with Leah rupturing her spleen when she landed on it. She
died two days later.
In 1939 Ben was talking to a friend in Winnipeg
about being taken on as an apprentice machinist but that plan was
interrupted when Canada entered World War II that September.
Ben tried to enlist but failed his medical due to his bad vision.
He then wrote to his machinist friend to see if that plan was still
workable but received an answer that his friend was now the Foreman of
the machine shop at the Canadian Car and Foundry plant in Fort William
where they were building Hawker Hurricane fighter planes for the Royal
Air Force and Ben was offered a job there. On Nov. 1, 1940 Ben
moved to Fort William and, as he wrote, 'four days later I was busy
building planes. I was there seven years. In my second year
there I met Marion Bowles and we got married six months later.'
When the war ended Ben with his wife and two
children moved back to Inwood where he took over his father's garage
where he would make 'a fairly good living' for thirty four years.
See The LaPortes Garage
This site was last updated
04/13/23
Back to his father
Ernie LaPorte, The LaPortes of
Inwood or to The LaPortes of Manitoba Family Tree
In 1914 when Ernie and Leah were expecting their first
child, Leah went to stay at her parent's house in Wild Rice, ND.
At that time with the lack of rural medical facilities and the cost of
city hospitals it was common for an expectant mother to be aided by her
mother and the local midwife. The baby was baptized Joseph Ulphie
LaPorte at Wild Rice. Joseph for Ernie's grandfather who had died
in 1894 and Ulphie for Leah's father. When Leah returned to Inwood
with the weeks old baby Ernie was unhappy about the choice of names and
insisted on calling him Benoit (pronounced Ben-O) which as a young boy
became shortened by his friends as Ben. Many years later when he
needed to apply for a Canadian passport he was unable to obtain a birth
certificate from the Wild Rice parish office for 'Ben LaPorte' the only
name he had ever known but was advised that his name was actually Joseph
Ulphie LaPorte. He was able to get his birth certificate under
that name, changed his name as a Canadian citizen and was able to get
his passport. He also obtained a rubber stamp for the name J. U. LaPorte,
LaPorte's Garage, Inwood, MB to use in his business but he was still called Ben
for the rest of his life.
Ben grew up in Inwood, the eldest of four
children. School in Inwood only went to Grade 9 after which many
children there would remain on the farm helping their parents or seek
some other employment but only a few from families who could afford it
were sent on to higher education. When Ben easily handled his
Grade 9 schoolwork in 1929 his parents decided to send him to St
Boniface College for a two year Commercial Course. As his mother
wouldn't allow him, at age 15, to be unsupervised in the big city she
moved herself and his three sisters with him to rented rooms in St
Boniface for two years. The plan was for Ben to then return to
Inwood to help run his father's businesses while Ben's secret hope was
that he would find a job in Winnipeg after his graduation from the
business school. However when he graduated in 1931 the Great
Depression was in full force and there were no jobs to be had anywhere.
Ben writes in his memoirs that several friends of his jumped onto
freight trains to hopefully find jobs out West or back East where it was
rumoured that things were better but that wasn't for him so he ended up
back in Inwood after all.
When Ben's eldest sister Hermina, called
Toupie, finished her Grade 9 in 1932 she was sent on to the Catholic
Girls School in St Norbert and his next eldest sister Leah was due to
follow her there in 1934 but then tragedy struck the family. That
Spring Leah and the youngest sister Caroline were playing in the yard
when they decided to try to collect the sap from a large maple tree in
their yard to make into maple syrup. Leah brought a chair from the
house to stand on while she tried to attach a can to a lower branch of
the tree. However in reaching backward for a branch the chair toppled
over with Leah rupturing her spleen when she landed on it. She
died two days later.
In 1939 Ben was talking to a friend in Winnipeg
about being taken on as an apprentice machinist but that plan was
interrupted when Canada entered World War II that September.
Ben tried to enlist but failed his medical due to his bad vision.
He then wrote to his machinist friend to see if that plan was still
workable but received an answer that his friend was now the Foreman of
the machine shop at the Canadian Car and Foundry plant in Fort William
where they were building Hawker Hurricane fighter planes for the Royal
Air Force and Ben was offered a job there. On Nov. 1, 1940 Ben
moved to Fort William and, as he wrote, 'four days later I was busy
building planes. I was there seven years. In my second year
there I met Marion Bowles and we got married six months later.'
When the war ended Ben with his wife and two
children moved back to Inwood where he took over his father's garage
where he would make 'a fairly good living' for thirty four years.
See The LaPortes Garage