Désiré-Olivier Bourbeau, a man of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets

Son of Louis Lazare Bourbeau and Marie Édesse Gauvreau, he was born at St-Pierre-les-Becquets on 21 September 1834, the second child of a family of ten. The name entered on his baptismal record is Zéphyrin-Désiré, but he was known, and made his career, as Désiré-Olivier; a man is entitled to his little vanities.

After his studies at Trois-Rivières with the Frères des écoles chrétiennes (Brothers of the Christian Schools), he became a schoolteacher at St-Pierre until the age of 26. He then obtained a clerk’s position in Québec with Behan Bros. From 1856 to 1860 he was in business in partnership with his brother Octave, born in 1836. He returned to St-Pierre to work the family land for three years.

We find him next at Victoriaville in 1863, where for three years he owned, with his younger brother Octave, a business; he then opened his own general store, which he kept until his death.
He was elected mayor of Victoriaville from 1870 to 1873. He also sat as Conservative member of Parliament for Drummond-Arthabaska from 1877 to 1887.

In 1890 he was a founding commissioner of the Victoriaville school board.

In 1893 he took part in founding the newspaper « l’Écho des Bois-Francs ».

In 1894 he operated a butter factory and a cheese factory, and he founded, with associates, the Manufacture de meubles de Victoriaville (Victoriaville Furniture Co.)

In 1897 he ran again as a federal Conservative candidate and was elected by a very large majority; too large, in fact, for the number of votes cast in his favour exceeded the number of electors in his county. The election was annulled.

Following his death, he was buried on 21 December 1900 at Victoriaville.

He was an inquisitive, imaginative, hard-driving man, involved in a range of commercial, social and political ventures.

A visionary, quite simply.