The following was researched and written by Scott Smith. To the best of my ability, the footnotes and references were placed within the text in (parentheses).

My Billette Ancestors. Lorraine Marguerite Billette was born on July 10, 1914 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her parents were Aimée Toussaint “Emil” and Emily Cordelia (nee White) Billette. Lorraine lived in Minneapolis until the age of five or six. About 1920, the family went to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to visit her Uncle Bill (William Theodore White). Lorraine’s father was looking for work during this extended trip east. They stopped briefly in Hopedale, Ohio—before settling for a couple years in Barberton, Ohio (near Akron). Lorraine started school in Barberton. Her father moved the family back to Minneapolis in 1924, then to Crosby. Lorraine remembered the years growing up in Crosby (age 10-14) as the happiest of her life. She remembered family picnics at Mille Lacs in the summer and helping her father with his route delivering soda and candy. About 1928, the family moved back to Minneapolis and then to Hastings, Minnesota. Lorraine remembered visiting her Uncle Bill again in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, when she was about sixteen (1930). Soon after, she enrolled in a vocational school in Minneapolis where she learned to type by re-typing the speeches of Henry Ford. She met Ole Albert Trowbridge when she was 18 years old (Ole failed to mention that he was already married with six children at home.) They married about 1933 and moved to Washington State in 1934, with a stop in North Dakota. At first, they stayed with Ole’s sister Louise Chapman in Redmond. Their first and only child together—my father Charles D. Smith—was born there. Later, they rented a home of their own in Black Diamond. They traveled to the town of Westby on the Montana/North Dakota border when Charles was about two years old (“for a funeral”) (This funeral may have been for Ole’s father Lewis Jerome Trowbridge, but no record has been located.). Lorraine separated from Ole in the fall of 1938 when she learned that he was a married man who had deserted his first wife. (Whatever suspicions or misgivings she may have had earlier, Lorraine stated firmly that she had no knowledge of Ole’s previous marriage until the day in 1938 when a private detective hired by Ole’s first wife knocked on their door in Black Diamond.). She resumed her maiden name and moved back to Minneapolis—a single mother during the last years of the Great Depression. Lorraine met Phillip Lyle Smith in Minnesota, and they were married July 3, 1942 in Brooklyn Center. After the wedding, they moved into a rented house in nearby New Brighton, north of Minneapolis. She found work at a munitions factory in New Brighton that manufactured 20mm cartridges and earned about thirty-five cents an hour ($14 a week). She and Phillip, accompanied by her mother Emily and son Charles, moved back to Washington State in April 1943 to look for work in the war production factories near Seattle. At first, they lived in a housing project in Bremerton because Phillip found work there with Associated Shipbuilders (1943-1945). After the war they purchased a small farm (about seven acres) in Lynwood, southwest of Everett. Charles attended Everett High School, and he joined the U.S. Naval Reserves (something like today’s JROTC) at age 16. Despite being just one semester short of graduation, he left school and joined the U. S. Air Force in 1952. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Dean A. Billette, who had enlisted in the U. S. Air Force in 1950. Phillip and Lorraine moved to the Bay Area about Christmastime 1959, selling the house in Lynwood for about $8,500. Lorraine had given birth to her second child—Phillip Lyle Smith, Jr.—in 1943 soon after they moved to Bremerton. Phillip, Jr. had begun showing symptoms of the Hodgkin’s disease that would eventually kill him, and they hoped that better medical care might be available in California. They lived in Hayward for two or three years. Phillip Jr. died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1962. After that, they lived in San Pablo for seven years(Lorraine’s mother moved to Palo Alto, across the bay from Hayward, because Dean was working for Hewlett-Packard there.). Phillip, Sr. worked for Watson-Wilson Transportation System until 1964; but at the time of his death, he had worked for Yellow Freight Company (as a mechanic) for six and a half years. Phillip died—of heart disease (myocardial infarction) complicated by emphysema and diabetes—on September 21, 1970 at Brookside Hospital in San Pablo and was buried in Rolling Hills Memorial Cemetery in El Sobrante (just east of San Pablo). Lorraine never learned to drive until after her fortieth birthday, but when Phillip died she took a course offered by the State of California and learned to drive a school bus. She worked for the Contra Costa School System from 1971 until 1975. She also moved from San Pedro to Pittsburg (Port Chicago) in 1972, then to Concord in 1976. She married Ernest E. Kempe on January 3, 1976 in Reno, Nevada. Mr. Kempe died on September 17, 1977 in Concord. Lorraine lived alone for the next thirty-two years, but she enjoyed many outings with her friends and an occasional road trip to visit relatives. She died November 13, 2009 at John Muir Hospital in Concord. She is buried next to Phillip Smith in Rolling Hills Memorial Park (Spaces 3 & 4, Lot 1022, Acacia Lawn Section). She and Mr. Smith purchased these spaces in 1971 just before he passed away. The children of Ole Albert and Lorraine Marguerite (nee Billette) Trowbridge included: Charles Darald Trowbridge a.k.a. Charles Darald Smith (According to Lorraine Charles was built like his father, but his features favored the Billettes. Although Phillip Smith never legally adopted him, Charles regarded Mr. Smith as his “real” father. He attended school as Charles D. Smith and joined the military using that name. However, it was 1954 before he actually changed his legal surname from Trowbridge to Smith.) (b. November 28, 1934 in Redmond, Washington) (m. Beverley Ann Smith, Oct 9, 1954 in Clovis, NM) (d. April 20, 1991 in Clovis, New Mexico) (buried Mount Zion Cemetery, Keokuk County, IA) The children of Phillip Lyle and Lorraine Marguerite (nee Billette) Smith included: Phillip Lyle Smith, Jr. (b. May 24, 1943 in Bremerton, Washington) (d. of Hodgkin’s Disease on July 17, 1962 in Richmond, CA) (buried in Lot #65, Subdivision #2, Hillview Section of Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, California—near his grandmother Emily Billette) Aimé Toussaint “Emil” Billette was born on January 29, 1886 in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota (Aimé or Aimée can be a nickname for a male or female whose given name is actually Amable (meaning ‘friendly’). If my genealogy is correct Emil’s grandmother was named Amable.). His parents were Toussaint and Marie (nee Loiselle) Billette. He was baptized at St. Clothilde’s Parish (now St. Anne’s) by Father Lucien Nougaret (Father Nougaret was the first pastor of this French-speaking parish, established in April 1884. Most of the parishioners were recent immigrants from Quebec. The original church was a frame building purchased from a Protestant congregation, but it was replaced by a brick building at the corner of 11th and Lyndale Avenue North in 1886. Reverend Damasus Richard served as pastor from 1902 to 1952, and he oversaw the transition from French-speaking to English-speaking congregations in 1920. He also moved the church to a new site at 2627 Queen Avenue North. .). His sponsors were Joseph Duclaure and Adelaide Boucher. He was called Aimé as a child, but used the name Emil (pronounced: “Ee-mill”) when he got older. Emil suffered a bout of rheumatic fever while still in school, which damaged his heart.(He had gone skating on a pond and became heated, so he lay down on the ice. When he got up he had a chill and became sick.). In 1910, he was working as a locomotive engineer at the Uno Mining Company in Stuntz Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota. This was a mine railroad that hauled nothing but iron ore. He married Emily Cordelia White on July 18, 1911 at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament (by Rev. C. Gamache. Father C. V. Gamache, originally from Detroit, served in Hibbing in the 1890s and up to about 1910; he arrived in Nashwauk in 1911 and stayed until at least 1916 when the rectory was built. He was ordained in 1882.) in Hibbing, St. Louis County, Minnesota. The witnesses were her brother Mike White and a woman named Elizabeth Ryan (possibly her aunt or her cousin). Emily was born on April 19, 1889 in Cadott, Wisconsin; she was the daughter of William and Bridget (nee Riley) White. The couple moved to Minneapolis before April 21, 1913. They lived at 1002 Emerson Avenue-North. Emil worked part-time as a chauffeur, but his impaired health made it difficult for him to keep a job. He filled out a World War I draft registration card in 1917 in Crosby, Minnesota and identified himself as “Emil Taussaint [sic] Billette.” In 1920, the family was living in Robbinsdale, a small community just north of Minneapolis. The family visited Emily’s brother William T. “Bill” White in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania about 1920. Uncle Bill and Emily’s other brother Mike White helped Emil become a steam shovel operator. The family then settled briefly in Hopedale, Ohio—before moving to Barberton, Ohio (near Akron). After a couple of years in Ohio, Emil moved his family back to Minneapolis.(The home was located somewhere on James Avenue North in the vicinity of St. Anne’s Parish Church—probably between the 1100 block and 2000 block. This would have been near the house at 1156 Fremont Avenue North that Toussaint Billette owned as early as 1889. The church was located first on the corner of 11th Avenue and Lyndale Avenue North (the latter is a north-south street a few blocks east of James Avenue), then moved to 2627 Queen Avenue North (which is a north-south street a few blocks west of James Avenue.). He landed a job in the town of Crosby because he owned a stake-bed truck, which he used to deliver candy and soda.(His employer was formerly one of the largest distilleries in Minnesota. They switched to soda and candy during Prohibition, though rumor has it that some of their delivery trucks still carried samples of their former product line.). About 1928, he was hired as a steam shovel operator on a construction project building a system of locks and dams on the Mississippi River near Hastings, Minnesota. The family was still living in Hastings at the time of the 1930 Census (dated April 10th), but Emil had become a salesman. Sometime soon afterward, they moved back to Minneapolis again. About 1937, Emil and Emily Billette moved out to Washington State and were living in Enumclaw (a small town about 30 miles east of Tacoma). Their son Mack moved to Klickitat County in southern Washington about 1930 (or before), which is probably what influenced his parents to migrate west. At the time of his death, Emil was selling Singer Sewing Machine’s. He died on December 15, 1937 at the home of his son-in-law Ole Albert Trowbridge in Black Diamond (8 miles north of Enumclaw), King County, Washington. The cause of death was myocarditis (“clinical [diagnosis]1935”).(Lorraine Billette remembered her father’s death this way. Her sister Mardell and her husband Robert Hall lived less than a block from where she and Ole lived in Black Diamond, Washington. Lorraine’s father was at her house. Mardell was at home and was trying to light a lamp similar to a Coleman lantern (i.e. one that ran on gas and had to be pumped to obtain pressure). The gas in the lamp ignited with a bang, and Mardell screamed. Emil jumped up and ran to help her, thinking that she had been injured. With his bad heart, the run and the excitement were too much for him. He dropped dead half way between the two houses. Mardell wasn’t even hurt. Lorraine said that she didn’t hold the incident against her sister because he did have weak heart and “could have gone at any time.” However, as she related the story, she remarked that she herself had never been one “to scream and screech” like that. She was her father’s favorite and loved him very much. She wished she had had her father for a little longer and further remarked that it was a horrible year for them all.). He is buried in Evergreen Memorial Park in Enumclaw, Washington.(Emily (nee White) Billette paid $15 on April 16, 1938 for his burial and burial plot—which is Grave, 4, Block 7, Section 2 in Evergreen Cemetery, Enumclaw, Washington. Lorraine (nee Billette) Smith paid to have a granite marker installed in June 1967. Evergreen Memorial Park is located at 23717 SE 416th Street just outside Enumclaw.) Emily (nee White) Billette moved back to Minneapolis (with her daughter Lorraine) in the fall of 1938, and then returned to Washington State in April 1943. Emily was part of the factory work force that built the 5,000th B17 for Boeing in late 1943. In April 1945, she was living in Seattle. She also lived in Everett, Washington, for several years—on the same acreage as daughter Lorraine—separated by a large garden. She moved south to the Bay Area with daughter Lorraine and her second husband Phillip Smith about Christmastime in 1959. She died at the Barrett Convalescent Hospital in Hayward, California on June 9, 1969. She is buried in the Alta Mesa Memorial Cemetery in Palo Alto, California.(She is buried in Lot 68, Subdivision 2, Hillview Section. Her lot cost $131.28 and endowed care cost $43.75 (purchased pre-need in 1966); her interment and concrete liner cost $184.00. The address of the cemetery is Alta Mesa Memorial Park, 695 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94306). The children of Emil and Emily (nee White) Billette included: Unnamed Girl (b. stillborn April 21, 1913 in Minneapolis, MN) (d. April 21, 1913 in Minneapolis, MN) (buried in Dayton, Minnesota) 5. Lorraine Marguerite Billette (b. July 10, 1914 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) (m. 1st Ole Albert Trowbridge in 1933 in Minnesota) (m. 2nd Phillip Lyle Smith; 7/3/1942; New Brighton, MN) (m. 3rd Ernest Kempe on Jan 3, 1975 in Reno, Nevada) (d. November 13, 2009 in Concord, California) (buried Rolling Hills Memorial Park, El Sobrante, CA) Mardell Emily Billette (b. December 2, 1915 in Princeton, Minnesota) (m. Robert Earl “Bob” Hall before 1935; he was born 12/4/1911) (sons William Duane I. “Bill” and Robert Dean “Bob”, Jr.)(Bob died October 20, 2001 in Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada. He was born December 4, 1911 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada to Harry Shaw and Coral Victoria (nee?) Hall. Their sons were born in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Robert Dean hall was born May 29, 1935 in Hennepin County, Minnesota; William Duane Hall was born June 22, 1937 in Hennepin County, Minnesota.) (d. Oct 11, 1988 in Delta, Colorado) (cremated and buried with her mother in Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, CA) Dean Amy Billette (b. January 20, 1926 in Crosby, Minnesota). (m. Bridget “Bridie” Canny, Oct 11, 1952 in Albu., NM. Bridget “Bridie” Canny was born August 16, 1922 in Clonmany, County Dunegal, Ireland; she came to the U.S. on August 13, 1947.) (served with USMC during WWII; wounded. He was wounded during a night raid against Japanese forces (shrapnel in the rear) and also contracted malaria. ) (served with USAF 1950 to 1954 during Korean War. Dean A. Billette was a Marine during World War II (enlisted at age 17-18 and discharged at 19 or 20). He was a corporal (radioman/gunner) in a PBJ-1 (a.k.a. the B-25 Mitchell) with Marine Bomber Squadron 423, Air Group 61 (based mostly on Green Island off the coast of New Britain). He served in the U. S. Air Force (1950-1954) during the Korean War. He shipped over to Southampton, England after basic training—arriving on July 3, 1951 aboard the General G. M. Randall. He trained as a navigator-bombadier on the B-47 at James Connally AFB near Waco, Texas—graduating with the class of September 1952 (Class 52-09), then was stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque and Mountain Home AFB in Idaho. Between the wars, he used the G.I. Bill to attend college and graduated from University of Washington. After Korea, he worked for Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, etc.) (d. February 24, 2001 in Rockaway Beach, Missouri) (buried June 8, 2001 in the Missouri Veterans Cemetery) (Section C01, Site 084 in Springfield, Missouri)