Continuation of tree (14th child of Joseph Louis Pitre/2nd wife Veronique Martin); all known surname descendants:
8 Joseph Jerome Pitre b: 1 September 1905 St. Alexis, Matapedia, Quebec; d: 15 September 1948 Newburyport, Essex, MA
+Viola Ellen Durken b: 17 November 1910 Burlingame, Kansas; m: 23 December 1928 Gillespie, Macoupin, IL [John/Viola Dunbar]; d: 5 April 2009 Johnstown, Licking, OH
9 Viola Peters b: March 1930 Illinois; d. Aft. 1950
+Richard H. Milner b: Abt. 1930 Massachusetts; m: Abt. 1949
9 Jerome Joseph Peters b: 13 January 1934 Newbury, Essex, MA; d: 12 February 2006 Lakeside, Navajo, AZ
+Marilyn Louise Young m: 23 September 1956 Braintree, Norfolk, MA
Notes for Joseph Jerome Pitre:
Census
- 1930 Detroit, Wayne, Michigan: Jerome Peters 24 labor/general, wife Viola 19, Viola M. 1 month.
- 1940 Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts: Jerome Peters 34 farm labor, wife Viola 29, Viola 10, Jerome 6 [98 High Road]
- 1950 Newbury, Essex, MA: Edmund R. Boucher 24 finisher/silver manufacturing film, wife Viola E. 39 (KS) supervisor/silver manufacturing film, stepson Jerome J. Peters 16 clerk/retail grocery store.
Murder report: Boston Herald, Thursday, 16 September 1948: (photo - Jerome Peters - Night Watchman found dead in a Newburyport factory) Ice pick used in slaying - Watchman victim in Newburyport plant: Newburyport, Sept. 15 - The brutal slayer of Jerome Peters, 42-year-old night watchman at the Towle Manufacturing Company here, whose body was found beaten and stabbed in a company carpenter shop early this morning, was being sought tonight by local and state police. Peters had been bludgeoned on the head with a steel pinch bar and stabbed through the heart with an ice pick just before dawn, minutes after he had made a routine call to Newburyport police from a phone 20 feet from where his body was found. The killer, who, police theorized, surprised the watchman as he left the phone, took nothing from his victim or from the shop, famed for its manufacture of silverware, because after his savage attack, he found himself still in a building apart from the silver shop itself. At first police were confronted with what appeared to be a phantom murderer, since the slayer disappeared from the scene while leaving the shop's only three doors locked from the inside. Peters' body was discovered by Arthur J. Corey, 42, of 1 Vernon street, the night fireman, who went to look for the watchman when he did not return at 5 A.M. after his 4 A.M. tour of stations. Back-tracking all of Peters' steps, he found the carpenter shop locked, crawled in through an open window without observing the body on the floor in the darkness, broke open a door and returned a short time later with Raymond Harris of Lime street, a day-shift employee just arriving for work. Harris snapped on the light to reveal the watchman's body. They told investigators later that Peters had only one more station visit to make before his night's work would have been finished. Dr. Frank W. Snow, medical examiner who performed the autopsy with Dr. Alan R. Moritz of Harvard, state pathologist, said Peters suffered "at least two fractures on the right side of the head, in addition to the stab wound, any of which could have caused death." The watchman's left cheekbone and nose also were fractured. (More details of the scene.) A popular employee of the Towle company, although he had only worked there 11 months, he previously had been a carpenter, fruit grower and truckman working for himself. He leaves his wife, Mrs. Viola Peters, a supervisor of the company's advertising department; a daughter, Marie, 18, who is employed in the cutlery department; a son, Jerome, 14, a freshman at Newburyport High School; seven sisters and five brothers. Three sisters and four brothers live in Canada, where Peters was born. The others are Mrs. Judith Gallant, Mrs. Josephine Gallant, Mrs. Margaret Gallant, all of Ipswich, and Mrs. Georgianna Gallant of Peabody, all of whom married men with the same surname, and Emile Peters of Ipswich.
Notes for Viola Ellen Durken:
- Viola remarried to Edmund Robert Boucher
Back one generation to parents of Joseph Jerome Pitre
Items in RED have been verified against parish register entries.
- Deaths in RED from online death certificates (1920-1934).
- New Brunswick marriages in RED also from Vital Statistics Records (online)
Last updated: 4 July 2022.