Belanger & Boyer Family
Neil Boyer, Mary Belanger, and an unknown child with a partially finished cedar mat.
Jones met Mary Belanger, a widow, at a store that she opperated in Garden River. Mrs. Belanger told Jones that she had learned to make baskets and mats from her grandmother. Mrs. J. W. Pine told Jones that she had also instructed Mary Belanger.
Volney Jones asked Mrs. Belanger to show him how she prepared cedar for weaving and to make a large mat for him. She also showed him how she made natural dyes. In making the mat, she was assisted by Neil Boyer and his wife, Sophia. He also collected prepared basswood bark and twine that Mrs. Belanger made.
Learn more about how Mrs. Belanger Wove Cedar and used Natural Dyes.
In his notes and publications, Jones misspelled Mary's last name "Bellanger" and refers to Neil’s wife as her daughter. Based on genealogical research (by Lisa Young in 2021), Jones was mistaken. Mary Belanger was born in 1878 and is the older sister of Sophia (Belanger) Boyer, Neil’s wife. When Jones first meets Mary he called her "Mrs. Joe Belanger." In the 1921 Census of Canada, Mary was living in a household with Joseph Belanger, who is her widowed father, not her husband.
Explore the items made and gathered by the Belanger & Boyer family
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