| Notes |
- SOURCE: APPLETON POST CRESCENT OBITUARY
Thursday, February 21, 1980
Clarence Bouressa
117 Canal St.
Little Chute
Age 73, died unexpectedly at 2 p.m. Wednesday. He was born July 16, 1906 in Oconto. He had been employed as a foreman for the Kimberly Clark Corp. prior to his retirement in 1955. Mr. Bouressa was a member of their Quarter Century Club, the Knights of Columbus, The Holy Name Society, the NARP, the Kimberly Management Club and the Little Chute Golden Agers.
Survivors include his wife, Regina C. Verstegen Bouressa; four daughters, Mrs. Kenneth M. [Carol] Janssen, Mrs. Janet Siebers, and Mrs. Noel [Ellen] Vanden Heuvel, all of Little Chute; and Mrs. David [Jayne] Smits, Kaukauna; two sons and daughters in-law, Dr. James and Mona Bouressa, Neenah; and Dr. Philllip and Bernadette Bouressa, Kimberly; two brothers, Joseph, Kimberly; and Frank, Arizona; four sisters, Mrs. Walter [Verge] Koeppen, Milwaukee; Mrs. Ed [Lydia] Wagner, and Mrs. Norris [Agnes] Illten, both of Madison; and Mrs. Clarence [Emma] Schwartz, Sun Prairie; 16 grandchildren, six great grandchildren.
The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday at St. John Catholic Church, Little Chute with the Rev. Msgr. James Vanden Hogen officiating. Interment will be in the parish cemetery. Friends may call at the Verkuilen Funeral Home from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday and from 9:30 a.m. Friday until the hour of service. There will be a Golden Ager's Rosary at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and a parish prayer service at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. A memorial has been established.
- CLARENCE BOURESSA FAMILY
A pretty girl brought Frenchman, Clarence Bouressa to live in the Dutch Village of Little Chute. Regina Verstegen, daughter of Joseph (youngest son of Arnold Verstegen) and Ann (Van Gompel) Verstegen, captured his heart.
Clarence Bouressa was born and raised in Kimberly. He was the son of Philip and Delia (Courchane) Bouressa and one of 11 children. A handsome man, 6 ft. tall with black, curly hair, Clarence did a lot of his courting using the streetcar that ran next to the Verstegen homestead -formerly on the site of the present Little Chute Post Office. Regina (who everyone called Gina) and Clarence (whose nicImame was "Shanny") were married on June 27, 1928. From that union, there were six children: Jim, Carol, Janet, Phil, Ellen and Jayne.
The first four children were born within five years between 1929 and 1934. Some of their earliest memories were the wonderful games their father played with them. A small bowling set not only was fun but also taught the four children how to mark and score the game. Toy 3" soldiers, union and confederate, were set up to be shot at with rubber bands or Imocked over with marbles. The kids looked forward to their Dad coming home from work at Kimberly Clark Corporation in Kimberly and every night would run to meet him. He would put one child on his shoulders and would carry the other children in his arms.
In 1941 and 1950, two more girls were born into the family. The older brothers and sisters gave these new babies lots of attention-remember there was no TV -and as a result, when Ellen went to kindergarten she knew how to read and write because her older brothers and sisters taught her in the long, winter evenings. Ellen started kindergarten, but was bored with the kindergarten of those days -a rest period, sandbox play and games -and came home and told her mother she quit school. In those days, her mother let her! The youngest of the family, Jayne, born when Regina was 42, was the apple of her family's eye! Jayne was instrumental in bridging the gap between the older and new generation.
Living on the Fox River on Canal Street had many advantages to the kids when they were growing up. Clarence built a dock and also, with the help of a friend, built his own boat. He steamed the wood to shape the boat. Every one of the children learned how to swim and would take the boat out to the middle of canal and dive off. In the winter, the Fox River was drained to save wear and tear on the locks, but enough water was left in the canal to freeze into an ice skating pond. It was the center of ice skating for the whole town, and everyone would come and build bon fires in the rocks surrounding the ice to keep wann while they skated. Clarence used clamp-on ice skates and took the children ice skating on the canal. One adventure only lasted ten minutes as Clarence broke through the ice and sunk up to his knees into the surrounding, smelly muck.
In later years, Clarence would have his son-in law pick him up in the boat from Kimberly Clark. He would jump off the dock behind the mill into the boat, and the two of them would go fishing by the Kimberly dam. One time the pressure from the water on the dam sucked their boat under water and they got caught in the dam. Today, this area is roped off as a dangerous spot in the Fox River.
In their earlier days, the Bouressa family had kerosene stove, an icebox and no hot water. They also had a cistern in the basement -a cement wall 2 to 3 feet from the ceiling with a faucet and plug on the front of the wall -used to collect rainwater from the eavestroughs. That water was heated in a big copper boiler on a woodstove in the basement and used for washing clothes. A green pump in the kitchen brought the water upstairs where it was heated in a teakettle for other uses. One time Jim and his friends went fishing and threw their catch in the cistern. No one knew they did this until it started smelling and then Clarence had to drain the whole cistern and scrub it out which was done routinely once a year.
The Bouressa family got most of their food from a large garden that was spread over two adjoining lots. One of the children's memories of their mom is her excellent cooking. They can remember many days coming home from swimming at Doyle Park to the aroma of freshly baked food. Regina also made all the children's clothes. Even though Regina was a meticulous housekeeper, twice yearly -spring and fall -she housecleaned the entire home. It was a big job to do years ago. Because of the coal that was used to heat the home, every rug had to be taken out to the clothesline and beat witha 12 x l5-inch wire rug beater to get the dust out. Her Dutch ancestry of cleanliness showed itself by having not only the rugs, but also every item taken out of the house to be scrubbed and cleaned. Regina was a little woman, always wearing two-inch high heels to make her five feet tall and very well read -in fact, she skipped a grade and graduated at 17 years of age.
Fruit from the many trees surrounding the Bouressa home was used to make cherry wine. The wine was put in crock pots with spigots and stored in the basement on the cistern wall. When Clarence served the wine to his friends, he couldn't understand why he had so little and wondered if the wine was evaporating. Finally he discovered that the children and their many friends sampled the wine when they came from ice skating and swimming. They just opened the spigots and left it run right in their mouths!
In 1946, the family built a new home on 117 Canal Street. It was built next to the former house they had rented for 18 years. Because the new home was built into the river hill, Clarence had to put walls around the house to hold the ground next to the house's foundation. He did this by getting river rock from the power plant that was being built at the time in Combined Locks. Truckloads ofhuge rocks were dumped in front ofthe new house. Looking out the new house's front window was overwhelming! Clarence, the boys and their good friends split the many rocks with a stone chisel and a sledgehammer. They wheeled the rocks down the sides of the house in . wheelbarrows and painstakingly piled the river rock into walls around two sides and the back of the house -each wall 6 to 12 feet high.
When he was 49, Clarence suffered a severe stroke. The stroke left him paralyzed on his right side and affected his speech. His pretty wfe from Little Chute, Regina, served as his dedicated caregiver for 25 years. His determination to recover and her determination to make him the best he could be helped him live his later years as a model of courage for the rest of the family.
Clarence died at 72, Regina at 89. Their children all married and live in the area. Today, there are 19 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren that descended from the love of Regina and Clarence.
SIX BOURESSA CHILDREN
DECENDENTS OF CLARENCE AND REGINA
Dr. Jim married Mona Vanden Heuvel -4 children: Dr. Mike, Claire,
Robert and Dr. Paul Carol married Ken Janssen -4 children: Kathy, Tim, Todd and Jeff Janet married Orville Siebers -2 children: Amy and BeckyRemarried
Les Janssen Dr. Phil married Bernadette (Birdie) Kneepkens -3 children:
Terry, Dr. Tim and Tom Ellen married Noel Vanden Heuvel-3 children: Dan, David and Erin Jayne married Dr. David Smits -3 children: Neil, Todd and Kevin
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1906 - 1980 (73 years)
