A portion of the first French people to arrive at the Turtle River were directed to this location by a society of Catholic ladies known as the St. Michael Society. They hoped to rehabilitate young people of good families by sending them out to be colonists in faraway Canada. Among the names mentioned to be the first ones sent were Robert de la Tremblay, formerly an officer in the marine infantry, Jules Toysonnier of whom no family record could be found, a Parisian, Louis Dupuich who had a wife and family, Joseph de la Salmoniére from the Segré (Maine et Louire) area, he was a past student of the School of Agriculture of Beauvais. Then a bit later came Charles de Caqueray of Vannes, he was the godchild of a Mgr. Dupanloup.

This first group of French colonists seemed to be under the direction of Jules Toysonnier who was successful in raising horses. These people cannot be qualified as the first pioneers in charge because none of them resided in the area for any length of time.

On Easter Monday of 1891, there came to the Turtle River, the first real French pioneers, Edmond Didion and his eldest son Jules, his wife (Catherine) and three other children, Berthe, Edmond, and Marguerite, followed a few weeks later. Edmond Didion born at Puligny (Meuse) was a cloth manufacturer at Anvers. He had married the daughter of a family named Klynens of the Eupen region of Belgium. They had three children: she died and he later married her sister Catherine and they had four children of whom three were born in Ste Rose. Mr. Didion had been on a business trip to Canada and it was while talking to a fellow traveller that he decided to sell his business in France and come to establish himself in Manitoba, on the banks of the Turtle River area, which had been so enthusiastically described to him by this traveller. He believed life would be better for them as farmers in this area.

In the cemetery in Ste. Rose, we can find on a small tomb a cross with the name DiMarco. It is the grandson of the ill-fated Dupuich, who died while his mother came to visit the family.

On May 22, 1892, Mr. William Shannon from Ste. Rose, wrote a letter to Archbishop Taché in Winnipeg. stating in this letter that the community was steadily growing and they were far from any church and any children being brought up in the area would be sadly lacking in religious instruction, and the Sunday devotions were not as they should be, due to lack of guidance. It was estimated that about 40 families would assist at mass if there was a priest. They had built a small church in readiness for the possibility of the coming of a missionary or resident priest. In the years preceding, a missionary came by occasionally and celebrated mass. He celebrated for the first time on March 24, 1890, baptized children and performed weddings. Then in August 1892, Mr. Firmin Hamelin also wrote to the Archbishop also begging him to send a priest, because it was rumoured that a public school was soon to be opened and a Protestant had come to the area with the view to it being a Protestant school, As most of the residents were French and Catholic; this was not to their liking! And so, in the fall of 1892, Archbishop Taché, in answer to these and other demands, named a resident priest for Ste. Rose du Lac, and he was to also have as missions, Sandy Bay, Ebb and Flow, Alonsa and Dauphin. It was by this priest that the name of the parish became known as Ste. Rose du Lac.

As you enter Ste. Rose from the south, on your left hand you will notice our beautiful grotto. This is a replica of the Lourdes France grotto where the Virgin Mary made her apparitions to Ste. Bernadette in 1858, and where many miracles have been attributed since.

(Source: Reflections - A History of Sainte-Amelie, Laurier, and Sainte-Rose-du-Lac, p 40 [Adapted])

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Established in 1884.

Dominion Land Survey coordinates: LSD04-09-24-15-W1

In the Municipality of Ste Rose

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As noted above, a part of the town's story, and those of its inhabitants, from the early days of European settlement through roughly 1990 is told in the volume "Reflections - A History of Sainte-Amelie, Laurier, and Sainte-Rose-du-Lac", especially starting on the cited pages. A free digital version of this and many other Manitoba local history books can be found online in the University of Manitoba Digital Collections. There is also a list of such books organized by district and town name on the Manitoba Historical Society's website on their page entitled "Finding Aid: Manitoba Local History Books".

A list of burials in this cemetery is available from the Manitoba Genealogical Society (reference #0285), transcribed by a member or members in 1989 and updated in 1994. Also available to MGS members is a searchable online database named the "MGS Manitoba Name Index" (or MANI). Some additional information is contained in the 1996 MGS publication "Carved in Stone: Manitoba Cemeteries and Burial Sites" (revised edition, Special Projects Publication, 106 pages).

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The St Boniface Historical Society (La Société historique de Saint-Boniface) maintains extensive records of the lives led by and influences of the people in Manitoba who had French ancestry, be it recently from France and Belgium, or by way of Quebec.