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The Dallaire House
57-57B Vaudreuil Street

Dallaire House

A very small house - similar to that at 55 Vaudreuil Street - occupied this lot, part of Janet Louisa Scott's inheritance, long before the foreman Guillaume Barette bought the property in 1890. We do not know whether this structure burned down or was demolished. In 1897-1898, Barette built a new wooden house, two-and-a-half storeys high, in the "Hull style". As soon as the construction was completed, he sold it to Pierre Legault, a 61-year-old day labourer who died soon after.

This sector of Vaudreuil Street just barely escaped the terrible fire of April 1900. Less than two months later, Philomène Charbonneau, Legault's widow, sold the house to Édouard Pelletier, a tailor. He rented it to three families whose homes had burned down: Pelletier's brother-in-law Alphonse Couture, a jeweller; Joseph Letellier, a shoe retailer; and Napoléon Legault, a fireman. Pelletier took over the house in 1902 and covered it in brick. In 1905, he built an extension at the back. In April 1909, Barette, now co-owner of Barette Hardware, repurchased the house from Pelletier, and on December 22, 1911, he bought the right of constitut on Janet Louisa Scott's land, the annual rent from which was nine dollars.

Guillaume Barette, born around 1846, and his wife, Élodie Condon, had five children: Alfred, Rosina, Alexina, Marie-Albertine and Adélard. In 1915 and 1916, Alexina and her husband, Aimé Dallaire, an employee with the New York Central Railway, shared their home. In her parents' house on June 9, 1916, Alexina gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy, Aline and Jean-Philippe. The latter is recognized today as one of Quebec's great artists.

The eldest son in a family of seven boys and four girls, Jean-Philippe studied Commerce at the Collège Notre-Dame in Hull, and entered technical school the following year. In 1935, he studied drawing and painting in Toronto and then attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal. At the age of 20, he had his first exhibition in Ottawa. In 1938, with the help of the Dominican George-Henri Lévesque and Alexandre Taché's family, he obtained a scholarship to study in Paris. He left for France that same year, accompanied by his young wife, Marie-Thérèse Ayotte, daughter of Hormidas Ayotte and Rose Pharand and sister of painter and designer Georges Ayotte. In 1940, they were arrested by the Germans. Dallaire was imprisoned in Stalag 220 in Saint-Denis, and his wife, after two years of internment, went into hiding in Paris. Dallaire was not released until August 25, 1944. A year later, he returned to Canada.

From 1946 to 1952, Dallaire taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City. He painted several large murals and participated in numerous exhibitions. On returning to Ottawa in 1952, he was hired as an animator at the National Film Board (NFB). His work was shown in major exhibitions in several locations, including Sao Paulo, Brazil (1953), the Dominion Gallery in Montreal (1954), and the Robertson Gallery in Ottawa. In 1956, he moved from the capital to Ville Saint-Laurent where the NFB had relocated. In 1958, he left his family and his country to live in Vence, France, where he died on November 27, 1965. He is buried in the Notre-Dame Cemetery in Ottawa.

In 1989, Jacqueline Tardif, manager of the Montcalm Gallery held the first exhibition of Dallaire's work in Hull. The City of Hull acquired four large canvases for the Maison du Citoyen. In summer 1997, the Musée du Québec in Quebec City organized a major Dallaire retrospective, which was extremely successful when it travelled to Montreal. The City of Hull collection does not include the 1954 painting Cadet Rousselle avait trois maisons. It depicts three houses in architectural styles that were very popular in Hull: an Italian-style "hotel"; a house influenced by the Second Empire style; and a house of a type known for many years as a "maison allumette" ("matchstick house") or "Hull-style house" - a poor man's version of the Victorian Picturesque.

Dallaire's grandfather, Guillaume Barette, died on October 17, 1921, leaving the usufruct of his possessions to his wife, and the house to his son Adélard. Nevertheless, Alexina and her family continued to live with her mother, Élodie. When their mother died on January 15, 1936, Adélard, who had left Hull, gave the property to Alexina, who lived there until June 1966. Her son Rémi bought the property and resold it the following year.

The Dallaire house was classified as a historic monument by the City of Gatineau.



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