Friday, April 5, 2024
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A slideshow celebrating the life of Robert Goutier
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https://youtu.be/cGVSD7vF8lA
A tribute about Robert Goutier by his niece, Marie Cusack
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I am so saddened by the passing of my beloved Uncle Robert at the young age of 78 years. He had a big presence in the family and will be dearly missed. Many fondly remember his great ability to tell a story about absolutely anything with humourous details and a contagious chuckle. Others remember being fascinated when he told them as youngsters to always brush their teeth or else they would lose them, and then to their horror he would pop out his dentures! When amazed by something he would say, “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” He loved wearing western shirts with the snaps, Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots and big buckles and was known as the cowboy uncle with the big bushy beard. He was last clean shaven almost 50 years ago when his father died in 1975.
Robert was a thoughtful and loving uncle to more than 150 nieces, nephews and their children and children’s children living across Canada. A lifelong bachelor, we cherished the many times he helped us out with his time or with gifts. When the local Vermilion store, Craig’s, closed down, he bought more than 50 toddler outfits to give away as his family had babies. It was a real honour to receive a gift from Uncle Robert and have him add the baby’s name into his family tree database, in a similar way that the pioneers added new babies into the family bible.
Early Years
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Robert had very deep roots in Vermillion, AB having lived in the area most of his life except for a brief 10-year period in his late 20’s and early 30’s. He grew up on a farm about 16 miles southeast of Vermilion, AB, where he was the youngest in a French-Catholic family of nine children. As a baby he had bad eczema and the only way his older sisters could keep him from crying was to bounce him on the bed. One day in 1946 when he was one year old, his sisters were bouncing him on the big bed in the side room on the west side of the big house. They bounced him so hard he flew off the bed and landed in a wooden box full of dishes waiting to be put away after renovations. He cut his chin wide open and had the scar his whole life, choosing to hide the scar under his beard.
Robert spent most of his first six years alone at home with only his parents, two uncles and his sister Jeanne for company. His seven older siblings were all away at boarding school in Vegreville and he only saw them when they returned for holidays and summer vacation. He didn't really know his siblings while growing up.
When Robert thought about his early days on the farm, he remembered with horror the annual cleaning of the big house, wiping off black soot spewed from the wood stove onto all walls and ceiling - what a terrible chore! He remembered the excitement of going to town and to church, and of getting the mail from the Kokanee store just south of the farm. He loved attending the fair every year with his siblings who were home from school for summer vacation. His father and siblings would all pile into the car and pretend to be little, so they never had to pay the full admission at the gate. Robert attended the fair every year that he could, including this past summer of 2023.
He attended grade 1 at St. Martin's School in Vegreville while boarding at the convent across the street, although he spent half of that year home sick with chicken pox. When the convent in Vegreville closed to boarders in about 1952, he then attended grades 2 to 7 in Morinville while boarding at the convent there. In grade 4 in Morinville, his teacher was his older sister, Marie. Robert remembered with glee when the school in Morinville burnt down in about 1955 in the middle of the night. The boarders at the convent across the street all got up from sleep to watch it burn to the ground. They later found out that the oily rags used to wipe the chalkboards had spontaneously ignited. After Morinville, he attended Collège St. Jean in Edmonton, AB for grades 8 to 10.
At age 16, he quit school in 1961 after grade 10 to go back to the family farm in Vermilion. His two uncles, Pierre and Fernand Goutier, who co-owned the farm with his dad, Paul Goutier, had moved in 1959 to a senior’s home in St. Albert, AB. This left his parents alone and without help on the farm until Robert moved back home. Robert and his dad managed the farm for the next eight years until they could no longer keep it going as costs were overtaking revenue. In 1969, Robert’s parents sold the farm and moved with 24-year-old Robert to their daughter, Therese’s, farm in Perigord, SK.
However, farming in Perigord wasn’t enough to support so many adults needing a livelihood. Therese’s husband’s brother, Armand Pelletier, who lived in Golden, BC, invited Robert and Therese’s son, Marcel, to apply at the sawmill in Golden, BC. Despite laying off many of its workers, the sawmill in Golden hired Robert and Marcel because they were "farm boys" and knew how to work hard. Robert’s first job at the mill was shovelling snow off the mill's roof and he then became a debarker operator. When the mill slowed down, and he got laid off 10 years later in the late 1970s, he became a bulldozer operator working in northern Alberta on seismic crews bulldozing trees and bush for right-of-ways.
Robert returned to Vermilion in about 1980 and bought his current acreage located 8 miles southeast of Vermilion, AB and 8 miles north of the farm he grew up on. His oldest sister, Suzanne, moved in with him, and together over the next 19 years they built a big house, outbuildings and planted a variety of trees to create a tranquil three-acre park. When Suzanne moved out in 1999, Robert continued to live on his acreage taking great care and pride in maintaining the beautiful grounds around his house.
Work
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As one of the last family to farm, Robert was always eager to explain how farming was done. He was proud and happy to answer questions like “What are those yellow fields in Alberta in the summer?” He loved to drill deep in everything he did, and he did this too in explaining the answer to this question, which was “It’s a field of canola.” In 2005, he photographed and measured the growth of canola from planting a canola seed to seeing it sprout to watching it grow to over his head. Then he had his great-niece build a PowerPoint deck and take a photo of a canola field for the title photo.
Robert was a great woodworker, electrician, mechanic and all-around handyman. Known as a dependable, hard worker with deep knowledge and expertise about farming, he was always able to find work as a hired hand on neighbours' farms in the Vermilion area. He worked for 14 years for the Teasdale's, 11 years for Don Stewart, 1 more year back at Teasdale's, 9 years for Stan Stewart, and lastly, for the Kern's since 2016. The farm families he worked for as a hired hand loved how skilled he was and how well he took care of their equipment – oiling and maintaining everything. And he loved working for his farm neighbours, taking pride in doing a good job.
Robert loved to tell his family the numbers of farming. He would detail these numbers in his contribution to the chain letter that circulated quarterly among his siblings. He often gave numbers about days on combining during harvest in the fall or days spent rock picking in the spring. Robert loved wide open spaces and loved driving tractors and big multi-million-dollar farm machines. This fall he was excited to learn that the farm owners had bought a new big tractor for him to use rock picking in spring 2024. Rock picking was his specialty in later years, and he had many stories about the 300 loads of rocks he’d pick every spring, and the big rocks that caused him trouble in pulling out.
If he had been born 50 years later, Robert would surely have been the IT nerd for his family and friends. Robert may only have had grade 10 education but he self-taught himself about many things, including computers. He was comfortable with many different software programs including those for genealogy to keep track of family and those satellite GPS programs in his tractors. It was a marvel he could manage all of the many settings for GPS to drive his tractor, combine or other farm equipment. He would get it all set up so that his equipment could automatically turn corners in the field and do a return pass that overlapped exactly 6 inches with his previous pass, all while Robert had hands off the steering wheel to take photos or phone people.
Hobbies
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Robert wasn’t much for sitting around and watching TV. He kept busy with many hobbies over the years.
In the 1970s during his frequent long drives from Golden, BC to his parent’s home in Perigord, SK, he would visit non-stop with other CB radio enthusiasts along the way using his long-time handle of ‘paycheque.’ When the CB trend faded away, he started up with short-wave radio and visited with people from around the world. In the 1990s he started a new hobby doing woodworking projects. He bought so many woodworking tools that he needed to build a separate heated outbuilding the size of a garage to hold them all.
In 2017 he used the woodworking garage for the last time to build a magnificent high-tech purple martin condo that looked like something a tornado storm chaser would use to monitor the weather. His design was so fantastic that the organizers of the purple martin conference that Robert attended annually asked him to be a speaker on condo design. He was very happy to have a pair of purple martins find and live in his condo last year, and then again, this year in 2023. He was a proud papa taking photos of their babies and documenting their lives from egg to learning to fly to leaving the nest.
Family Historian
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One of Robert’s hobbies has left a long-lasting legacy – his love of family tree research for the Goutier’s, the Imler’s and many other families who are connected by marriage. Robert was known as the family historian and the keeper of our ancestral genealogy. He was such a good detective, persevering in finding online information even if it was written in Old Latin and stored in the archives of 15th Century churches in France.
He said his genealogy hobby started when he inherited a mess of boxes and papers when his father died in 1975, and then he received more papers when his mother died in 1998. But he really got going with organizing and researching the family tree when he bought his first computer in 1995. Over the years he tried more than 15 types of family tree software, before finally settling on Roots Magic. As of 2023, he had entered more than 12,000 names in the family tree database.
We are going to miss Robert’s dedication at family reunions to collecting updates and photos for adding to the family tree. He was always at the genealogy table with a smile and a story about our family history. And then he went the extra mile, producing and mailing out hard copy books.
We give Robert a million thanks for the decades of his time researching and maintaining the family tree. We are thankful he has inspired some family in the younger generations to follow in his genealogy footsteps.
Conclusion
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Whether family, friend, farmer or neighbour, Robert found a place in everyone's heart and his passing leaves a big hole in our lives. Robert was a real treasure with his easy laugh and funny stories. He was so kind, helpful and friendly, taking an interest in everyone. We are heartbroken that Robert is gone, but we must remember his advice in a 2008 interview to family, “Whatever happens, happens.”
He is now with many other loved ones in Heaven, and we wish him everlasting peace with Christ.
Robert Goutier passed away at the age of 78 on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, at Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton, AB from complications after gall bladder removal surgery on November 30, 2023. He was predeceased by his parents, Paul and Ellen Goutier; sister, Suzanne Benoit; and brothers Maurice, Camille and Joseph Goutier. He is survived by four sisters: Therese Pelletier of Perigord, SK; Marie Benoit of Ladner, BC; Cecile Helten of Vancouver, BC and Jeanne Lachance of Halifax, NS. Robert is buried with his parents in the St. Albert Catholic cemetery. This is the same cemetery where his brother, Joseph Goutier OMI, is buried, and also his uncles, Fernand and Pierre Goutier.
