Person:Marie-Catherine Charette (1)

Marie-Catherine Charette is carried on the Potawatomi rolls as 1/2 Potawatomi blood, however her Indian ancestry is doubtful. Since her first husband, Jude Bourassa, was an important member of the tribe, she may have been adopted into the tribe as were many white people who lived among the Potawatomi. Marie-Catherine had an Indian name, "MahNees", which means "Mary" in the Potawatomi dialect.

In the 1820's or early 1830's, Catherine and her family must have traveled through the Lakes to Detroit and then across the Great Sauk Trail to the St. Joseph River Region, near the present day town of Niles, Michigan.

At the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Potawatomi began ceding large tracts of their territory to the US. By the time that Marie-Catherine was married to Jude Bourassa, in 1833, by a Jesuit priest of the Chapel of St. Marys of the Lake (Notre Dame, IN), the removal of the Indians from the Northwest Territory was in full swing.

On August 15, 1837, 170 Potawatomi from St. Joseph, Michigan, left the area and joined a group of about 300 on the Des Plaines River in Illinois and marched to Shabbona's Grove, about 25 miles west of the Fox River where they stayed until Setember 4. They arrived at the Platte River in western Missouri on October 25, 1837 where they split in to 2 groups. 287 Tribesmen from northern Illinois led by Patogoshuk (Lead in a Heap), refused to go to the Osage River Subagency. They turned north preferring to join Chief Billy Caldwell's Indians at Council Bluff, Iowa. The 164 Potawatomi from St. Joseph, Michigan, led by Chief Topinbee (He Who Sits Quietly), turned south to the Osage Reserve in Kansas. Jude's mother, Theoti Posange, a full-blood Potawatomi, died there in 1840. It was written that Jude was involved in the petty politics of the tribe during the 1840's.

The move to the new Reserve, on the Kansas River, came in the late 1840's. The Kansas Historical Society has in Vol. 4 of the Colletions, pg 623, in "Exec. Minutes of Gov. Geary", he states, "Stopped at Jude Bourassa's, an enterprising Indian, having a good mill and cultivating a good farm.

Helen, the youngest child of Marie-Catherine and Jude, was born in 1856 and Marie-Catherine was married to Bazil Grimard(Gremore) on November 21, 1859 at St Mary's Church, so Jude Bourassa must have died between 1856 and 1859. He was buried near Mill Creek where he had his farm and mill. There are several Indian cemeteries near there with stone markers that do not indicate the person's name and many wooden markers that have rotted away.

Marie-Catherine had one child, Peter Bazil Greemore, born January 5, 1862, by her second husband.

Bazil Gremore died July 4, 1863 and Marie-Catherine lived on until March 17, 1872. She died in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, perhaps at Jude's farm. Her burial site is not known but it is possibly in the same cemetery where Jude was buried. Peter, who was 10 years old at the time of his mother's death, was taken in by Delilah Bourassa, his half-sister, and they were among The earliest Potawatomi to settle in Oklahoma.

SOURCE: Research by Jim and Mary Prine and information from Dorothy Strickland of Shawnee, Oklahoma