Is Priscilla Beaulieu of Quebec origin? Yes and no.
The King’s wife was born Priscilla Ann Wagner in New York on May 24, 1945. Her father, James Wagner, was a pilot in the United States Army and her mother, Anna Lillian Iversen, the granddaughter of a Norwegian immigrant. No trace of Beaulieu in baby Priscilla’s family tree.
But there. A few months after his birth, his father died in a plane crash while on leave in Bosnia.
In 1948, Anna married Joseph Paul Beaulieu (1925-2018), also a pilot in the American army. Descendant of a Quebec family established in New Brunswick, then in Maine and Connecticut, Beaulieu adopted Priscilla, bequeathing her his name which she would make famous throughout the world.
Priscilla Presley
Courtesy
Elvis in Quebec
Sofia Coppola’s film, presented these days on the big screen, is inspired by the autobiography Elvis and Me which Priscilla published in 1985. A four-hour miniseries was partly filmed in Quebec in 1987.
For the occasion, we had made up the city of Champlain so that it looked like a German town of the 1950s, in line with the small town of Bad Nauheim, where the young Priscilla, 14 years old, had fallen into the arms of the king of rock and roll, then aged 24, who was doing his military service there in the middle of the Cold War.
The Beaulieus lived on Ferland Street, in Old Quebec, and Elvis lived nearby, on Sainte-Geneviève. You can easily recognize Petit-Champlain, the Côte de la Montagne and Montmorency Park. German flags and a display in the language of Goethe really gave the illusion of being in the land of Konrad Adenauer.
We see the loving couple leaving the old Paris cinema, located right next to the Capitole theater, where in the following decades, two million spectators would go to see the greatest Elvis impersonator in the world. “Everything is in everything,” as Raoul said.
From Thibierge to Beaulieu
The family’s history is complex, made up of changes of names and countries.
The ancestor, Hippolyte Thibierge (1629-1700), originally from Blois in the Loire Valley, arrived in New France in 1662 with his wife and their three children. The couple first settled on Île d’Orléans, then on Rue du Cul-de-Sac in Quebec City where Hippolyte founded a tannery business, as well as a shoemaking business.
Gabriel (1654-1726), the eldest, will be fiscal attorney on the island of Orléans and lord of Anse-aux-Coques, near Pointe-au-Père. His two wives gave him 18 children. His son, Jean François (1691-1769) will have 11, and his grandson Basile (1737-1797) just as many.
Pierre Thivierge (1775-1826), Basile’s son, settled on Isle-aux-Grues. His son Eusebe (1816-1877) was a pilot on the Saint-Laurent. It was his grandson Paul Beaulieu-Thivierge (1858-1923) who dropped the name Thivierge by emigrating to the United States to take that of Beaulieu. His brother Georges, who arrived before him in Maine, would have been the first to change his name, which was not uncommon among French speakers in the United States.
His son Joseph-Paul (1899-1973), a veteran of the First World War, owner of a floor resurfacing company in Groton, Connecticut, is the father of the man who gave his name to Elvis’ wife.
The marriage of Eusèbe Thivierge and Marie-Anne Normand on February 15, 1848 in Saint-Antoine-de-l’Isle-aux-Grues.
Photo provided by Jacques Noël
Paul Beaulieu known as Thivierge (1858-1923) Quebec great-grandfather of Priscilla Beaulieu.
Jacques Noel
PATERNAL LINE OF PRISCILLA BEAULIEU
I. BEAULIEU, Joseph Paul Jr (1925-2018)
IVERSEN, Anna-Lilian (1926-2005)
Married September 11, 1948, Groton, Connecticut
II. BEAULIEU, Joseph Paul (1899-1973)
WALSH, Mary Ann (1903-1953)
Married in 1925?
III. BEAULIEU known as THIVIERGE, Paul (1858-1923)
BABINEAU-DOSITHEE, Joséphine (1866-1913)
Married October 26, 1888, Saint-Jean, N.B.
IV. THIVIERGE, Eusebe (1816-1877)
NORMAND, Marie-Anne (1823-1864)
Married on February 15, 1848, Saint-Antoine-de-l’Isle-aux-Grues
v. THIVIERGE, Pierre (1775-1826)
BERTEAU, Marie-Françoise (1785?-1853)
Married on 1er March 1802, Saint-Hyacinthe
VI. THIVIERGE, Basile (1737-1797)
BLOUIN, Geneviève (1735?-1795)
Married on October 21, 1754, Saint-Jean, Île d’Orléans
VII. THIVIERGE, Jean-François (1691-1769)
FONTAINE, Angélique (1696-1769)
Married on November 26, 1714, Saint-Jean, Île d’Orléans
VIII. THIVIERGE, Gabriel (1654-1726)
LEPAGE, Madeleine (1671-1754)
Married on August 2, 1688, Saint-François, island of‘Orleans
IX. THIBIERGE, Hyppolite (1629-1700)
HERVET, Renée (1636-1702)
Married September 15, 1654, Saint-Martin-de-Blois, Loir-et-Cher