Pierre Harwood (1911-1976)

Sometimes, not everything is what it seems: Every official record gives Pierre's surname as “Martin,” and neither he nor his sister’s birth date give any reason not to doubt that they were the legitimate, biological children of their mother's first husband, Charles-Edouard Martin, of Montreal. Except that they weren't. 

Charles and Berthe Martin were married to great fanfare in 1904, and as the son and co-heir of a prosperous Catholic merchant, Charles was expected to waste no time in producing a bountiful crop of grandchildren for his doting mother. But, year after year passed, and the nursery remained ominously silent. Finally, after seven years of waiting, Berthe gave birth, first, in 1911 to Pierre Martin (named for Charles Martin’s father), and then, in 1913, to Francoise Martin (named for Charles Martin’s mother). But, five years later (1918), Charles Martin was dead, and precisely one year after that, his no longer grieving widow was happily married to Dr. Louis de Lotbinière Harwood, gynaecologist.

Tradition has it that the unfortunate Charles Martin was all too aware that, not only were his children not his children, but that his wife had fallen in love with their father. Whether or not he ended his life by his own hand is open to speculation, but Berthe’s marriage to Harwood just one year later was not a coincidence. Quite how much the extended Martin family knew, or wanted to admit about the situation, is lost to time. 

Berthe remained heir to the income from her first husband’s estate, and although for respectability’s sake (theirs being a small, strict, Catholic community) it was imperative that her children were brought up under the “Martin” name, they were very much brought up within the Harwood/Brosseau family. It must have been very strange for their children to have been living with their real family in every sense of the word, and yet having to live a lie, pretending to be from another family to whom they weren’t related and barely knew. To make matters worse, as the years rolled on, it became harder to ignore the fact that the children’s physical attributes were distinctly “Harwood”.

When Pierre and Francoise were in their forties - by which time it was presumably safe to do so without causing anyone hurt - socially they dropped "Martin" altogether and began to use the name "Harwood" or "de Lotbiniere Harwood". But officially, on any paperwork, they were always and remain to be "Martin". If there were any lingering doubts as to the validity of this story, a DNA test done by Pierre’s grandson (who was adopted at birth and was trying to find his real mother) led him directly to the Harwoods, Merediths, & Mills'.