1980
Tab Larocque | Dougal MacGillivray | Little Willie MacLeod | Joe Marcoux | Stuart Rayside | Benjamin Villeneuve_
Octave "Tab" Larocque
Octave Larocque was a son of Hyacinth Larocque and his wife the former
Madeline St. Louis. He was born in Williamstown, March 3rd, 1891. Although christened
Octave he was affectionately known throughout his life as Tab Larocque.
Tab Larocque was educated in Williamstown, where he began his star-studded athletic career. As a young lad he taught himself the basics of goaltending in hockey and developed his skills by playing on the Black River ice – sometimes weeks in advance of the local rink. |
Tab’s goaltending ability, demonstrated by playing with Williamstown
championship teams prior to World War One, drew the attention of professional
scouts from Montreal
in particular. Those overtures for money and fame were always turned aside in favour of his beloved
Williamstown. Tab Larocque did play hockey for six seasons in Alexandria,
and was one of the major reasons Alexandria won
the Lower Ottawa championship only to be eliminated by Hull in the Allan Cup playoffs.
Tab Larocque was equally at home in the lacrosse nets. After serving overseas with the 15th Battalion in World War One, Tab resumed active play and was also an outstanding competitor in post war field days. In track and field Tab Larocque won several gold, silver and bronze medals and in that early 1920s shared the track and field spot light with his fellow Williamstown luminary Wellie Barrett. Tab Larocque spent the sunset of his life with the same boyhood sentiments he always held of his birthplace. Tab Larocque died April 8th, 1965. |
Dougal MacGillivray
Dougal MacGillivray is a son of the late “John Archie” MacGillivray and his wife the former Mary MacMaster. Dougal was born April 16th, 1918, on the original MacGillivray homestead farm, Pine Grove, Lochiel. Dougal MacGillivray attended Pine Grove public school and the old Alexandria high school. Not only was Dougal kicking a soccer ball around in his youth, he was also quite skillful in handling a hockey or lacrosse stick. |
Soccer was his uppermost desire relative to athletic relaxation and sport. He was always among the leading scorers with Lochiel, Pine Grove, RCAF Wireless and Ottawa RCMP. His fondest memory of greatness in soccer was the season of 1939 and 1940. Pine Grove finished first in 1939 but lost to Dunvegan in the playoffs. In 1940 they played the entire season without a loss, continuing on to win the Glengarry championship, and then challenge and defeat the Ottawa Corinthians for the Ottawa and District championship. This legendary Pine Grove team was inducted in 1997.
Dougal MacGillivray’s team play and leadership was best exemplified as a bombardier with the RCAF in World War Two. Attached to the Z-Zebra crew of a Lancaster bomber, the “Gost” Squadron, after 54 raids they were flying their final bomber run over Dortmund, Germany, number 55, and being one of the last to approach target their Lancaster flew into heavy flack from the ground defences. As a result the pilot was gravely wounded. “Mac”, as Dougal was known to his confreres, took over the cock pit controls despite the fact he had never piloted an aircraft. Dougal was successful in guiding the crippled Lancaster, minus an engine, back to the east coast of England safely. Dougal was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry and devotion to duty in execution of air-operations against the enemy. Dougal MacGillivray, now retired, has become an accomplished curler and golfer. He resides in Alexandria with his wife the former Christena MacSweyn. |
William "Little Willie" MacLeod
William Keith MacLeod is the son of the late Duncan William MacLeod and his wife the former Catharine Chisholm. He was born on the MacLeod farm homestead at Skye, January 29th, 1904. He was named William Keith, but due to his stature being slightly smaller than an average MacLeod from the Isle of Skye, he has been affectionately known by his legion of friends as Little Willie. Willie attended Skye public school and Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute. Soccer was his first love in sports and he was predominant in the Dunvegan-Skye area long before the organization of a league in Glengarry County. |
In league play over a period of more than twenty years, Willie MacLeod rates
with all time great half backs in Glengarry soccer. Willie played his entire
career with Dunvegan and fondly looks back on the club’s great year of 1939
when they won the county championship defeating Pine Grove in a three game
thriller.
From sportsmanship awards on the soccer field William K. MacLeod continued to win honours, this time in agriculture competition at many area exhibitions with displays of seed and personal active work especially with the Kenyon Agriculture Society. Little Willie lived in retirement on the MacLeod farm home and aided by his wife, the former Maude Hartrick, maintained Scottish traditions which has truly made William Keith MacLeod the Laird of Skye. He passed away in 1995. |
Joseph "Joe" Marcoux
In the home of Osias Marcoux, beside the ancient MacPhee farm on Glen Robertson Road, Joseph André Marcoux was born May 24th, 1892. As the boy arrived at school, his peers did as was custom by shortening his name as much as possible, and so for the next three-score years he was known as Joe Marcoux.
While still young, Joe’s father sold their MacPhee bridge home and took over operation of the Coteau hotel not far from Glen Robertson. This move did not last long, however, for missing his bosom French and Scottish friends Osias Marcoux quickly relocated to Alexandria. Joe then helped his brother Leo in the operation of his flourishing livery stable, where the youth became an instrumental help in establishing the Marcoux stable as a top-quality roadster provider. |
In those early boom years Alexandria played lacrosse in the top-bracket intermediate league in Canada, alongside Ottawa and Montreal. In 1909, the hefty 17-year-old Joe Marcoux broke into the team alongside such greats as Charlie Gauthier (inducted 1979) and Neil McCormick, and the team became Ottawa Valley champions. Marcoux soon became a chief reason for Alexandria’s continuous success on the field and the ice. In 1913, the now-mature 21-year-old Joe had his best season. The summer came to a close with Alexandria lacrosse being crowned Ottawa Valley champion. This excluding the City of Ottawa, the team played the Ottawa Crescents in a home-and-home total goals series for the Eastern Ontario championship. Though losing the first playoff game in Ottawa 3-2, the team rallied on home soil winning 2-0, thanks to a superb shutout by goaler Jim McCaffrey (inducted 1985). Alexandria thus won the series 4-3. Coach Charlie Gauthier later recalled the way Joe Marcoux scored the round-winning goal, thanks to some swift manoeuvres from the team which propelled the ball to the head. The team was slated to play Brampton in the All-Ontario finals, but a lack of financial guarantees prevented this from happening.
A few months later Marcoux was a star with the Alexandria hockey team, the Lower Ottawa Champions. Meeting Hull in the Allan Cup playoffs, the team suffered a 6-2 loss. As World War I broke out, the careers of many young greats such as Joe Marcoux were brought to early ends. Joe nonetheless played a few games with the pro lacrosse Montreal Nationals before enlisting with the Eastern Ontario Second Battalion. As the field game came to an end in the Roaring Twenties and was replaced by Box lacrosse in the Hungry Thirties, Joe Marcoux still managed to give the younger players a run for their skill in spite of his age. He sought no favours nor did he yield any, and he was always quick to defend himself and his colleagues, and on one occasion at Chisholm Park Father Ewen (inducted 1984) needed to restrain him on the bench to prevent him from joining the fray. Meanwhile, by the 1920s the livery stables were being replaced by the auto-taxi, and the no-longer-young Leo made a deal with his brother Joe. Foreseeing the end of livery horses and heavy-draft freight hauling, Joe partnered with his brother-in-law Jerry Gagnier (inducted 1987) to form Marcoux & Gagnier Taxi & Trucking, which became the basis for Glengarry Transport Ltd. As illness shortened Gagnier’s life and the partnership, the Shepherd brothers brought the trucking rights and in-turn sold out to Gerard Lefebvre, which led to the creation of one of the largest and most progressive private enterprise companies in the trucking industry of North America. Glengarry’s all-time-great hockey and lacrosse player, sportsman and successful businessman ended with Joe’s death on March 24th, 1963. |
James Stuart Rayside
Stuart Rayside was born in Martintown in 1874, on the farm of his father, “Big Jim” Rayside, and his wife Janet Grant. First attending school in the village, he continued in Lancaster after his family moved to the bustling waterfront harbour. He then attended high school in Williamstown before furthering his educational and athletic career at Queen’s University in Kingston.
At Queen’s, Stuart quickly became a leader with the hockey organization, having mastered the rudiments of skate and stick handling on the frozen Raisin River. By graduation year, his stellar conduct on and off the ice elevated him to the position of coach and manager of the Golden Gaels. Football, however, had up until then been a mystery to Stuart Rayside. When the football coaches took one look at the 6’3” 250lber, they quickly attempted to draw him onto the gridiron. The talented youth quickly mastered the plays of the full-back (or backfielder). |
In 1899 Stuart Rayside was rated one of the all-time Canadian University football greats as he was among the leaders who brought the intercollegiate championship to Queen’s and Kingston. Graduating that year, he moved to Ottawa where he was welcomed at the Rough Riders training camp. Rayside became an over-night luminary of the Canadian Rugby Union (now the CFL), lining-up beside such outstanding players as D’Arcy McGee, Bouse Hutton and Harvey Pulford. The 1900 Rough Rider team won the Dominion of Canada Championship, today’s Grey Cup.
The next year Stuart took up residence in Montreal to pursue business interests. Once more, the Winged Wheeler MAAA football grounds accepted him, and Montreal went on to win the Dominion Championship. Stuart Rayside thus has the unique record of playing with three different Dominion champions in as many years. Though he and his wife Isabella McIntyre had no children, Stuart himself came from a very illustrious Glengarry family. His father “Big Jim” Rayside was a successful lumber industrialist who also served for twelve years as Glengarry’s Member of the Legislative Assembly at Queen’s Park. His youngest sister, Edith Rayside, was Canada’s first matron-in-chief of nurses during World War One. His other sister, Isabella, married prominent Lancastrian Jim McGillis, and their son Buster McGillis (inducted 1985) was a prominent hockey player. His brother, Dave Rayside, became Montreal divisional manager for Bell Telephone, and was also a football star with Montreal MAAA. A jovial sportsman always keen to help those in need, Stuart Rayside died in Montreal on March 21st, 1951, and was buried in South Lancaster’s St. Andrew’s cemetery. |
Benjamin VilleneuveBen Villeneuve is the son of the late Francis Benjamin Villeneuve and his wife the former Fabiola Marion. Christened Benjamin Francis, he has been affectionately known from boy-hood as Benny. Benny Villeneuve was born August 3rd, 1899 when his parents resided in Depot Harbour, Parry Sound District. The Villeneuves returned to the Moose Creek-Maxville area when Benny was four years old. He was educated in Maxville, which Benny would always call his home. |
His hockey career was extensive and of high caliber. It spanned the old open-air rinks in Maxville and district to Grimsby with the Peach Kings in the OHA. It also led him to Russell in the glory days of the Central Ottawa Valley League in the 1920s. It then took him back home to Maxville to become one of the leaders in building Glengarry’s first covered rink, Maxville Jubilee Arena, and the founding of the famed Millionaires.
In soccer Benny Villeneuve was a pillar both as a player and a leader, even before the era of organized soccer in Glengarry. In 1927 he played for both Russell and Maxville, the latter winning the west division championship. Benny Villeneuve was one of the outstanding fleet-footed fielders with Alexandria in their championship years of 1925-26-27 as holders of the Laplante Cup. Benny Villeneuve served seven years in the RCASC cumulating as a member of the Composite Rifle Team, the Ottawa area champions. Following discharge and returning home, Benny Villeneuve has been part and parcel of just about every Maxville project from Village Council, School Board, Chamber of Commerce, Curling Club, Kenyon Agriculture Society, Highland Games and the greatest community achievement of all – the Maxville Manor. Benny Villeneuve lived in justified retirement with his wife the former Madeline Houlahan in the shadows, figuratively speaking, of the original Villeneuve home, the Old Ottawa House. Benny Villeneuve passed away in 1990. |