His daughter Mariette said that her father was a hard worker and left home as a young man to look for work, and didn’t attend high school, a common occurrence in those days.

Mariette added that she remembered some funny tales from his childhood, like when he and his siblings raised a young deer as a pet, after its mother had been killed.

Jérôme’s younger sister Pauline said that . . .

since there was a ten year age gap between them, she didn’t have that many memories of her brother, but recalled him being a pleasant, hard-working fellow.

“The only thing I remember, every Friday night he’d come home and ask me to press his pants and shine his shoes so he could go out,” she said with a laugh.

She added that he also brought home the family’s first black and white television when they finally got electricity to their house in the 1950s.

Jérôme tried his hand at many different jobs all over Ontario and Quebec and even participated in the construction of the Diefenbunker in 1959. Eventually he settled in at Markus and Son Construction in Pembroke, where he rose to the rank of superintendant.

He met his beloved wife, Françoise Lair, at a dance in Waltham and the two were married in 1961. When asked for her first impression of the young Jérôme, Françoise simply laughed and said that she was glad she met him. The two were married for 59 years, and had four children as well as a gaggle of grandchildren at the time of his passing.

He was a diligent member of the local community, serving in various roles on council and numerous community organizations, such as the Caisse Populaire, CHIP FM, Knights of Columbus and the Harrington Community Centre. He was also a leader in his church, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori in Chapeau, and was even recognized by the Pope with a Bene Merenti medal for his years of service to the both the congregation and the community, along with his brother Henry.

Allumettes Island Mayor Winston Sunstrum recalled that Sallafranque as a diligent worker in his roles on council.

“I first met him when he was running for mayor of Allumettes Island West,” he said. At that time I was a cottager here, he called my house and was campaigning for votes … We were both elected in 2005 as councillors. From there, we had the major potable water project.”

“He did a lot more than I know,” Sunstrum added. “First thing, he was a big community supporter, willing to roll up his sleeves and work on projects.”

Matt Schooley, a financial administrator with diocese of Pembroke, remembered Sallafranque as an invaluable source of technical knowledge and experience, sitting as the chairman of the diocese’s building and property committee.

“My first impression was, I can learn a lot from this guy,” he said. “Because he had extensive experience, he had an opinion on everything, in a good way. There were multiple projects that would come up and he would want to get his hands dirty right away.”

“We’d have a committee meeting every four months, and even then he’d call me out of the blue, ‘Is anything happening?’” Schooley continued. “Any conversation with Jérôme was a good one in my experience. I don’t think I left any conversation without gleaning some kind of information about something.

“He mentored me to an extent … I think he appreciated that. I think that was his reward, taking his experience and passing it along.”

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