(23 Sept. 1896-9 May 1995), general merchant. Born in Alexandria, GC. Parents: Leo Laporte (Leonardo Laporta) and his wife Adele (Ida) Dapratto. Education: Alexandria Separate School. In WWI, he joined the 6th Canadian Reserve Battalion in May 1918 as a private. He went overseas with the 49th Battalion, returning from overseas, July 1919. Before the war he had worked in the Alexandria wood pipe factory (see Alexander John de Lotbiniere Macdonald) and for John Boyle. After the war he worked for Abraham Markson, the CNR, and a department store at Sturgeon Falls. Returning to Alexandria in 1933, he opened a store in the Alexandria Hotel. Afterwards, he bought John Boyle’s store (Main Street, Alexandria) and operated it from Jan. 1934 till the 1960s. There he conducted a general merchant business of the kind standard among the rural and town merchants of GC of this time, selling groceries and dry goods and even farm stock feeds. Sébastien Laporte continued to take farm produce in trade till probably a later date than most Alexandria merchants. Advertisements for his store at the end of the 1930s show that he was a dealer in poultry and firewood as well as a general merchant. During WWII, he was prized by housewives as being helpful in saving scarce items such as currants for valued customers. In his later years in merchandising he let the stock in his store dwindle to less and less, with the result that he had fewer and fewer customers.

     Thereafter, he worked at the IGA in Alexandria from 1966 to 1976, retiring in Sept. 1976 at the age of 80. A familiar figure to Alexandria shoppers for many years, both in his own store and at the IGA, his decades of experience in Alexandria retailing extended back to the time when Gaelic still had currency in Alexandria merchandising. In his years at the IGA, he would sometimes use Gaelic phrases in talking to the old Scotch farm women. He was a member for 76 years of Council 1919 of the Knights of Columbus. He died in Mississauga. He was married in 1932 to Lucienne Demers, who predeceased him, dying on 17 Jan. 1994, also in Mississauga. (six children, five surviving him.) Their son Lucien, 18, died by drowning in the town lake, Alexandria, 1951. (Glengarry News 13 July 1951)

Glengarry News 17 May 1995 * obituary of his wife, GN 19 Jan. 1994 * “He’s Retiring from Clerking at 80,” GN 23 Sept. 1976 (with excellent picture) * biog. sketch in Des’Avirons 11 août 1972 * Ostrom 223 * war service, GN 10 May & 12 July 1918, 1 Aug. 1919 * attends Markson-Rosenberg wedding, Montreal, GN 11 July 1924 *store in Alexandria Hotel, and former Boyle store, GN 28 April 1933, 8 & 29 Dec. 1933, 2 Feb. 1934 * elected town councillor, GN 7 Dec. 1951 * barber occupies former Laporte store, GN 21 Nov. 1963 * personal knowledge