(30 July 1877-1949), butcher. (Dick Sabourin) Born presumably in Alexandria, GC. Parents: Alphonse Sabourin, who was a butcher in Alexandria, and his wife Elmire Lauzon. In his early years Dick Sabourin was active as a lacrosse player. Presumably he was the George D. Sabourin who in Sept. 1901 left for Duluth, intending to settle there (Glengarry News 27 Sept. 1901), but if so, the Duluth venture proved to be a temporary one. On 5 May 1905, with Arcade Meloche, he began the business partnership in Alexandria of Meloche and Sabourin. (GN 12 May 1905) The Meloche and Sabourin butcher shop thus founded was for decades an Alexandria institution. In 1948, Arcade Meloche and George D. Sabourin, the original partners, retired from the butcher shop in favour of their sons, Leo Meloche and Laurier Sabourin, but stated that they would continue to work as cattle drovers. (GN 16 Jan. 1948, Standard Freeholder 17 Jan. 1948) By 1997 (to take one year from its later history) the store was still operating, but was mainly a grocery. In 2000, the two elderly partners of that time (the Leo Meloche and Laurier Sabourin already mentioned) and their wives closed it permanently. When this happened, the independent butcher shop had almost vanished from Canada; the supermarket meat counters had succeeded it. But in the 1940s, with its great carcasses of meat hanging along the walls on hooks, and its rich smell of good fresh meat, and in the winter with whole frozen salmon sometimes hanging outside, Meloche and Sabourin was as splendid a store as Alexandria possessed.

     Dorothy Dumbrille praised the Meloche and Sabourin company for their helpfulness in preparing and delivering her grocery orders when ill health and old age had incapacitated her, and remembered the generosity with which they had wiped out debts many poor people had contracted at their store during the Depression. At the 1999 celebrations in GC for the 50th anniversary of Our Lady’s Missionaries, a special thank you was included for Laurier Sabourin and Leo Meloche who “freely gave food” to the members of the newly-formed missionary group who were living at Immaculata House, not far from the Meloche and Sabourin butcher shop. (Glengarry News 12 May 1999)

     George D. Sabourin was married to Emma Lalonde (dates probably 1886-1981), from north of Alexandria. In the winter of 2007 Laurier Sabourin aforesaid, an RCAF veteran, was honoured at his home in Alexandria as the last surviving him of the 18 veterans who in 1946 founded the Alexandria Legion. (Vankleek Hill Review 7 March 2007, portrait)

St. Finnan’s CRNI, III, 742 * gravestone, St. Finnan’s cemetery, Alexandria * Ostrom 314 * report on the firm, picture of Leo Meloche and Laurier Sabourin, in Greg Kielec, “Sun Starting to Shine on Small Business,” Glengarry News 13 March 1996 * Dorothy Dumbrille: conversation with the present author * closing of firm: Sandra Berry, “Farewell to Meloche and Sabourin,” GN 3 May 2000 (portrait) * Meloche and Sabourin firm purchases slaughter house, GN 18 Nov. 1949, plans to begin sheep-raising, GN 7 June 1956, marks 50 and 60 years in business, GN 28 April 1955, 13 May 1965, picture of shop, GN 31 July 1985 * Laurier Sabourin retires from abattoir business after 43 years, GN 29 Dec. 1992 * obituary of Mrs Laurier Sabourin (neé Marie-Reine Leduc), GN 4 July 2007 (portrait)