File

This file chronicles the life of Rodolphe Forget, a prominent financier and politician. It is composed primarily of press clippings.

Many of these clippings have been compiled into a scrapbook documenting the high points of his career. There are articles about the 1909 creation of the Quebec Railway, Light, Heat and Power Company, following the merger of several public utilities. Other articles published primarily in 1915 and 1916 report on the completion of the Quebec-Saguenay railway line and the controversy surrounding the federal government's purchase of the Quebec & Saguenay Railway. The scrapbook also recognizes his philanthropy in several 1918 articles highlighting his major contribution to the Notre Dame Hospital fundraising campaign. There are articles reporting his death in 1919, his funeral and the numerous pubic personalities who took part, and posthumous tributes, like the 1923 unveiling of a monument to his memory in Charlevoix county, where he was an MP in the House of Commons from 1904 to 1917.

Among the documents in the file besides the scrapbook is a deed of sale for a property in Saint-Irénée dated September 30, 1900, between Normel Perron and Rodolphe Forget. There is a copy of a letter from the Archdiocese of Montreal, dated January 28, 1902, confirming that Forget was granted the privilege of a private chapel (authorization given by the pope allowing mass to be celebrated in a chapel located inside a private residence). A text about the construction of the new Notre Dame Hospital notes that Rodolphe Forget made a major contribution to the project by donating a property on Sherbrooke Street. There are other press clippings, including some about a reception given in the Forget home on March 6, 1916, in honour of the 150th Battalion, as well as a private ledger and a diploma in Latin issued in 1913 in Chicoutimi.

The file also contains several documents produced after his death, including three copies of a 1984 City of Montreal Executive Committee resolution to name a boulevard after him in the Rivière-des-Prairies parish (now the borough of Rivière-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles), a fax dated March 25, 1998, from William Fong, the author of a biography of Montreal businessman J. W. McConnell, and the plan of a proposed theatrical and audio-visual project by Léo Simard about the life and career of Rodolphe Forget. Finally, the file is completed by an undated press clipping that recounts how Rodolphe Forget, his wife Blanche, and his daughter Thérèse (Casgrain) were almost passengers aboard the ill-fated Titanic.