| Hi ! I was Bette Marie Vigneau before my marriage to
Gregory Daraskevich in 1962. We reside here in East Hartford, Connecticut,
just over the river from the State Capital, where we have been for
the past 35 years. Greg and I have three grown children, David, Heidi
and Glen.
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While I was born in Somerville, MA, I grew up here in the Connecticut Valley. My Dad and mother met and married in Boston and were the only members of their respective families - i.e., Vigneau and MacMillan, to leave the safety net of relatives living in the Boston area and immigrate to Hartford during WWII. I was a middle child - stuck between a scholastically brilliant older brother (Don-who is now an Architect) and an athletic wonder of a sister (Jane - now deceased). |
| My primary school education was conducted in East Hartford
and high school was Mount St. Joseph Academy, West Hartford, CT. For two
years I was a Fine Arts Major at Hartford Art School, when I was involved
in an automobile accident and spent 3 months in a hospital and three more
rehabing from injuries. By today’s medical standards and policies, I would
have been out in a month!
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| By this time I had met my husband; we were married and
had three children in succession. I spent the next 17 years raising
children. Greg was originally from Waterbury, CT. and graduated from
local schools and Yale University. He later went on to complete his MBA.
He was the first child in a large, ethnic family to attend college.
His grandparents were from Lithuania - part of the Baltic States.
His parents never finished high school. Greg graduated first in his class
and won a full scholarship to college. The American Dream!
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| When our eldest was looking around at colleges,
I went to work for a friend of mine who was the Director for HEAD START
in our town. And, since no one waiting for me when I came home from school,
I also went back to college. For nine years, I taught and substitute
taught in the mornings; working my way through a degree in Business at
Manchester Community College and the University of Hartford in the afternoons
and evenings. My goal was to graduate before my youngest child! No
worries - they are still going! Our son, David is also a graduate
of UHTFD - with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Our daughter, Heidi, is an Attorney. And the youngest, Glen,
is married to Allison English - his college sweetheart and lives in Boston.
Glen has an undergraduate in Civil Engineering, a graduate degree in Environmental
Engineering and is currently at Boston University working on his MIS.
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| Greg took an early retirement from IBM after 30 years
and just couldn’t stay home. He currently works for the CT. State
Department of Information Services in Hartford. They buy,
install and maintain most of the computers, servers and routers for the
state government’s Data Processing infrastructure. And, I recently opted
to stay home after working for the past 25 years. First as a teacher,
then as an insurance adjuster, a leasing agent for GMAC and most recently
for the past ten years, in Sales and Marketing for a company that
sells graphic software and signmaking equipment.
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| The genealogy of my family has been known to me for many
years. Only recently have I chosen to pursue this interest.
My father’s parents were born in Arichat. The Vigneaus and the Leblancs
immigrated to Gloucester, MA in the late 1800’s. As did my mother’s
grandfather, a MacMillan from Antigonish. My Acadian
research goes back four years now and has expanded to include the Landry,
Boudreau, and Petitpas families. When I am through with my documentation
of my Vigneau ancestors, I hope to set up a Vigneau web page.
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| Besides genealogy, Greg and I are involved with local civic organizations. We travel, play tennis, fight the lawn and the garden - we are typical homeowners. I still paint - portraits mostly, and craft silver jewelry. In season, we are avid followers of the University of Connecticut “Huskies” basketball teams - men and women, and of course, …the Red Sox (Greg’s real name is Pedro). |
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