Joseph Augustin Odilon La Badie pursued his education in the normal school and in the Jesuit College, from which he was graduated. In 1874 he won the degree of B. C. L. from McGill University and on the 8th of May, of that year, he was made a notary at Laval University in Quebec. He then began practice with his father and grandfather and has ever maintained high standing in his profession.
Mr. La Badie has been an extensive traveler. As a young man he engaged in ranching in Colorado and during his sojourn in the west learned much of that section of the United States. He has also made many trips abroad. He is a great lover of nature and a student of botany. The library which he has collected contains more than six thousand volumes, many of which are rare editions. This is an indication of his cultured taste and wide interest in literary matters. His summer home for the past twenty-one years has been at Upper St. Lambert, where he has two fine farms and makes a specialty of cheese making. Mr. La Badie is very fond of hunting, a recreation in which he indulges every year.
Though over three score years of age, Mr. La Badie is of magnificent physique, his muscles as hard as iron, and he has the appearance of a man twenty years his junior. In his office is a long table, four feet wide, over which he can jump without touching it with his hands and he can lift a weight of one hundred and eighty-seven pounds with one hand. His interests have largely covered those things which are essential and valuable elements in life. He has been a student of many questions of public moment and has filled some offices, being now a commissioner of the superior court and a justice of the peace. For one hundred and ten years the La Badies of four generations have been notaries at the present location. The great-grandfather of Joseph A. O. La Badie died at the home where Joseph E. O. La Badie was born. The family is, indeed, one of the oldest and most prominent in Montreal.
Mr. La Badie is not a club man. His interest centers in his home and his family, which he prefers to club life. On the 7th of October, 1877, he married Aurelia de Lompré, of an old Montreal family, and to them have been born seventeen children: Raoul, a civic employe; Odilon, who is in his father’s office; Paul, a notary; Florida, deceased; Jeanne; Germaine; Marie Antoinette; Camile; Alice; Leo; Amanda; Adolphe; Alice; Emile; Pauline; Gabriel; and Cecile.
ARTHUR GIBEAULT, B. A., LL. L.
Arthur Gibeault, a Laval man, active in the practice of law since January, 1902, has been retained as counsel for the defense or prosecution in many notable cases heard in the Montreal courts. He was born on the 26th of February, 1880, a son of Arthur Alphonse and Elizabeth Emma (Morrissette) Gibeault. The father was for seven years provincial chief ranger of the Catholic Order of Foresters. The son was a student in Montreal College for eight years, from September, 1890, until July, 1898. In September of the latter year he entered Laval University, where he remained until December 21, 1901, winning the Bachelor of Arts and LL. L. degrees. He was admitted as a lawyer and barrister to the bar of Quebec on the 17th of January, 1902, and has since been actively connected with the profession, in which he has made steady advancement, already having won a place of equal rank with many an older representative of the bar. He was attorney and counsel for the school commissioners of Hochelaga for many years and as counsel tried many immigration cases. He was especially prominent in the case of Gaetanetta Imparato, who was deported to Italy and subsequently returned to Canada pursuant to an appeal made by Mr. Gibeault in her favor. He represented Sarah Kositzky in her appeal before the department of immigration of the United States and obtained a commission of three medical men to examine her. The decision of the first board was afterward reversed by this commission. Mr. Gibeault’s name appears in connection with other important cases which have attracted widespread interest not only in Canada but also in the United States.
Mr. Gibeault is a conservative and was prime minister of the mock parliament of Laval in 1899 and head of the conservative ministry, while the leader of the opposition was J. W. Pilon, a well known lawyer of Montreal. That Mr. Gibeault possesses marked histrionic as well as legal talent is indicated in the fact that during the year 1904-5 the Greek drama of Antigone by Sophocles was played in Greek, on which occasion he took the role of Ismene and the role of Antigone was taken by D. Lalonde, now Father Lalonde, P. S. S., one of the directors of Montreal College, while the role of Creon was played by J. F. St. Cyr, now district magistrate of St. Johns, Iberville. The production of the play in Greek created a tremendous sensation at the time because it was an achievement unheard of before.
On the 26th of June, 1905, Mr. Gibeault was married to Marie Jeanne Phaneuf, daughter of L. A. Phaneuf, notary public of Rigaud, and Marie Joseph Adam. Mrs. Gibeault is a niece of the Rt. Rev. Canon F. L. T. Adam, of Montreal, and Father J. Adam, S. J. Mr. and Mrs. Gibeault have three children, Yves, Marc and Madeleine. The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church and Mr. Gibeault is a leading member of the Independent Order of Foresters. Possessed of natural oratorical ability, his power in that direction, supplementing the analytical trend of his mind and added to his broad knowledge of the law, has gained him distinction as one of the younger members of the Montreal bar.