Thomas Breen was born in Liverpool in 1881. Both Catholics from Ireland, his parents immigrated to England, fleeing the great famine. Thomas is 8 months old when his mother dies and his father sends him to an orphanage.
At the time, religious authorities and philanthropic organizations would send for orphans and bring them to Canada to be adopted. These little orphans were called The Home Children. At the age of twelve, Thomas, now considered too old for an orphanage, boards a ship in Liverpool on May 25, 1893 and arrives ten days later in Quebec, Canada, on June 4, 1893. The teenager takes a train to the town of Acton Vale where a local family is waiting for him. Unfortunately, when Thomas reaches his destination, no one is there to pick him up.
The young train station master, Aurèle Talbot, takes him under his wing and brings him home. Shortly after, Thomas is sent to live with Aurèle’s father, Eugène Talbot in the little town of St-Eusèbe-de-Stanfold, today known as Princeville. It is therefore in the region of Bois-Francs that Thomas Breen learned the trade of blacksmith and acquired skills as a businessman.

Thomas’s arrival in Guigues

In 1901, Thomas Breen lives in Arthabaska, the same town as Canada’s Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. Arthabaska has an active economy and an enlightened bourgeoisie. Local residents keep themselves well-informed and the local newspaper “L’Union des Cantons de l’Est” was deemed a dynamic communication body, which praises the merits and promotes the colonization of Témiscamingue.

After many years of courtship, Thomas finally marries the youngest daughter of his adoptive parents, Eugenie Talbot, in January 1908 in the town of Princeville. Soon after their union, Thomas and Eugenie move to the little town of Guigues, where they will have nine children.