Marriage and Family

Jo Labadie and Sophie Archambeau were married after an ardent courtship on October 14, 1877, at St. Alphonse's Catholic Church in Windsor. As first cousins, they were obliged to obtain a special dispensation. Despite Sophie's piety and Jo's agnosticism, their differences in religious faith did not diminish the regard they had for each other.

Their first child, Leo Donatus, was born in 1879 but lived only seventeen months. No information is known about his death. The birth of two daughters and one son followed: Laura Euphrosyne in 1886, Charlotte Antoinette in 1889, and Laurance Cleophis in 1898. The only child of the third generation was Carlotta, daughter of Charlotte Antoinette Labadie and her husband, Fred Hauser. Carlotta Hauser Anderson is the author of the biography of her grandfather, All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement (Wayne State University Press, 1998).

Sophie was a teacher who, unlike most women of her generation, continued in her profession after marriage. Jo gave her credit for bridging the gaps in his education.