Person: Joseph Leonard Cuillerier

Birthday: 10 June 1911
Birthplace: Brosseau, NWT, Canada
Mother: Amanda Rebecca Groulx
Father: Pantaleon Cuillerier
Sex: male

• Married to Marie Blanche Emma Paquette, 28 November 1934 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada
• Marie Blanche Rebecca Cuillerier born 5 December 1935 in Connaught Station, Ontario, Canada
• Marie Rosia Marguerite Cuillerier born 19 July 1939 in Cobalt, Ontario, Canada
• Joseph Wilfrid Adelard Cuillerier born 23 February 1942 in Cobalt, Ontario, Canada
• Marie Bernadette Alice Cuillerier born 5 October 1945 in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada
• Marie Gisele Anne Cuillerier born 17 January 1949 in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada
• Antoine Bernard Cuillerier born 5 August 1952 in Haileybury, Ontario, Canada
• Died 14 March 1977 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Joe was educated in Manitoba and Ontario. He worked for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce for five years before he began his drilling career in 1936. Joe worked with various mining and drilling companies, working his way up from drill helper to foreman. From 1954 to his retirement in 1977, Joe worked for Longyear as a diamond driller. Joe's work took him to many parts of the world: Liberia, Haiti, British Guiana, Baffin Island. Joe was known as "Cobalt Joe" during these years. He was known for his expertise, determination, and hard work. Regardless of a severe hip injury, Joe always was willing to take on the toughest jobs and see them through to the end. A co-worker, Peter Bremmer, said, "Joe Cuillerier is a guy who stands up against the wind when it might blow somebody else down." Joe also ran a Longyear Sale-Service Trailer at Central Patricia, Ontario for several years. He also worked, in later years, in warehouse duties in North Bay, Ontario; Kamloops, B.C.; and lastly at Annacis Island in New Westminster, B.C.
Joe left the diamond drills and tried to work closer to home. He went to work for Cominco at a smelter south of Cobalt, Ontario as a pipefitter. One day, in 1947, he went to inspect some pipes in a ditch and a gravel slide covered everything but his head. It took a long time for him to recover from the damage done to his hip. After the hip healed, the bone started to deteriorate and nothing could be done. Dr. Dunning, the local doctor, had heard of experimental work being done at Queen's University in Kinsgton, Ontario, regarding replacing the whole ball and socket joint of the hip. Joe decided to try this out and it worked, he had to go for yearly checkups for awhile. He had a limp and the cold weather affected him but he was able to get wherever he wanted to go.

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