Fonds CA ON0034 10-208 - Adele Yolande DesRochers

Adele was born on August 30, 1955, to Edna (Mcguire) and Gontrand DesRochers in Pembroke, Ontario, the second youngest of 7 children. She grew up in Pembroke, attending Cathedral Primary School and then Our Ladies High School, both managed by the Grey Nuns. Despite having a francophone father and many francophone relatives in Quebec, the language politics of the time were such that none of the DesRochers children learned French. She spent a year of so hitchhiking around Canada, visiting her sister Madeleine who was in the Armed Services and stationed in Calgary. She then drove a motorcycle from Calgary back to Ontario. About 1974/75 she moved to Ottawa to attend Algonquin College and enrolled in the two-year Criminology and Corrections program, with plans to go into the Police. She ran out of money after a year and went to work for a security firm and later Museums Canada as security. She applied to the RCMP who said they didn’t send women to the North where she wanted to go and to the Vancouver Police Department but didn’t pass their math test. With those options closed, she applied to Carleton University in Ottawa and was hired by the Security Services Department about 1977. In the early 1990s she was promoted to Sergeant and in 1994 attended the 3-month certification program at the Police College in Aylmer, Ontario to become a constable. In the late 1990s, Adele enrolled at Dalhousie University in the Police Management Certificate Program. She left Carleton University in 1999 and moved to Belize with partner Nancy Adamson in 2000. While in Belize she oversaw the building of their home, did security education with the Belize Water Services, was President of the local Valley Watch Association and managed Dreamcatchers Ltd property and holdings. Nancy and Adele were married in Ottawa on July 20, 2016. As of 2025, Adele resides in Belize.