Photographer/Publisher - Ed Justement

Born at Ypres, Belgium in December 1872, he was the publisher of a series of lithographed postcards depicting scenes in Winnipeg. Justement and his wife Emma emigrated to Canada in 1905, reportedly arriving in Halifax aboard the Dominion in March of that year. Justement’s postcards appear to have been produced very shortly afterward, as they include an image of the construction of the T. Eaton Company’s Portage Avenue store that would necessarily date from the spring of 1905. Postally used examples of Justement’s postcards typically bear postmarks from 1905 or 1906. The number of postcards produced by Justement is unknown but is unlikely to exceed a few dozen. Whether Justement took the photographs on the postcards, as opposed to being a publisher of other photographers’ work, is not known. The resemblance between Justement’s postcards and those published by fellow Belgian immigrant Louis J. De Nobele is strong, suggesting the possibility of collaboration between the two men.

They certainly knew each other, as Winnipeg's Belgian community was tight-knit. and both Louis de Nobele and Emma Justement (Gustement) served on the founding Board of Winnipeg's Belgian Club (October 4, 1905). Also, in one of Justement's postcards, of the Bank Hotel, Louis de Nobele and his father-in-law are seen standing on the sidewalk.

Emma Justement, a florist and founding director of Winnipeg’s Belgian Club, appears to have died in 1906 or 1907, as Edmond was remarried to Irma Janssens, also a Belgian immigrant, on 2 March 1908 in Winnipeg. The couple resided briefly at Whitemouth, Manitoba before moving to Victoria, British Columbia around 1909. Justement appears as an innkeeper or bartender in several British Columbia records. Irma Justement remarried in 1921, listing herself on the marriage record as a widow. It appears likely, however, that she had actually been divorced or separated from Edmond (or perhaps deserted by him) as an Edmond George Justement of approximately the same age as our subject is recorded as having applied for US naturalization in New York state around the same time. An Edmond Justement is listed as an attendant at the Grasslands Hospital in Westchester County, New York, in that state’s 1925 census.

No information about Justement’s life after 1925 is known and there is no indication that either of his marriages produced children.

(Much of this content drawn from the Manitoba Historical Society's website.)

Born at Ypres, Belgium in December 1872, he was the publisher of a series of lithographed postcards depicting scenes in Winnipeg. Justement and his wife Emma emigrated to Canada in 1905, reportedly arriving in Halifax aboard the Dominion in March of that year. Justement’s postcards appear to have been produced very shortly afterward, as they include an image of the construction of the T. Eaton Com…  (read more)

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