The Nicolle & Morenier Family Trees
My French & Belgian Ancestors
The journey starts as one always expects, at the beginning with what little one has on family and ancestors. research, search everything on the parents and grandparents, then proceed up the genealogical tree. In my case, my father's mother was somewhat of a closed door. I knew she was French and had a living sister that my father wanted to have nothing do with it..ever. Nothing was ever said about my grandmother except that she died when my dad and his twin brother were 12 y/o. I asked my father, 'what did she die from?" His answer was "she died of pneumonia' A few years later, I asked him again. "she died in a accident' and again the cold front from him. My father was the type you don’t pressure, unless you want to be mentally abused. I found out later there was mental illness in the family. But I’m getting ahead of myself It was frustrating. What my father did divulge was the names of her parents and place of origin. Her father, Jules Alexandre Nicolle, came from France, and her mother, Justine Françoise Morenier, came from Belgium. There were brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, but most of them died before 1965.. So In 1998, I started my genealogical search into my grandmother's life, searching for answers and researching her family lines. My dad was also starting a research of his own, on his father's side. His father, Herald M Hootman, died in New Guinea in the second world war. And like his mom's side, most of his father’s siblings died when he too started in 1998(He died a year later). Only cousins remained. I took up that mantle as well.
I took this genealogical opportunity again, to ask him about his mother. "She died of a broken heart" (on learning his father was KIA.) Three different stories, one big mystery.. Nothing like family secrets and skeletons in the closet for a curious daughter to jump into the fire to root out those secrets! p.s. And yes, I did find that closet door, and yes, I did drag out the skeletons!
Her name was Mathilda Audrienne Nicolle. She was born in a small village named Princeton, located in Marquette county, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her parents were immigrants from France and Belgium. Father, Jules Alexandre Nicolle was born in Vieux-Bourg, Calvados, in Normandie, France. Her mother, Justine Françoise Morenier, was born in Dampicourt, province of Luxembourg, in the French-speaking region of Wallonia, Belgium. She had two half brothers, and two half sisters. All of them old enough to be her parents at the time of her birth. Next came her 'full' siblings who lived to adulthood; two brothers and one sister (the evil one ;) Her life was a hard one growing up in the pioneer days of the upper peninsula. Her mom died when she was 17 y/o, and two months later, her father. She attended and graduated from Ferris Institute in Big Rapids, Michigan. She worked as a bookkeeper in Petosky, and married in Sept 1930. My father and his twin brother were born in Nov 1930 (surprise) in an unwed maternity ward in Green Bay, Wisconsin The reason, my father would not talk about her, and insisted she died in 1943, was she was institutionalized with 'dementia' caused by 'medical reasons'..as a nice way of putting it. Mathilda was released, and lived in Petosky. She was still in a world of her own. She had some financial support, provided by, presumably, her well-to-do younger sister. In the end, she died June 4 1977, after living a very tragic and sad life.
The Sister of Mathilda
Leonie Josephine Nicolle Ferguson. She was the older half sister of Mathilda Nicolle Hootman. Her brief biography from her granddaughter, Bernice Keindal, was a fascinating one. I wish I knew more..
A Time Gone By ....
Mathilda tending to my father, John Jules Hootman, and his twin brother, James Herald.
A Happy Day...
Undated clear family photo of Mathilda, my father, John Jules Hootman, and his twin brother, James Herald. The boys look to be around 5-7 y/o.
That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before.
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.
Jules Nicolle
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Justine Morenier
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About the Morenier Family
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About the Nicolle Family
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ANCESTOR'S NAME
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ANCESTOR'S NAME
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