My four times great-grandfather, François Didier, arrived in St. Louis from France right around the time that Missouri became a state. I have no idea why he or his wife, Marie, emigrated or from where in France. They settled in Carondelet, a neighborhood in the extreme southeast of St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi. At the time of his death in 1876 he left a considerable estate, valued at over $20,000, a substantial sum in those days.
François Didier and his wife had two sons, both born in France. The elder was my three times great-grandfather Hyacinth (spelled Eassaint in the federal census, an interesting study in linguistics). The younger was August Didier who married Philomene Constant, a member of one of St. Louis’s most prominent families. She is the reason that I wisecrack that members of my family were standing on the banks of the Mississippi selling real estate when the founders of St. Louis, Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau, arrived.
Hyacinth predeceased his father and August became the guardian of my three times great-grandmother, Celestine Didier.
I have no idea how Celestine Didier, daughter of a prominent, wealthy family, met my great-great-grandfather, William Schneider, or much about his background. The 1880 federal census says he was a cigar-maker born in Wisconsin and his parents were born in Baden and Bavaria. He died quite young. The 1880s were hard on my family. Both my father’s great-grandfather Charles and my mother’s great-grandfather William died in the 1880s of tuberculosis. My mother met her great-grandmother once when Celestine was a very old woman. My mom told me that Celestine spoke only French.
Both August and Celestine became family names on that side of the family, borne by members of three generations. And that’s what I know of the Didiers.
Does your family keep a geneology or is this sort of knowledge your own work?
I barely know my parents’ names.
My dad was a keen amateur genealogist. I have expanded on his work, especially on my mom’s side. The research on the Didiers is mine.
I am the family genealogist. I can trace our family through most lines about five generations although I can trace the Schulers back much farther.
Does that genealogy inform your individual identity? And if it does, do you think that makes your identity more stable than it might otherwise be? In other words, is the knowledge foundational or marginal?
Genealogy is hard, but it was easier when people stayed married and didn’t have a succession of wives or children out of wedlock. In other words, when the church kept the books. I’m sure Dave already knows, but the LDS are fairly fanatical about this.
That’s why I can trace my Swiss ancestry so far back. No war and there are records going back to when the local church was built.
Ben:
For me it’s foundational. I have a split identity that is basic to who I am. My dad grew up in an upper middle class family. He had his own car by the time he was 14. My mom was class-less, just about as poor as you can get. When she was a kid she didn’t know from day to day where she would be sleeping. I understand what it’s like to be rich and what it’s like to be poor.
Ben:
So your mother “married up”. Was it a good thing for them? Did she fit in with his family? Did he fit in with hers? Is it possible to do both?
That was me, GS. She fit in fine. She met my dad through her best friend, his cousin. She and my dad had gone to the same high school—the best public high school in St. Louis at the time.
My maternal grandmother thought my dad was a stuffed shirt. She died three years after they married. He got along fine with my mom’s uncle and with her great-aunts.
My parents apparently made a joint decision for us to maintain our distance from my paternal grandmother’s family. We were pretty close to his paternal uncle and his family. Three of my four grandparents died before I was born, all except for my paternal grandmother. She died when I was a toddler. I believe I met her twice.
Besides their love for each other my parents had something important in common. They both grew up largely without adult supervision. They raised themselves.