What I know about Meinrad FLORENTZ

Meinrad Florentz was a weaver from Ribeauville, France and he was my great, great grandfather. I wonder if that is why my aunt is such a prolific knitter? Is it in the DNA? I have to say there is something about a yarn shop that just draws me in. All the colors and textures. 

Let's get back to the man himself. Meinrad was born on 23 Nov 1850 in Ribeauville, France but by 1872 he was living in the town of Saint Marie Aux Mines, France. On July 8 of that same year he married Maria Josephina Stockey at 10 am. She was a Lutheran and he was a Catholic. Maria's parents were Joseph Stockey and Marie Josephine Kruemort. Joseph was also a weaver and that might have been how Meinrad met his wife if he worked in the same place as Joseph.

I do not know how many children they had together for sure but one was my great grandfather Paul who later immigrated to the United States and lived in West Virginia with his wife Marguerite Pierre Florentz. Meinrad's wife Maria died on 24 July 1888. He went on to live another 46 years and died at the age of 84. I do not know as of yet if he remarried.

What I know about Marguerite PIERRE

It was not easy for Marguerite to move from her home town in Saint Marie Aux Mines, France to the small town of Colcord, West Virginia. She did not know the language nor did she have any friends there. She was thirty years of age in 1923 with four small children when she boarded the Reliance in Cherbourg, France.Two years after arriving she gave birth to her fifth child and the first one to be born in America. Another child arrived the next year. I am sure she missed her mother and other family members that were still in back in her home town.

Marguerite never returned to her homeland nor did her husband Paul. There were letters I am sure of family news and happenings. Reports of deaths and births and wishes of being together once again. Marguerite had to endure the death of her husband in 1942 leaving her alone in Sherman WV. She did not outlive her husband long and passed from this earth on 28 April 1951 and is buried next to him in the Mordue Cemetery in Whitesville, WV.

Tuesday Tip - Not what your looking for? Try it anyway

My Grandmother and her Florentz/Pierre family came to the US from St. Marie Aux Mines, France  when she was 5 years old. We never knew who her grandparents were on either side only the names of her parents and the town there were from. I had searched for records in France and for others online that had the same names but to no avail. So it was dropped from my list of searches for a long while.

The other morning my mother emailed me that she had found some paper of my Grandmothers in a coin box. It did not have anything we didn't already know on it but it did prompt a thought regarding her father and his medals. Might there be a list of who received these medals and maybe some other family members received them also. The search began...

Did I find a medal list? No. But in the search for that a link popped up on Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Blog for searches in the Haute-Rhin region of France. Now this was not what I was looking for at all but I thought I would see if they had anything regarding the St. Marie Aux Mines area.

Boy did I hit the mother load! Not only did it have records for that little town, it had the year of my Great Grandfathers birth and the actual record. That listed his parents and from there I found their marriage certificate which listed both sets of parents. I looked further and found my Great Grandmothers parents marriage record and their parents names as well.

I am so happy there are those people out there willing to scan and copy these old documents and post them, especially for the years I needed them. With more searching I may even find death certificates.