PRAY GOD FOR THE SOUL

of Mrs

GABRIELLE MINNE

Widow of Mr. Eduard LEMMENS

born in Nieuwpoort on 27 December 1891
and died in the H. Hart clinic in Ostend
on 28 December 1974

—

Mother is no longer … For months we have been able to follow the process of her body and although we knew that science could soften something and save time, it seems strange to have to live with an empty place on our side. Being confronted with death is immediately thinking about the past life. A big golden thread crossed Mama’s whole life: the deep care for her children. She was a mother in the full sense of the word. This is also the great task that she has told us, right through all the difficulties: having a beating heart for his followers, a willing ear for the loved ones and quietly having a word that shows concern. Mama, we will now continue your task beyond death, believing that you are the strength and the stimulant of our actions because you were always able to fold your hands to prayer in all modest minds. Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for her.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for her.

—
The LEMMENS family – MINNE,
Thank you very much.

WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME WILL LIVE FOREVER

***

BIDT GOD VOOR DE ZIEL

van Mevrouw

GABRIELLE MINNE

Weduwe van de Heer Eduard LEMMENS

geboren te Nieuwpoort de 27 december 1891
en overleden in de H. Hartkliniek te Oostende
op 28 december 1974

Moeder is niet meer… Maandenlang hebben wij het proces van haar lichaam kunnen volgen en al wisten wij dat de wetenschap wat kon verzachten en tijd winnen, toch doet het vreemd aan met een lege plaats aan onze zijde te moeten leven. Geconfronteerd worden met de dood is meteen nadenken over het voorbije leven. Een grote gouden draad doorkruiste gans mama’s leven: de diepe zorg voor haar kinderen. Zij was moeder in de volle zin van het woord. Dit is meteen ook de grote taak die zij ons heeft voorgeleefd, dwars door alle moeilljkheden heen: een kloppend hart hebben voor de zijnen, een luisterbereid oor voor de geliefden en in alle stilte een woord overhebben dat getuigt van bekommernis.

Mama, uw taak zullen we nu over de dood heen verder zetten, gelovend dat u de kracht en de stimulans zuit zijn van ons handelen omdat ge steeds in alle bescheidenheld uw handen tot gebed wist te vouwen.

Onze Lieve Vrouw van Lourdes, bid voor haar.

—
De familie LEMMENS – MINNE,
danken U welgemeend.

WIE IN MIJ GELOOFT ZAL EEUWIG LEVEN

The card has also given me a nice bit of personal information I would not have otherwise known about. After showing the card to my mother, she remarked that Gabrielle was “passionate about ‘Our Lady of Lourdes'”. She used to pray to her statue at home every day and any time she had problems, so one year her daughter, Betty took her to visit Lourdes.

With street view on GoogleMaps, I was pleased to determine the exact point the above was photo was taken – at the Boulevard Rémi Sempé entrance. Another photo from the trip, seems to have been taken after ‘sampling’ the ‘holy water’.

But perhaps my favourite photograph from the trip, one that gives me a glimpse of my great grandmother’s personality, is the one where she is drinking straight from the bottle while having what appears to be a spot of lunch.

Another rewarding source of information can be found in ‘mourning cards’. A Lemmens cousin also gave me a digital copy of what appears to be an invitation to Gabrielle’s funeral. Along with details of her death, it gives the time and location of her funeral service and subsequent burial. But on the back, is a genealogical goldmine – a list of all her children, grandchildren and their spouses! Very handy, indeed.

The post On a Wing and a Prayer Card appeared first on Geneageek.

Recently, I rediscovered a photo of my grandmother and her classmates in 1938, hidden in one of my family history books. On the reverse, in my grandmother’s scrawl, are written the names of her fellow schoolgirls.

As I recognise my grandmother, Gwen and her best friend, Daphne in the front row of the picture, I believe the girls in the photo are as follows (L-R):

BACK: Phyllis Jones, Joyce Clayton, Kay Bell, Pat Johnson

FRONT: Daphne Morrison, Pauline Gapper, Merle Wildey, Gwen Buchan, Molly Spackman

The photo seems to have been taken on the main entrance steps of the building as seen here in a more recent photo on the Otago Girls High School website:

Hopefully, some of these girls’ family members will see this photo here one day.

The post Girls, girls, girls appeared first on Geneageek.

A while back, my mother emailed the above photo of her grandfather, Eduard LEMMENS with his siblings.   The only ones identified at the time were Eduard (left) and his brother, Michel (right) whose records I had been unable to locate – I didn’t even have names of the sisters but at least the photograph was evidence that there were at least five.

It turns out that Eduard was in fact one of thirteen children born to Frederic Jean LEMMENS & Celine Marie VAN WOUW (blogged about previously) but only these seven had made it to adulthood.

A search for Frederic in the Dutch archives website (openarch.nl) led me to all the records in which he was listed as father.

There seems to be a wealth of information available online for those seeking their Dutch ancestors, albeit a little tricky to navigate for the non-Dutch speaking users (like me).  I was finally able to locate a birth record for brother Michel. His name had been spelled Micheal in the records which seemed to be the reason it was difficult to find him (unlike other ‘more fuzzy’ search engines I’ve used).  All their children’s birth records were there (all born in Vlissingen, Zeeland), as well as death records for the five who died as infants/children.  I have yet to translate these death records as I want to make a death counterpart to my ‘Super-Duper-Handy-Dandy Dutch Birth Record Translation Helper’ and am currently learning some basic Dutch to help me research this particular branch.

However, with this information I was able to find the names and birthdates of the surviving children and guess who is who in the photograph. Irma and Leontine were the easiest being the youngest but I have reservations about the older girls as I can only guess at their ages (sorry, ladies).  The woman I labelled as Valentine looked the oldest to me, and ‘possible Anna’ looked younger than ‘possible Esperance’ but of course, I could be wrong.  I am in the process of trying to date the photograph and glean as much information as I can from the image (ie. why the photo album on the table?).

Next Steps:

• Date the photograph
• Translate death records
• Seek more photographs to help correctly identify each individual

The post The LEMMENS Tree appeared first on Geneageek.

I haven’t written a lot about my mother’s side of the family – in fact, I just checked and I don’t seem to have written at all about them!  This saddens me but it’s largely because her family history is centred around Belgium and so the records are not easily accessible to me (physically OR ‘literally’ as I don’t read French or Dutch).  Hopefully that will change with a little help from growing records and Google Translate.

This weekend my mother passed on a photo that my grandmother gave my mother of HER mother’s parents – got that? Basically I got a pic of my mother’s maternal great-grandparents (and maybe a great-aunt in the background).  So that’s great – an ‘ID’ed family photo… almost.  The problem is my grandmother has forgotten their names (!) although she’s pretty sure her grandfather’s given name was Frederick.

So I blow off the digital dust on my Belgian ancestors to check their names to discover I don’t actually have them on there yet.  I know that my grandmother was one of nine children born to Eduard LEMMENS and Gabrielle MINNE.  Eduard himself was one of seven siblings seen in the photo below:

(The youngest girl lying on the floor looks most like the mystery woman in the first photo – could it be her?)

Since I don’t currently have a ‘world’ membership, I wasn’t expecting much from searching a Belgian on ancestry, but I actually may have struck lucky!  The very first result was a British 1901 census entry for a Fredrick LEMMENS born in Ostende, Belgium.  My grandmother was born in the coastal city of Ostende, Belgium and the man’s age fit (b.1855), so it immediately interested me.  This man was on board the S.S. Truro in Hull that night and recorded as a ‘Pilot Dutch’ but it didn’t seem to be a Belgian vessel or crew.

A quick glance at some of the other results didn’t show any other connections but Google threw up a record on the Oostende Archives site of a sea fishing captain who “sailed for shipowners” [G. ASAERT, Analytical inventory of fishing reels (1818-1843 and 1860-1910), Brussels (ARA), 1986].  So could that delightful outfit that looked to me like a milkman’s uniform actually be a captain’s uniform? [update: Another descendant of Frederick Lemmens (RV) informs me that he is not wearing a captain’s uniform but was probably his summer jacket. Frederick apparently always wore the hat because he was bald! :)]

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