Mary Smith Raney's Mother, Louisa Petitjean - Her Family

Eugene and Louisa Smith, Mary, Gusta, Laura c 1893

Note in the photograph that Louisa has fierce black eyes. That was what my mother remembered about the grandmother that the Raney children called Maw.

With her parents and seven siblings, Louisa immigrated from France in May 1854 when she was five. Her name on the passenger list is Amelie, but on censuses it is occasionally Louzie (written phonetically by the census taker).  Her father, Jean Baptiste Petitjean, born in Desertines, Allier, France, about 1800, already had children from a previous marriage when in 1842 he married Justine Marie Pigor (or Piquet) (1814-1879). She was born in Dijon, France, so how they met is a mystery. Oddly, they were living in the Franche-Comté and had children born there when they decided to immigrate to America twenty-four years after the Schmitts and Monniers. People had lived in this narrow valley for so many centuries, nearly everyone was related.

Tintype of Justine Marie (Pigor or Piquet) Petitjean, our great-great grandmother, c. 1865-70

The year 1848 was a year of revolution in Europe, including a rather mild one in France that forced the abdication of King Louis Philippe, who had proved himself less interested in reform than had been hoped. The 2nd Republic began with a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte being elected president. In 1851 he staged a coup d'etat and in 1852 had himself declared Emperor Napoleon III of the Second Empire. Our grandmother Mary Raney had on a shelf a small, but thick, glass tumbler that she said her grandfather Jean Baptiste had toasted Napoleon with from time to time.  I assumed she meant Napoleon III, but if Jean Baptiste Petitjean was happy to have a new emperor, why did he choose to leave France for America with his family? Besides, he died in Shelby County, Ohio, in 1861 at age 61, when Louisa Petitjean was about 12. Perhaps he toasted the original  Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled after the Battle of Waterloo when Jean Baptiste was about 15, his body returned from St. Helena in the 1830s to be reburied with splendor. Thus are family myths born - choose which "alternative fact" you prefer.

They crossed the Atlantic from Le Havre on the immigrant ship Camillus, likely a sailing ship, its fares cheaper than a steamship's; it had been transporting immigrants for years. An immigrant family the size of the Petitjeans probably crossed the ocean in steerage, at close quarters with other immigrants, tolerating foul smells from seasickness, slop pails and rats.

An illustration of cramped quarters in steerage, c. 1850

Whereas the Schmitts and Monniers most likely had purchased their own food before boarding, by the 1850s the price of food was in the ticket and each passenger received weekly 5 lbs. of oatmeal, 2 1/2 lbs. biscuit, 1 lb. flour, 2 lbs. rice, 1/2 lb. sugar, 1/2 lb. molasses, and 2 ounces of tea, (perhaps coffee for the French passengers). They cooked it as best they could in a cook shop 12 feet by 6, its inadequate space a cause for many quarrels as women vied for the opportunity to cook.  An observer wrote that "many a poor woman with her children can get but one meal done, and sometimes they get nothing warm for days and nights when a gale of wind is blowing and the sea is mountains high and breaking over the ship in all directions." Those in steerage were locked in during a storm. Passage lasted about 6 weeks when the wind cooperated.

 Cabins for the well-heeled on the first deck, steerage on the 2nd deck, They seldom, if at all, were allowed on deck for a breath of fresh air.

They made it to America and, for a while, lived in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where Jules Petitjean was born - their last child and first one born an American.  They moved to Connecticut, but a son and a daughter from the previous marriage remained in Massachusetts. Jean Baptiste brought the rest of  his family out to Shelby County, Ohio, by 1860, where he appears on the census as owning his farm.

While still in the Franche-Comté, they must have been aware of and perhaps even related to earlier French colonists who came to Shelby County in the 1830s. Our ancestors had lived in that narrow valley in France for so many centuries, most were related. 

There was a rising antagonism toward immigrant Catholics, especially in New England, where the Irish were seeking refuge, and this may have influenced Jean Baptiste to move west.  The Petitjeans might have traveled from Connecticut to Shelby County by the Erie Canal and Lake Erie and then canal from Cleveland  south into Ohio, as did those before them. Finding their way to Shelby County, they settled two farms away from John Augusta Smith (formerly Jean Auguste Schmitt) in this French-speaking community.  But Shelby County was not always peaceful. In 1855 in nearby Sidney, the county seat, the "Know-Nothings" blew up with powder and stone a building used for Catholic services. Read about the "Know-Nothing" party and its antagonism toward Catholics in Ohio. HERE

This tiny photograph (appears to be an ambrotype done on glass and then encased), possibly of Louisa Petitjean, with tinted bow and blue lace gloved hand in her lap. c. 1868.

Eugene Smith (1850-1928) and Louisa Petitjean (1849-1931) married about 1875 in Loramie, Shelby County, Ohio. As mentioned earlier, Louisa's father, Jean Baptiste Petitjean, died in 1861.

Jean Baptiste Petitjean, our great-great grandfather, buried at St. Remy Cemetery, Russia Township, Shelby Co., Ohio

His widow Justine died in Loramie Township, Shelby County, in 1879.

Justine Petitjean, our great-great grandmother, buried at St. Remy Cemetery, Russia Township, Shelby County, Ohio

By the 1880 census Eugene Smith, Louisa Petitjean Smith and son Augusta (Gusta) (b.23 Nov 1876) were in Wilson County, Kansas.  Louisa's brothers, Julius (Jules) (1856-1950) and Charles Petitjean (1845-1923) came along to Wilson County, married, and had families. Eugene's parents (and maybe some Smith siblings) settled a short time later in adjacent (to the east) Neosho County.

Wilson County, Kansas

Why Wilson County, Kansas? There was still room for settlement there, only sparsely settled by whites before the American Civil War because it belonged to the Osage tribe, who were forced out after the war ended in 1865. In a History of Kansas by Cutler, published in 1882, the county is described as "twenty per cent of bottom land, and eighty per cent of upland; forest occupies eight per cent, and prairie ninety-two per cent. The average width of the bottoms along the principal streams, Verdigris and Fall River, is one mile." When the family rented a farm in 1909, it lay close to  Fall River, so you would think the soil was productive, but apparently not as much as Gus hoped for. The author continues, "The general surface of the county is undulating."  It had abundant creeks, and water from wells could be had from 18 to 30 feet; it also had coal seams close to the surface that could be used for fuel.  Its population had doubled between the 1870 and 1880 censuses to 13,775 and spring wheat was already the county's largest crop. The St. Louis and San Francisco RR went through its county seat, Fredonia, which had no Catholic church yet, but a priest came by train to hold services.

Eugene Smith rented the farm in Kansas. Mary Emma Smith was born there on July 18, 1882, and Laura was born May 8, 1888. Eugene's mother, Mary Francis (Marie Francoise Monnier) Smith died in adjacent Neosho County, Kansas, about 1890, and his father Jean Auguste Schmitt (John Augusta Smith) died in 1895 in Neosho County. They must have been living with one of Eugene's siblings, but all the 1890 censuses were destroyed in a a fire. 

Tintype of Jean Auguste Schmitt (John Augusta Smith) in old age

Our grandmother told this story about her mother. A towering summer thunderstorm swept across the prairie about twilight. Louisa grabbed up what she thought was a bottle of holy water and dashed about their farmhouse, splashing it on the walls for divine protection from a lightning strike. When they came downstairs the next morning, the walls were streaked with the dark blueing she added to her wash to make white clothes whiter.  

The family moved into Fredonia about 1905 to run the boarding house. Louisa always kept a pot of soup simmering on the cookstove, a French custom our grandmother continued while her children were growing up, its fragrance a fond memory my mom had of coming home from school on cold winter afternoons.

Mary and Laura Smith with Carl Petitjean, their cousin, c. 1905

They moved from Fredonia town center out to another rented farm in 1909.

Gus, Laura, Louisa and Eugene, c. 1910-11.

As I recounted in an earlier blog, Mary married  our grandfather, Frank Whitman Raney, on June 14, 1910. 

This is our grandmother's wedding shawl, originally white and red, but her mother-in-law Nancy Raney said it was unlucky unless she dyed it black. It's darker than appears here.

While Mary and Frank were living in Princeton, Indiana, in 1917, the Smiths abandoned their life in Kansas and moved up to Canada to raise wheat outside Didsbury, Alberta.  On their way up through Montana, Laura developed an ear infection, so bad that she had to be hospitalized in Great Falls. They passed through Havre, Montana, to cross into Alberta, Canada.

On their way to Canada with Gus at the reins.

 After Mary and then Frank joined them, the Smiths followed the Raneys to Trail, British Columbia. They lived near Mary and Frank Raney and took in boarders - three are mentioned in a letter. Gus must have been working at the smelter with our grandfather, or else why was he eager to go down to Spokane with Frank when the smelter closed for the season? Eugene was not a well man and could no longer farm. In fact, everyone during that time seemed prone to disease and ailments. 

 When Frank and Mary Raney and their children moved to Spokane, Washington, in the autumn of 1920 or the spring of 1921, Eugene, Louisa and Laura came with them, or followed shortly thereafter. Gus was already working in the Spokane area, for a while at Mount St. Michael, caring for their farm animals (and perhaps doing some of their farming).

I will continue the Spokane story in my next post.  If anyone has a copy of the family group photograph from our grandparents' 1960 50th wedding anniversary taken in front of their home, could you scan it and email it to me at shipscatbooks@jrcda.com   I've misplaced Mom's copy. It would make a nice closing to our grandparents' story.
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