The Night the Lancaster Bomber Crashed

In World War II, Graffigny-Chemin saw little action due to its relative isolation. However, on the night of July 22, 1944 an English Royal Air Force Lancaster Bomber crashed into the hills behind the village. Thirteen airmen died immediately, two were seriously wounded, and one, Canadian Paul Bell, was slightly wounded. Local villagers managed to secret Airman Bell to the French underground, and he was spirited out of France through Switzerland and then to England. However, because of the severity of the injuries of the other airmen, they were released to the German authorities, but then never heard from again.

Villagers had removed from the crashed plane its radio transmitter, weapons, ammunition, and explosives. When the German authorities learned of this, they took hostages from the village and threatened to burn it. Living in the village was the French widow of a German Colonel, who had died in 1913. She interceded with the authorities and obtained the release of the hostages and cancellation of the order to burn the village.



The Airmen who died in the plane crash are buried in the village cemetery of Graffigny-Chemin.

my great grandmother

I met my great grandmother for the first time today. Her name is Julie Laura Emma Chevallier. She was born in Graffigny-Chemin, France on March 16, 1862. Her parents were Paul Constant Chevallier and Anne Emma Aichier.

Julie married Charles Guillame Christian Meine at a date unknown. They had two children, my grandmother, Marguerite Tony Lilly Meine and her older sister, Marie Leunn Paula Meine. both birthdates unknown.

"Julie Laura Emma" - such English names for a proper French girl. The name "Emma" I can guess is the subject of Jane Austin's 1815 novel of the same name.

"Emma Woodhouse is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on an estate in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her father, a hypochondriac who is excessively concerned for the health and safety of his loved ones." Emma

Julie Chevallier would have been like the Emma of Jane Austin's novel. My great grandmother was the daughter of a comparatively wealthy landholder in Graffigny; not that Graffigny was itself large or wealthy by any means, but her family was wealthy enough to own a second home in Switzerland and to properly educate the daughter so that she spoke several European languages.

The names "Julie" and "Laura" I will have to leave for later.

How to dress fashionably

Pictures can often be dated by both the subject's fashion and stance. Compare the photograph of my grandmother Marguerite Chevalier Meine with John Singer Sergeant's 1897 painting of a fashionable couple.




"Women's dress in the 1890's continued to be built in a sturdy, heavy, upholstered style, but the silhouette changed to that of an hour glass. Female bodies were corseted to a small waist, and then padded in the buttocks, hips, bosom and sleeves to exaggerate the apparent wasp-waisted effect."

Tara McGuiness, The History of Fashion and Dress

James Madison Pearson

My family history relates that my grandfather James Madison Pearson saw action in World War I with the 2rd Infantry Division and with the 3nd Infantry Division.

In the spring of 1918, with close to 50 divisions freed by Russia's withdrawal from the war, the German Army launched successive attacks on the Western Front, hoping to defeat the Allies before United States forces could be deployed.

The 2nd Infantry Division was organized in October 1917 and headquartered at Bourmont, Haute Marne, France. In June of 1918, the 2nd Infantry Division stopped a German advance at Belleau Wood. At Belleau Woods, the 2nd Infantry Division was three times awarded the French Croix de Guerre for gallantry under fire. The 2nd Infantry Division was next committed to a German advance on Paris and the battle at Chateau-Thierry.

The 3rd Infantry Division was posted to a position protecting Paris on the banks of the Marne River. In July of 1918, the 7th Machine Gun Battalion of the 3rd Division rushed to Chateau-Thierry amid retreating French troops and held back the Germans. While other units retreated, the 3rd Infantry Division remained rock solid and earned its reputation as the "Rock of the Marne".

My grandfather received numerous medals, including the Silver Star, Croix de Guerre, and Purple Heart during his service with the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions. He was wounded in action and treated at a hospital in Graffigny-Chemin, near Bourmont. It was here that he met and wed my grandmother, Marguerite Chevalier (Chevallier) Meine.

Madame de Graffigny

'You will jump with joy at the date of this letter, and you will say, 'Ah! mon Dieu! she is finally at Cirey.'
- letter Mme de Graffigny to a young friend, on her arrival at Cirey, December 1738

Madame de Graffigny was a middle-aged woman who lived at Luneville, the provincial court of Stanislas, the last Duke of Lorraine. She was a real-life Madame Bovary who long dreamed of a more elegant way of life, divorced her husband and, penniless, managed to get herself invited to Cirey where she joined Voltaire and Emile du Chatelet.

She is remembered for her letters recounting her stay collected in Besterman's edition of Voltaire's correspondence and paraphrases in Frank Hamel's, An Eighteenth-Century Marquise: A Study of Emilie du Châtelet and Her Times (London, 1910).

Read David Bodanis's review.

Read The Life of Voltaire by Stephen G. Tallentyre.

Madame de Graffigny wrote Letters from a Peruvian Woman, a satirical description of the conditions of French women seen through the eyes of an outsider Zilia, an Incan princess - captured, rescued, and then educated in French culture, who talks about language, literature, philosophy, education, and child rearing.

pieces of a puzzle

At the end of the First World War, my grandmother Marguerite Chevallier Meine left her village of Graffigny-Chemin, France to marry my grandfather James Madison Pearson.

Here is a picture of Maruerite with her older sister.

My grandfather was serving with the 2nd Infantry Division under General Black Jack Pershing. My grandfather received the Purple Heart, Silver Star, and Legion of Merit among his many decorations. He was wounded in battle and treated at the hospital in Graffigny where he and my grandmother most likely met.

Here is a photograph of the house in Graffigny where my grandmother was raised.

chasing ghosts

Trying to find evidence of your ancestors who lived hundreds of years ago, is a bit like chasing ghosts - ghosts in that their spirits have long since left this earth and the tangible proof of their being is more ephemeral than real.

My father, Arthur Harvey Davis was born in Austin, Texas in 1920. His father, of the same name, was born, to my knowledge, on a farm called Langford Downs, just two miles north of Lechlade. The farm is now gone, replaced by a newer house.

There is a picture of this house which I now have, developed by the local chemist in Lechlade who also had the last name of Davis. He died years ago, marrying late in life and without children. Davis, a local historian explained, is a Welch name. There are no other Davises in the town with the exception of one family which is a recent transplant from Wales.

All that I possess connecting me to the farm of Langford Downs and the village of Lechlade is a photograph. It a typical photograph of the period between 1860 and 1890. The date is based on the quality of the photograph, the pose of the two men, and the fact that my great grandfather would have been in his thirties most likely in the 1880's.

The local church in Lechlade dates from the 1200's. Like many churches it was built on an earlier foundation, and there have been over the years additions and changes. When I walked in the church today, a historian, David Ramsely, was acting as custodian. It was he who explained to me the Welch derivation of the name "Davis" (I knew.), the chemist who had the name Davis (I knew that too.), and the fact that Langfor Downs and Lechlade are in two different counties, Oxfordshire and Gloustershire (I didn't know that.).

Langford Downs is not on the map. The post office directed me to the location two miles north of Lechlade and near the smaller village of Filken. The area is a working farm with wheat as the primary product. A larger stone house stands on what was probably the site of the original house. Am ancient and gnarled tree marks the spot, unlike the surrounding area. There are two other houses in the same area, and I suppose that either of them might have been a replacement for the house my great grandfather owned.



The property records, if discoverable, are either in Gloustershire or Oxford. It all depends on the flip of a coin as to where the records were sent.

the history of graffigny-chemin

War touches us all in one way or another.

For the village of Graffigny-Chemin, war was a frequent visitor. Joan of Arc, the patron saint oif France, was from Doremy, a village not too distant. The Thirty Years War, the Franco-Prussian War, World War I and II, all came to its doorsteps, and sometimes to the village itself.

During the First World War, the 2nd American Infantry Division headquartered in Bourmont, a village that commands the valley below and three kilometers from the village of Graffign-Chemin. A hospital in the village treated wounded American soldiers. Here my grandfather, James Madison Pearson was treated for wounds and met my grandmother Margherite Chevalier Meine.

For another history see this site.

The House

This is the front view of my grandmother's house in Graffigny-Chemin. The house is not visible from the street because of a high wall that surrounds the property.

The house faces the village and the main street leading up to the church. The right side of the house faces the church. Visitors were received by horse and carriage in the front. Then, horse and carriage would then be kept in a separate building in the back, or in other farm buildings up the street adjoining the farmland.




To the left of the house is the garden which is fairly large, taking up perhaps half an acre or more.

The garden consists of flowering beds set off by boxwoods. There are two pergolas, one is overgrown with an ancient tree , the other pergola fallen down and only the base remains. Along the wall separating the garden from the house is a water well which collects runoff from the rain.

For a good history of the village see this site.

general james madison pearson

He will always be Daddy Matt to his grandchildren, but to his friends, formally, he was General James Madison Pearson. He was born in 1888 in Birmingham, Alabama, enlisted at 17 in the army and went to fight in the Philippine Insurrection with Black Jack Pershing. During World War I, he fought in France in the Haute Marne (near Metz and Verdun, west of Strasburg, near the Vosges Mountains). He was wounded in action, met a French girl by the name of Marguerite Chevalier, fell in love, and married her. My mother, Elmire, was their first child.

These are his campaign ribbons.

marguerite

My grandmother was born Marguerite Chevalier Meine in the small village of Graffigny-Chemin in Haute-Marne. Haute-Marne encompasses the ancient region of Lorraine. Because of its close location to Germany, near the Vosge Mountains and the Alsace, it was an area much in dispute between France and Germany.

The family history can be traced back to Franaria Brunel, a soldier in the infantry of King Louis XV (1767). Thereafter, nothing is known until my grandmother, Marguerite.

Marguerite was living in Graffigny during World War I. It was at that time that she met my grandfather, James Madison Pearson, who came to France as part of the American Expeditionary Force under General Jack Black Pershing.
My grandfather fought with the 2nd Division. He received the Silver Star, Purple Heart, and Distinguished Service Medal in addition to the French Croix de Guerre.

Wounded in action, he met my grandmother. Her house in Graffigny was next to the church and with enough rooms to accomodate the sick and wounded.

At the end of the war, they married and returned to the United States, eventually my grandfather retired and settled down in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.