Simone's Paternal Line

The dour-looking man to the left of center was my great-great-grandfather, Francois-Regis Chabal/ He had been a colporteur, basically a peddler (someone who carried his wares on his "col" [neck].) He went from village to village around Avignon in the mid-19th century and sold and cut material and patterns for shirts, mostly to farmers whose wives made them. He finally was able to open a store in Avignon, which he passed on to his son, also Regis. He is young above, (top right) and middle-aged below.  (I put in the name of his wife, my great-great grandmother, Maire Rieusset, for genealogy researchers who might be distant cousins)

 

My mother's father, Marcel Chabal (after whom I was named) is on the top right, a soldier in World War I at the time. His father, Regis stands next to him. Regis married Marie Mery sitting bottom left, and family rumor was that he had a mistress across town. In this group there was a son, also Regis, (top left) who died of tuberculosis at 19, and Germaine, bottom right who died of an intestinal ailment in 1929.  You can sort of tell she had a personality, can't you?  Roger and Jean are in the middle. Although Roger was extremely good-looking,  (and fathered super good looking cousins who were close to my mother) Jean turned into quite the skirt chaser.  You can tell from this picture of him on the eve of WWII why he might have caught the eye of many a lady.  

 

My grandfather was the only one old enough (just barely) for World War I.  When he returned from being a messenger in the trenches of Northern France, then fighting in the Balkans, then almost dying of typhus, he worked as a nurse on this hospital ship.

 

As per a ministerial decision of the 9^th of December, 1916, a silver medal in recognition of extraordinary medical service is awarded to the soldier Chabal (Jules), of the 15^th section, for his zeal and devotion in the care of infirm Serbian soldiers evacuated from Corfu onto the hospital ship France IV, in spite of his own contraction of a life-threatening illness.

I always forget how often my family went by their middle names. My grandfather was actually Jules, but went by Marcel.

Back at home, he courted Jeanne, who's closest sister was my Tante Marguerite.  They are pictured here. My mother's mother is on the right.  Marcel and Jeanne were married discreetly in 1921, as the family was still in morning over the death of Regis.They lived on top of the Chemisierie, below a workshop of seamstresses (and a place where my uncle Roger held resistance meetings during the war).  The store was run by Marcel and Jean, with my mother Jeanne coming down in between having children and shopping and cooking. It was on old building dating back centuries. When my grandfather moved to a modern apartment (right next to one of the "ramparts" encircling Avignon) my Tonton Jean lived above the store in later years, and I visited him many times, marveling at the slanted floor of the kitchen.  And also at how much warmer he was than my grandfather, who was as correct as his own father had been bon-vivant.

From my memoir:

    Though he unquestionably loved his family, he found it difficult to be demonstrative. He was also naturally prone to anxiety and depression. My mother recounts that in 1938, when war in Europe seemed imminent, he would pace silently around the table after dinner, deep in thought, oblivious to not having excused his children.

    It would be tempting to ascribe my grandfather’s seriousness to his years spent in the trenches of Northern France and Serbia in World War I, a messenger who bicycled between front lines and rear command, often “riding over bodies in the dark.” But he described those times as some of the happiest of his life, because it was the only time before or since that he had “camarades.”

    I don't know what was more startling; to hear my grandfather remember fondly living through four years of unspeakable gore and deprivation, or the personal nature of his confession. This was not a man who would later speak of the heartbreak of losing a treasured wife or adored son, who ever waxed rhapsodic about being a grandfather. But when he spoke of the First World War, you could hear the joy of being young in his voice; of having buddies he would take a bullet for. "It was the only time in my life I had friends, so I was happy."   What one has to remember above all about my Grandfather was that he was a man of his time. Duty and responsibility were sacred values. This made him an excellent business owner and head of household, but his politics were predictably right and bourgeois. My mother says she always felt he held back, that he wanted to express he love he felt for his children but always restrained himself.

  

I don't want to give too exhaustive a history of the aunts and uncles on both sides, just that clearly my mother had many strains of personality to inherit from both Chabal and Hebrard.  Great verve and passion for life, and also some depression and mental illness.  And a whole lot of smarts.

MCO 2015