Were the Valentines French or German?

Our Grandmother Anna Valentine McNally's grandparents on her father's side were born in the district of Alsace, probably in the city of Strasbourg. The 1860 and 1870 New Jersey census records indicate that her grandfather Louis Valentine, his wife Magdoline Little Droesch Valentine, and their three eldest children were born in Brin, France.

There is no place called Brin in France. Georgi, the family genealogist, speculates that the word means B.Rin or Bas Rhin, a department in the Alsace region of France. Bas Rhin is French for the Lower Rhine Area. There is also an Upper Rhine or Haut Rhin (south of Bas Rhin.)

The Rhine River (in French it's Rhin, in German Rhein) runs along Bas Rhin's eastern border separating it from Germany. A second river, the Ill, runs through the region and Illsass ("the place near the Ill River" in the regional dialect) is the origin of the name of Alsace, which is the larger political district. Bas Rhin's capitol is Strasbourg, an ancient settlement.

The Ill River in Alsace

Georgi's family stories indicate the Valentines immigrated from Strasbourg, which according to the Wikipedia is an Arrondisement (a city) in the Department of Bas Rhin in the Region of Alsace.

According to Lewis J. Valentine's autobiography Night Stick the family came from Alsace Lorraine. Lorraine is a nearby region with a similar history, My sister and I recall being told that the Valentines were from Alsace Lorraine and that they were German.The censuses, however, show that the Valentines told the enumerators they had been born in France.

Alsace and Bas-Rhin are now in France. So this raises several questions: Were the Valentines French or German? What language did they speak? And if they were French why do we think they were German?

Answers become somewhat clearer with an understanding of the relationship between France and Germany. Alsace, on the border between the two countries, was a pawn in their disputes.

The language there has traditionally been an Alsatian-German dialect and their customs related to Germany, but most residents held political loyalties to France. Alsace, once part of the Holy Roman Empire, was a French region from 1648 until 1871 and the end of the Franco-Prussian War. As part of the treaty Alsace and part of Lorraine were handed over to German rule, to the distress of many inhabitants.

German soldiers with a dachshund about 1910

Alsace and Lorraine were joined into Alsace-Lorraine, "an administrative territory or Reichsland, which means they were neither joined to an existing German state nor given the status of a state themselves," according to historian Amanda Coker. "Instead, they were directly under the Kaiser and the Reich. They were nominally under the civilian control of a governor-general but the Prussian military actually exercised authority over their domestic affaires in many instances." Many dissatisfied Alsatians immigrated to France or to the United States.

In 1919 Alsace and Lorraine were given back to France as a consequence of Germany's loss in World War I. Hitler re-annexed the region and it was once again German from 1940 to 1945. Since 1945 it's been French, but cultural identity remains complex.

The question of whether Louis and Lena Valentine were French or German depends on two things---what they considered themselves to be and when they emigrated. They left Bas-Rhin about 1854 when it had been French for over 200 years, and undoubtedly considered themselves to be from France. Many Alsatian-Americans who left after 1871 considered themselves to have been born in Germany.

The other question is: what language did Louis and Lena Valentine speak? Alsatians still speak a dialect that is a regional language like Catalan and Basque. Official languages might be Spanish and French but regional identity is connected to regional dialects. So it may be the Valentines spoke Alsatian, something closer to German than French, a reason to recall them as German.

Another reason we think of them as German is that for a good deal of our immediate ancestors' lives Alsace and Bas Rhin were German. By the early 1940s when another Lewis Valentine was recalling his ancestry for his autobiography the region known as Alsace-Lorraine was again German. He died a year after it's last return to France.

You may be surprised to find that Grandma McNally who we think of as so Irish was half French.
Read more about the history of Alsace and the question of French/German identity by clicking here:
http://www.hillsdale.edu/images/userImages/bwilkens/Page_4539/Coker.doc
Amanda Coker, The Cause and Impact of Regional Identity in Alsace

And click here to buy a copy of Night Stick: the Autobiography of Louis J. Valentine.
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/10177573/used/Night%20Stick:%20The%20Autobiography%20of%20Lewis%20J.%20Valentine,%20Former%20Police%20Commissioner%20of%20New%20York
These are probably reprint paperpacks, but one would make a nice Valentine's gift for a relative.

Cecelias

Saint Cecelia is the Patron Saint of Music

The caption says "Dot, Kay, Cele, Vera, 1938." No mention is made of the banjo ukulele.

When I was young I learned the McNally sisters' names in order as a kind of poetic litany. Marie, Elizabeth, Veronica, Cecelia, Loretta, Margaret, Anna, Dorothy, Kathryn and Patricia---all Saints, all rather elegant and rather old-fashioned. Cecelia, my mother's name, was my favorite. I can still hear her sisters fondly articulating three syllables, Ce-cel-yuh, when they called her, although everyone mostly called her Cele (as in seal).

Cele and Jane 1949

We found a copy of her Baptismal Certificate that tells us where she got the name. Her aunt Cecilia Donohue Valentine was her godmother. On this copy, made in 1937 when she got married, Cecilia is spelled with two i's but Cele's birth certificate shows it with two e's---Cecelia.

Cecelia McNally Brackman inspired her own namesakes---Ben's sister Edie named her only daughter Cecelia---we never call her anything but Cecelia.

Cecelia in 1947

And Kathryn named her youngest Cecelia. We never call her anything but Cece (as in See-See). We don't have any trouble keeping Cele, Cecelia and Cece straight in family conversations.

The name continued into the fourth generation. Kathy Bentley named her daughter Kristen Cecelia.

The most interesting thing I've learned about the name Cecelia lately is that  it's pronounced something like Chinchilla in Italian. Wikipedia explains the pronunciation of Italian opera singer Cecilia Bartoli's name as tʃeˈtʃilja. It sounds like Chay-cheel-ee-uh to me. The other interesting thing I found in writing this post is the banjo ukulele in the beach picture above. In the family album the picture is so small the ukulele is not noticeable. I would guess that was Cele's instrument. She was, after all, named for the patron saint of music.

A banjo ukulele, according to Wikipedia, " is a four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. 'Banjolele,' sometimes also spelled banjelele or banjulele is a generic nickname given to the instrument, which was derived from the 'banjulele-banjo,' introduced by Alvin D. Keech in 1917. The instrument achieved its greatest popularity in the 1920s and '30s, and combines the small scale, tuning, and playing style of a ukulele with the construction and distinctive tone of a banjo, hence the name."

Aunt Lora

Loretta Theresa McNally was the 5th daughter of William and Anna McNally, born on May 17, 1913 in Brooklyn. She was William Brackman's godmother and here she is taking her duties seriously at his christening in early 1947 when she was 33. Dad's friend Tom Berry was godfather.

Vera, Cele and Laura at Cele's house in Cincinnati in February, 1953.

I wish I'd saved those Russell Wright dishes.

Cele was quite taken with the chartreuse and red color scheme and painted the dining room to match.

Lora didn't marry until she was 44 so she and Aunt Vera were a pair of independent women. I remember they had the freedom to take vacations and their lives seemed far more glamorous than my mother's who had three kids to raise.

Things got even more glamorous when Lora married Jim Lynch on July 7, 1957. What a good looking guy he was! They never had kids so, like Vera, she seemed a special aunt who found her nieces and nephews somewhat entertaining.

Engagement Party 1957

Wedding July 7, 1957

She died June 8, 1971, at the age of 58--- of kidney failure, as I recall. I am guessing she took the confirmation name Theresa after her Aunt Theresa, Uncle Lew's wife Theresa Donohue Valentine.

Lew and Theresa Valentine in 1934

John J. Valentine 1855 – 1922

The Pennsylvania/New Jersey border defined by the Delaware River

John J. Valentine was born October 21, 1855,  in Mercer County, New Jersey. His parents were recent immigrants from Strasbourg in the Alsace district of France. Louis Valentine and Magdoline (Lena) Droesch Valentine immigrated some time between 1853 when their third child Mary was born in Alsace and the fall of 1855 when John was born in New Jersey.

Mercer County, New Jersey

At the time of John's birth Mary was about 2, brother Louis, Jr. was about 5 and Magdelin the eldest was about 7 years old. Eighteen months after John's birth, Elizabeth arrived. Both John and Elizabeth were born in the township of Lawrence in Mercer County, situated across the Delaware River from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Lawrence was a rural town between Princeton and Trenton, Mercer County's major city. John's obituary gave his birthplace as Trenton.

Sometime between Elizabeth's birth in the spring of 1857 and the mid-1860 census, the Valentines moved a few miles north to Hunterdon County where their last child Catherine was born at the end of 1860.The census found them in the small town of Ringoes in East Amwell Township. An 1844 book on New Jersey described "the village of Ringoes, in a delightful valley [containing] about 20 dwellings."

Ringoes in 1918, about 70 years after the Valentines lived there.

John's obituary mentioned that he had lived in Brooklyn for 67 years in 1922, implying the Valentines moved to New York about 1855, which does not mesh with the census or Catherine's birth information, both indicating they left New Jersey after 1860. The 1870 census lists them in Brooklyn with Louis Sr. working as a house carpenter and the younger Magdelin, Louis Jr. and Mary working as tailors and tailoresses.

Brooklyn in the 1870s

Louis died sometime between that census count and 1872 when the Brooklyn City Directory listed Lena Valentine as a widow, living at 263 Floyd. Five years later Lena was living at 15 George.

We haven't a wedding date for John but Georgi Dorr guesses he married Elizabeth Daly about 1880 or 1881. Elizabeth and John had 5 children between 1882 and 1892, among them our Grandmother Anna Valentine McNally. Georgi writes:

"John had a variety of occupations: he ran a produce store until it folded about 1899, was a watchman in a dry goods store[Abraham & Straus] according to the 1920 census, and a foreman at a stable according to his death certificate."

Turn-of-the-last-century economics were as volatile as those in our time.

The Valentines look prosperous in this photograph of the younger children about 1893. The produce business was probably good in the early 1890s when unemployment was 3% in 1892, but in 1897 when the Panic of 1897 hit, 12 to 14% were out of work. Lewis dropped out of high school to work at Abraham & Straus around 1898 as the recovery began but unemployment was still at 12%.

The Panic of 1897 was almost as bad as the 1933 depression. Causes were a housing bubble, poor banking practices, which led to a freeze on credit and bank failures (long before bank accounts were insured.)

Near the corner of Myrtle and Adelphi in the 1940s from the New York Public Library

Near the corner of Adelphi and Myrtle today.

The lower floors have been turned into store fronts

but the upper stories remain much the same as when the

Valentines lived in the neighborhood.

John died in 1922 at the age of 67. They were residing at 271 Clermont Ave, Brooklyn. Georgi writes: "He died, however, not at his Clermont Ave home where the medical examiner viewed his body, but at a neighborhood store at 331 Myrtle Ave."

A store front at 370 Myrtle today

An obituary from Ancestry.com:

John J. Valentine, Sr., for twenty-one years employed by Abraham & Straus, Inc., Fulton street, as a night foreman, died suddenly yesterday at his home 271 Clermont avenue. He was born in Trenton, N.J., sixty seven years ago, and had been a resident of Brooklyn for sixty-two years. He was a member of the A&S Benevolent Association and the Holy Name Society attached to the R.C. Church of the Queens All Saints, where a requiem mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. on Thursday. He is survived by a widow, Elizabeth Daley VALENTINE; three sons, Lewis J., a Lieutenant attached to the Eleventh Inspection District, New York Police Department. William M., and John J. Jr., and two daughters, Mrs Anna MCNALLY and Mrs. Elizabeth CURLEY, and twenty-nine grandchildren.

Hats

Bens' sister Edie in hat and outfit 1927

Anna and Aunt Patty in 1945

Going to church one would guess.

Jane about 1952

Pat Bentley, Cele, Barbara and Aunt Ann Dorr

(too bad her hat is cropped out---you know she was wearing one)

1945

Ben's friend Tom Berry and Ben in the top row at the beach with three unidentified hunks---all in headcoverings, in the 1930s.

Cele in 1945

And the most impressive photo in the family album.

Grandma in November 1945 with top hat, cigarette and a bottle of whiskey.

Lewis Valentine's Swearing In

A November 11th blog posting at the New York Times featured this photograph of Lewis J. Valentine's swearing-in as Police Commissioner of New York in 1934. The woman sitting behind Fiorello LaGuardia is our Great-Grandmother Elizabeth Daly Valentine. The younger people are Uncle Lew's daughters, their husbands and grandchildren. His wife Theresa is hiding behind LaGuardia. One of the next generation has identified her grandfather in-law Charles Locke (married to Lew's eldest daughter Elizabeth) as the man holding a child on the left.

Elizabeth is 73 in the photo.

A newspaper description from 1934:

"Wearing civilian clothes at nine in the morning of the 26th Valentine reported with his wife, 4 daughters, three of his grandchildren, and his proud mother to City Hall to be sworn in as the police commissioner by a beaming mayor."

Here are a few more 1935 photos of Lewis Valentine from the posting.

Read A.G. Sulzberger's article about him by clicking here:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/la-guardias-tough-and-incorruptible-police-commissioner/

Here's an article about him from the Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1999/03/29/1999-03-29_lewis_valentine_muss__em_up.html

100 Years Ago in Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Bridge. All the photos are from the Library of Congress collection.

Although we have no family photographs from 1910, we can get a snapshot of our Valentine and McNally family in 1910 by looking at the 1910 census and family records.

On New Year's Day 1910 William and Anna McNally had been married for about 5 years and were living at 163 Adelphi Street in Brooklyn. Anna was 25 and her husband was 30.  (Note that the census lists incorrect ages of 24 and 28. Eldest daughter Marie is listed as 8, five years off.)

I found this tiny picture of the house with the address 163 Adelphi Street today.

Their family of young girls was then relatively small and very young. Marie was 3 in January, Elizabeth (Billie) would be two in August and Veronica was 4 days old on New Year's Day. By the end of the year Anna was pregnant again with Cecelia. My sister and I always try to imagine how Anna managed so many children so close together.

She undoubtedly received help from her extended family. Her mother Elizabeth Daly Valentine was living with the McNallys when the census taker arrived on April 18th. Elizabeth, 48 years old, and two of Anna's siblings Bess Valentine (22 years old) and John Valentine, Jr. (17) made a family of eight living at that address. The whereabouts of Anna's father John Valentine Sr. are not apparent in the census, althought the 1920 census found him again counted with his wife.

Will's younger brother Patrick, a house painter, and his wife Mary Elizabeth lived nearby at 93 Adelphi.  Anna's brother William Valentine, a plumber, and his wife Cecelia Donohue Valentine are also listed on the previous page of the census, indicating they lived closeby at 370 Myrtle Avenue.

Knowing the McNallys later we can imagine the young couples enjoyed each other's company and many good times together.

Grandpa, known as Mack at the Fire Department, had been working there for about nine months in Hook and Ladder Co 53. This photo is of an engine wagon about 1910.

Grandma's brother Lew Valentine at 27 years old was a patrolman with the New York Police Department. (The photo shows a NYC traffic policeman in 1911.) Lewis Valentine lived nearby at 211 Clermont avenue with his wife Elizabeth Josephine Donohue Valentine and their 4 young children. Across the street at 210 Clermont lived her mother Mary A. O'Donnell,  a brother Edward, also a policeman, two sisters Theresa and Jennie Donohue and her half-brother Francis O'Donnell. Theresa at 31 and Jennie at 26, single women, were employed in a book bindery, Theresa as a "paster," and Jennie as a "gold layer."

Lew's wife Elizabeth would die in August, 1910 at about 27. Lew would marry his sister-in-law Theresa Donohue about four years later.

I wonder if Cecelia Donohue, who married William Valentine, was related to Elizabeth and Theresa Donohue who married his older brother Lewis Valentine.

Although the working people of Brooklyn lived in a functional neighborhood of extended families, society viewed the multi-family apartments and row houses of Brooklyn as undesirable crowding. Reformers believed that ethnic communities included too many family members per housing unit, an attitude reflected in the photograph of row house yards in Manhattan, taken about 1910. The plumbing and the sanitation undoubtedly left something to be desired but it couldn't have been all bad.

Brooklyn children on a fresh air outing about 1910.

The neighborhood of Adelphi Street included many Irish families---the Kellys, Quinlans and Walshes. Some of the older people had been born in Ireland but most of the young adults were American-born. Irish was the predominant ethnic background in a community of mixed origins. Nearby lived the German-born Willenbocks,  the Feinbergs who were Russian-born Jews, the Norwegian Edlers and the Hungarian Bonyoys. Many of the neighbors took in boarders or lodgers and I only noticed one with a live-in servant, an indication of the economic status on Adelphi Street in 1910.