Title Page Dramatis Personae Photographs Monier History L'Hoste History
| [This background and history of the Monier Family was compiled by John Albin Monier, Jr., and based on information passed down to him by his parents, maternal grandmother, paternal and maternal aunts and great aunts and other relatives, together with news articles and obituaries in local and area newspapers.] |
My father was John Albin Monier, Sr. or 1st. His father was Joseph Leopold Monier (I did not know him personally as he died before I was born). He had been a Captain in the Confederate Army and lived in Franklin, La. He had a brother named Henry who had been a Colonel in the Confederate Army. Henry Monier was married to a Miss Zamit ?. They had two daughters who never married and died without issue. Henry lived in New Orleans, La. He was a sugar gauger on the Riverfront. He was also active in New Orleans politics and was the leader in his ward for his political organization. He died shortly after the turn of the century in the early 1900's when I was a little boy. I remember my father going to the funeral. Because of his political connections there was a lengthy article about him in the local newspapers when he died. They mentioned his military accomplishments, his political and personal activities and also mentioned he was a descendant of one of the first four French families to settle in Louisiana before the American Revolution in 1776. Outside of this I know nothing of the Monier family prior to the Civil War of 1861-64. Except that one of my older Aunts told me Henry and Joseph Leopold had several sisters who had gone up East and married up there. We never knew or heard anything from them.
My father's mother was Livie Perrett. They had five children — Fannie, Joseph Leopold, Jr., Regina, Ursin and my father John Albin, who was the youngest. Ursin died when he was a young man and I did not know him. The others eventually moved to New Orleans, were married — I knew them all. My father was born in Franklin, La. but moved to New Orleans at the age of 17. His mother died from diptheria when he was an infant and his maternal grandmother raised him with the help of some ex-negro slaves who had stayed on working for the family after the war.
My paternal grandmother, Livie Perrett was the daughter of Ursin Perrett and Fannie Pain. Before the Civil War they were well-to-do plantation owners. They had heavy investments in slaves to work the plantations. When the war came they were wiped out.
The Perretts had other children besides my grandmother, Livie, a son Ursin, Jr., a daughter Sidonie and at least four or five other girls. Sidonie never married — she became a writer and several of her books, all in French, were placed in local libraries. The other girls married into the De La Houssaye, Hereford, Tarleton and other prominent families in Franklin, La.
The Perrett and Pain families were evidently descendants of the Acadians who migrated South from Nova Scotia in Canada. They were the subjects of Longfellow's immortal story of Evangeline. There is a statue of Evangeline near the Evangeline Oak Tree on the Bank of Bayou Teche in St. Martinsville, La. where the Acadians finally landed and settled. Their descendants spread through a good part of Southwest Louisiana and are now known as "Cajuns" which is a derivative of Acadian.
That's as far as I can go on my father's ancestors — both paternal and maternal.
Now I may be able to give you a little more information about my mother's ancestors as I knew my maternal grandmother and my mother also knew her maternal grandmother and they passed on some data which I now give you. The family goes back to the French nobility prior to the French Revolution when King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette lost their heads to the Guillotine.
I'll start off with the first ancestor we know of: namely, The Marquis de la Roche Jacquelin whose chateau was near Nante, France. He had at least one child, a daughter named Marie (there may have been more children).
When the Revolution started in France after the Fall of the Bastille, the nobility was hunted down by the revolutionaries, called the Citizens Army and many of them were killed or given a mock trial and guillotined. We don't know what happened to the Marquis orthe rest of his family, but his daughter Marie who was apparently full grown, escaped by hiding in a sewer for many days. She fed herself by taking milk from a she goat with a kid, who passed by every day. She finally made.her way to nearby Nante, a seaport town and from there managed to escape (no doubt with others) by boat to the Island of Gibraltar, an English possession. She met and finally married an English sea-going Captain whose last name was Ternell. (We know nothing of the Ternell family) The Ternells later migrated to the U.S. no doubt to the Port of N.O. The Ternells had at least one child, Marie - there may have been other children (This Marie was my mother's grandmother). Marie Ternell later married a Creole gentleman of Spanish/French ancestory named Garcia. (We know nothing of the Garcia family prior to this man).
The Garcias lived in N.O. and had several children, namely Cecille, Eugene and Emile. There may have been another girl but if so she died young. Eugene married and had at least 4 children. Emile never married and died a bachelor.
The daughter, Cecille Garcia married another Creole of Spanish/French origin named Francis Martin. Francis Martin had 2 sisters, Emily (Mimi) Lola and 2 brothers Emiho and Edgardo. That's all we know about the Martin family. Francis and Cecille Martin had several children namely: Marie, Leonie, Alice, Ernestine, Paul and Rene. All of these children married, Leonie married Leonce Bouny, Alice married James Ratto, Ernestine married Edmond Nores, Paul married Mirelle Mares Hornot (and several others), Rene married Eugenie Webre.
Marie was my mother - she married John Albin Monier, Sr. in 1896 in N.O. They had 6 girls and 2 boys — John Albin, Jr. (me), Olga, Cecille, Livie, Marie, Claudia, Yolande and Ursin. (Cecille died while still an infant — age 16 months) All my other sisters ranging in age from 82 to 68 are still living. Ursin, my brother was born after I had already finished High School and I was already working. He is 17 years younger than me. All were married and had children, except Claudia who had no children. Olga married Achilles L'Hoste, Livie married Adolf L. Vienne, Jr., Marie married Oswald P. Villarrubia, Claudie married Norbert McLeod, Yolande married Howard Martin and Ursin married Gloria Koeneke. All of my sisters are now widows except Claudia.
Title Page Dramatis Personae Photographs Monier History L'Hoste History