1. Joseph Perry Micheau and Edna Julia Lewis were married on 27 November 1913, at St. Francis Xavier Church, in Carbondale, Illinois. They were married for 62 years before Joe died in 1975. On their 50th wedding anniversary in 1963, they received a special telegram from Pope John XXIII.
2. She was, at the end of [...]
Continue reading about Love Letters from Prairie du Rocher: Epilogue
Joseph Perry Micheau (born 23 Feb 1888, Prairie du Rocher, Illinois; died 15 Nov 1975, St Louis, Missouri) was a descendant of the French Negroes of Illinois–originally slaves from Jamaica brought to Upper Louisiana by French entrepeneur Phillipe Renault in the 1720’s. The Micheau family represent well the social and cultural lives of the descendants [...]
Continue reading about Valentines Day: Love Letters from Prairie du Rocher
During November, which is Black Catholic History Month, I wrote about the Knights of Peter Claver. A few days ago, I came across this badge from St Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in St Louis. St Elizabeth’s was a parish established especially for black Catholics by Fr. John Markoe and his brother, Fr. William Markoe, both Jesuits, [...]
Sometime after their marriage in 1913, Joseph P. Micheau and his wife Edna Lewis moved their family from Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri. According to Joseph’s 1917 draft card, they lived at 4210 Cote Brilliant and then apparently at 3128 Fair Avenue. The 1920 census places them on Fair Avenue. Later, however, [...]
Continue reading about Black History Month: A Strange Letter and an un-Fair Move?
In recognition of Black Catholic Hisotry Month, we reprise a popular post from 2008.
Originally Published at GeneaBlogie on Tuesday, February 12, 2008.
Who was the first African-American Catholic Priest?
The answer is . . . it depends on who you ask. And sometimes the same person will give two different answers!
The contenders are Father James Healy (1830-1900), [...]
Continue reading about Black Catholic History Month: The First African-American Priest
Originally appeared on Monday, November 13, 2006 at GeneaBlogie
Updated: photo added; some dates corrected
An almost sinful obsession of mine after genealogy is watching Gunsmoke [TVLand, most weekends; also early mornings during the week; check local listings (Update~11/04/09: Gunsmoke is not currently running on TVLand)]. Some weekends, it seems as if the time passes and [...]
Continue reading about Black Catholic History Month: Gunsmoke & Catholic Genealogy
With the crisis of my father’s recent illness and the minor drama of my own, I feel like I’ve been way out of touch the last two weeks. It’s time get back into the flow of things. I thought little census whacking for Halloween would ease my way back into writing. So I went [...]
The photograph on this page was taken on May 10, 2009, which happened to be both Mother’s Day and the birthday of Edna Micheau Penny, who’s shown here. She’s examining a violin which belonged to her father, Joseph Perry Micheau (1888-1975) of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. It had been many years since she had seen [...]
Paul Harvey Aurandt eventually overcame the murder of his father, a Tulsa police officer, when Paul was just a toddler. That murder spun off a series of bizarre incidents in the State of Oklahoma:
A lynch mob demanded that the Tulsa County sheriff prove that the accused were not in the jail. They dispersed after their [...]
Continue reading about The Rest of Paul Harvey’s Story–Conclusion
I started this with a note on Facebook and it was suggested that it would make a good meme for bloggers. The idea is to publicize your surnames and locales to see if anyone elseknows something about them. For me on Facebook, I got several research-helpful replies. So how much better to take it to [...]
