Lonely No More - The Life and Trials of Stanislas Besin

After two years of researching the life of Stanislas Besin, I have been able to piece together most of his life.

CHILDHOOD

Stanislas Besin was born May 9, 1807 in Viesly, France, to a young woman named Rosalie Villette.  When he was born he was given the last name of Villette indicating that she was not married.  Both his grandfathers, Valentin Besin and Jean Baptiste Villette signed as witnesses of the birth.  Most likely his father, Stanislas Besin, was also present.  However, it was customary not to mention the father's name when the birth is illegitimate.

Special thanks to Geoffrey Derone for translating this document for me.

Less than a month later, his 19-year-old mother dies on June 4, 1807.



MARRIAGE & FAMILY

His father marries Marie Angelique Lienard on November 3, 1813.  Stanislas was six years old and most likely was adopted by his father making his name Stanislas Besin.

When Stanislas was 18 years old, he married a young woman close to his age named Antoinette Degravelle.  Antoinette was born in Paris although she didn't know that at the time.  This is most likely because her parents were arrested by the King of France for making counterfeit money.

Special thanks to Kristy Kohlert for translating this document for me.

The Constitutional: Log trade, political and literary, page 2

Somehow she ended up in Viesly.

At their wedding, Baudouin Villette, Rosalie's brother, was one of the witnesses.

The following year Stanislas and Antoinette had their first baby.

They named him Baudouin.

He died two months later.

They had two more boys, Jean Baptiste and Stanislas named after their grandfathers.

They then had two little girls and another little boy: Sophie, Suzanne, and Elisha.


SEPARATION & DEATH 

Stanislas Besin was baptized on Bastille Day, July 14, 1839,  into the Baptist Church.  This decision would ultimately separate the family.

Stanislas is imprisoned several times for peddling Bibles.

Jean Baptiste is 19 when he dies of cholera on June 6, 1849, his mother Antoinette dies 5 days later also of cholera.  She is 43.

A year later, 10-year old Suzanne is smuggled onto a ship, the Charles Hill, and arrives in New Orleans on November 27, 1850.  She marries in 1860, and dies in 1871 two months after giving birth to her sixth child who also dies.  Her fifth child is my great grandfather, John Buchanan.

The  now oldest son, Stanislas Besin, Jr., becomes a tailor apprentice.  He dies at the age of 17 outside of Paris in 1851.

Now completely alone, Stanislas dies at the age of 53, August 1, 1859 under the care of hospice in Reims, France.  He has no family to sign as witnesses for his death, so the administrator, Francis Auguste LeGrand signs as witness.  

Special thanks to Catherine Cox, friend of Melanie Parish, for translating this document for me. 

THE END

or is it?


In Doctrine and Covenants 130:2 we read:

"And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy."

How does this happen?  How is it that Stanislas can be with his family after he dies?  It's because the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored on the earth, and with it the keys of the Priesthood that seals families together in temples.

This popular children's LDS song has a deeper meaning for me now.

Families Can Be Together Forever


To learn more about Stanislas' Baptist ministry, click here.

To learn more about John Buchanan, click here.

To learn more about the teachings of the Mormon faith, click here. 

To read about my experience in Viesly, click here. 


This blog features:

STANISLAS BESIN (1807-1859)

My third great grandfather

me-->Bruce Albert Buchanan-->Robert Amos Buchanan-->John Buchanan-->Suzanne Besin-->Stanislas Besin

Josephine's Baptism

Josephine was a 12-year-old girl living in a small village in France when she was caught in a rainstorm out in the field.  She quickly ran home to get out of the storm.  As she reached her house, she turned purple.  All of her blood seemed frozen.  She couldn't move her joints and her hands crisped.  Her fingers were more like the empty fingers of a glove.

Her father had died, and she was left to be cared for by her siblings and mother.  She was treated harshly.  She became very shy and never spoke.  No one knew if her mind had been affected as well as her body.

A missionary by the name of Mr. Cretin, found the family and told them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Soon after meeting Mr. Cretin, the mother died.  Eventually Mr. Cretin stopped visiting the family.

Josephine could read.  She gathered together a New Testament and some other religious tracts and read them.  This made others realize that she could think and understand.

Two years later she was visited by another Baptist missionary Mr. Lefevre. Two years later she was converted and had succeeded in converting her nephew Isodore Plaquet and his mother.  She wanted to obey the commandment to be baptized by immersion, but this was difficult because she was so crippled and paralyzed.

Another  missionary heard about this woman who had been converted two years before and her desire to be baptized.  So he borrowed a mule from Mr. Hersigny and with his cart traveled several leagues (probably around 20 miles) to go fetch this woman so that she could be baptized.  He returned with Josephine and her nephew and his mother and all three were baptized.

The missionary who transported this woman by cart such a far distance?  A colporteur by the name of Stanislas Besin, my third great grandfather.

To read more about Stanislas Besin, click here. 
This account was taken from the Baptist Missionary Magazine, January 1849 issue, page 29-30.

The Dusty Bible Effect

Have you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?  A butterfly flaps its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world.

Well, I'm going to tell you about the Dusty Bible Effect.

The story is that in 1810, a farmer named Caulier living in Nomain, France found a Bible in the corner of the dusty attic of his home.  As a Catholic, he wasn't supposed to read the Bible.  But he did anyway and discovered that what he was being taught didn't match what was in the Bible.  So he started his own church.

In 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, a French speaking British soldier began to attend Caulier's church and distribute scriptures.  This resulted in several Catholics converting over to this new church.

In 1819, Henri Pyt, was out distributing literature in northern France and stumbles upon Caulier's church.  He stayed there 18 months preaching and baptizing.  Because they were baptized by immersion in a stream, they are considered to be the first Baptists in France.

As membership grew, so did the missionary work and many Baptist churches started popping up in northern France.  Eventually the Baptists in America found out about this and traveled to France as missionaries.

One such missionary was Dr. Erastus Willard.  He came to France and established a Baptist pastor school.  One of those who attended that school was Irenee Foulon*.  Another person to be baptized was Stanislas Besin, my 3rd great grandfather.  Stanislas became a colporteur, a peddler of religious books.

Well, American Baptists weren't the only ones who noticed the growth of Baptists in northern France.  The Catholics and the French government noticed too.  As you can imagine, they had a very different reaction.

Mr. Leopix wrote to Dr. Willard and told him that he saw Besin bound and being taken away by some gensd'armes.  They had him bound to a thief.  He said that Besin seemed happy and unaffected by his situation.  In fact, he was teaching the thief  and the guards the gospel!  Foulon said this of Besin:

"Our brother is now known as a faithful disciple of Christ--by our friends and our enemies, he is loved by all."

Later they were going to begin a meeting when a Roman Catholic woman came running down the street screaming, "There he comes!  There he comes!"
"Who?"  everyone asked.
"Mr. Besin! Mr. Besin!"  Soon everyone was rejoicing and had tears in their eyes as they ran to meet the freed prisoner. Foulin said, "I cannot describe to you the emotion that pressed into our hearts that day."

Besin would be imprisoned and fined more than once.  (What is it about my third great grandfathers and prison?)  Eventually the persecution got so unbearable, that the families had to come to America.  I find it interesting that they settled not very far from where another religious group was trying to escape persecution.

Had Caulier never read the Bible, he never would have started the Baptist church in France. The Demoulins, Foulons, and Besins wouldn't have converted from Catholicism. They never would have traveled to America to escape persecution. John wouldn't have ended up in Utah working on the railroad; he never would have married June Miller, and they wouldn't have had my grandpa, who wouldn't have had my dad.  Which means I wouldn't be sitting here today writing this story.

 I never realized I owed so much to a Bible laying in a dusty attic.


*Irenee Foulon married my second great grandparents, Nathan Demoulin and Suzanne Besin in Illinois.

To read more about the legacy Stanislas Besin left our family, click here.  

This post features

Stanislas Besin (1807-1859)

My third great grandfather

me-->Bruce Albert Buchanan-->Robert Amos Buchanan-->John Buchanan-->Suzanne Besin-->Stanislas Besin

The 24-year Genealogy Class

Me (1969-living)

Heather Ruth Buchanan Pack

In the fall of 1988, I registered for a Rel C 261 class.  It's official name was "Family History-Genealogy."

Our entire grade was based on a single project.  Completing our pedigree chart.  All semester long we were supposed to collect photos, certificates, and other documents of our great grandparents and great great grandparents.

I had a problem.  I didn't know who all of mine were.    My Dad's line ended with his grandpa, John Buchanan.  So I filled in what I could and turned it in.  My grade?  D+.

 The very next semester I took HIST 262R, also known as Family History Research Lab.  This was a much better class.  My grade was either Pass or Fail.  You passed based on how many hours you logged researching, not what you found.  I logged lots of hours, I found nothing.  I passed.

Now, I could have been discouraged and frustrated.  I could have said, "I guess when it come to researching my ancestors, I'm a D+ student.  I'll let someone else do that."  But I didn't.  I didn't give up. 

Those two classes sparked a desire in me to continue looking for John Buchanan and his parents.  I never stopped looking.  Well, actually I did stop looking.  I stopped on March 22, 2013.  I stopped, because that  day I found him. I didn't just find him, I found his parents, siblings, half-siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, and so on, all the way back to the 1500s.

Do you think it's too late to ask for a grade change?  After 24 years I think I deserve an A.

One Step Closer

Susan Bezin? Berzin? Bazin? Bousien? (1840-?)

My second great grandmother

me --> Bruce Albert Buchanan --> Robert Amos Buchanan --> John Buchanan --> Susan

For those who don't know, I've been searching for my great great grandmother for over two decades.

Yesterday I believe I came one step closer.  I mentioned previously that I found a Susan Bogin living with a family, the Eismons.

Initially this seemed like a dead end because I couldn't find the Eismons in any future census records, nor on any passenger lists.  Turns out the census taker and the those who indexed the names got the family's names wrong.

The head of household wasn't Fenlon Eismon.  His name is actually... are you read for this?

Irenee Foulon

Pretty different, huh?  Well, there's more.  His wife's name is Lydia Foulon.  They had a son named Irenaeus Dielschristo Foulon.  I was able to find his death certificate.  His mother's maiden name is listed as, drum roll please.

Lydia Bousien

Bousien could sound like "Boo-zhan" don't ya' think? 

This means that Susan Bogin was living with someone whose maiden name sounded quite a bit like her last name.  So I'm thinking they are related, what about you?

But wait, there's more.  While writing this post, I found another death certificate.

Do you see that?  It gives her father's name as Wer Berzin.  Now if someone who hears the name "Lydia" and spells it like "Littia."  What name was this person trying to spell by writing Wer Berzin?

The quest continues!

Desperately Seeking Susan

Susan ? (?-?)

My second great grandmother

me --> Bruce Albert Buchanan --> Robert Amos Buchanan --> John Buchanan --> Susan

Desperately Seeking Susan

When I was about 12 years old, I asked my mother to help me fill out my pedigree chart for the first time. Even then I had a love for learning about my ancestors.  I still remember how I felt when my mother told me that we didn't know how to spell my great grandfather's mother's name.

Only that it sounded like "Boo-jean."

and that she was from France.

I couldn't believe that my Buchanan line ended so abruptly.  How can my dad not know the name of his great grandmother?

Thus began what has turned out (so far) to be a life-long quest to find Susan.  I have taken genealogy classes, visited countless family history centers, and ordered or tried to order court documents.  And yet all these years later (30 to be exact) Susan's information remains the same on my chart.

Here's what I know:
John had parents.  (This seems obvious but frankly there have been times when I've wondered if he was dropped off by aliens at the turn of the 20th Century)
John says he was born in Highland, Madison County, Illinois (I have never found any official documentation proving this.)
John says his parents names were Nathaniel and Susan.  His mother was from France; his father, Kentucky.
John says his birthday is October 18, 1869.
John worked on the railroad as a locomotive engineer.
Family tradition says he left home at the age of 14 and spent time in Mexico.

Here's what I've discovered:

John was married before he married my great grandmother, June Miller Eckstein Buchanan.
Her name was Catherine Shepler.
They married on December 31, 1898.
They were living together in Pueblo, Colorado in 1900.
She sued him for divorce on January 27, 1905 for desertion and non-support in Pueblo, Colorado.
John could speak French, Spanish and English.
My grandfather told my father that we are French, not Scottish.  This makes me wonder if Buchanan is an American version of "Boo-jean" and John took his mother's not his father's name.

The paper trail ends there.  But I have found something that looks promising.

This is the only Susan from France that I have ever found living in Madison Illinois around the same time as John's birth.  She's listed as living as a servant for a family also from France the Eismons.  The reason why this census record looks promising is because her last name is Bogin.  Sometimes census takers would write down the person's name based on what they heard and was not necessarily how it was spelled.

I have spent many long frustrating nights trying to find even the smallest of information about John's mother.  But I wouldn't trade this journey for anything.  This quest has developed in me a deep love for all of my ancestors, not just the Buchanan line.  In looking for Susan, I have found literally hundreds along the way.

So I no longer consider myself desperately seeking Susan.  Just seeking Susan.  She'll appear when it's time.
Update:  I found her on March 22, 2103.  Read about it here. 

Disclaimer:  I do not think I'm related to Madonna.