Louis N. Beaudry
Status: looking for family!
To say Louis Napoleon Beaudry was the easiest research case I've ever done wouldn't be too much of an overstatement.
I was excited to find this perfectly preserved, labeled, CDV in Ellicott City, Maryland - a cute little town just outside of Baltimore which is also home to the United States' oldest surviving railroad station. If I had known that, I probably would have spent a bit more time soaking in the history, rather than just glancing at it from across the street.
Louis didn't show up on FamilySearch instantly, which usually gives me sort of a scare. So I turned to Google and searched for the art studio listed on the back of his portrait: JC Parks Art Studio, Montreal. And, in the first time in FFP history, this search didn't just lead me to dates of operation with which to narrow down my search parameters; it actually lead me to Louis himself.
The fourth search result included a name - Louis Napoleon Beaudry - next to the name of the same exact art studio. This couldn't be a coincidence. So I clicked into it.
It took me to the "Public Member Photos and Scanned Documents" page on Ancestry; you know, that pesky page where you can't click on any of the enticing photos unless you have a paid subscription...what a tease!
But I didn't have to click on a photo to come to the conclusion that I had found my guy. Because right there, in perfect view, was the same exact portrait taken at a slightly different angle. Oh boy, I thought. I'm going to make this Ancestry user the happiest person on earth.
Armed with Louis' full name, I began to put pieces of his story together.
Louis Napoleon Beaudry was born in 1833 in Highgate, Vermont, a small community just south of the Canadian border.
He appears in an 1881 Canadian Census, living with his wife, Pearlie. It would appear that they had lived in Quebec since at least 1875, as their youngest daughter's birthplace is listed as Quebec rather than USA like the rest of the family. Louis and Pearlie (nee Schermerhorn) had five children at this point in life:
Minnie Luella, aged 18
John S., aged 16
Mary Angelina, aged 14
Louis Charles, aged 10
Eve Rose, aged 5
Louis worked as a Methodist pastor, and interestingly he lists his 'nationality' and 'race' as French, as do his children, despite being born in the United States. Perhaps they weren't too fond of Vermont.
As to where Louis and his family were prior to 1875...well, it wasn't too hard to find out. A simple Google search of Louis Napoleon Beaudry returns a book published that year in New York: Spiritual Struggles of a Roman Catholic. Louis, according to the obituary posted on his FindAGrave profile, was educated for the Catholic priesthood but subsequently followed the Protestant faith. Spiritual Struggles touches on Louis' conversion to Protestantism, but, what is probably more interesting to you, reader, as you come to this blog to read of our photographical subjects' descendants, is that the first chapter of Spiritual Struggles concerns an interaction that Louis had with his eldest daughter, Minnie Luella:
“Just then, two loving arms were thrown around my neck, and, as I slightly turned my head, a sweet kiss was bestowed upon my lips. It was Luella, my eldest child, now almost a young lady, who, seeing my study door ajar, had softly tripped in on tiptoe behind me, to surprise me with her caresses. Seating herself in her camp-chair by my side, and looking up inquiringly into my face, she remarked:
—Why, father, we were not a little astonished today at your telling us that you were nineteen years old when you first went into one of our Sunday schools! For my part, I should like to know the reason why you did not begin to attend Sunday school as young as we did—
meaning, of course, herself, her brother Johnnie, and her little sister Mary. ”
Never have I come across such a detailed, first-hand account of one of FFP's subjects. In Spiritual Struggles, Louis recounts his own life's history and his interactions with all those close to him, including, in the first chapter, where he asks Luella to get the rest of the family so he can recount his stories. She asks if she should get Nora, too - the family's servant, who Louis suggests not to invite so as not to offend her: she was Irish Catholic.
This sort of source allows us a deeper glimpse into our subjects' lives. A census tells us that he had a daughter named Minnie Luella, but only this story would tell us that she went by Luella to those close to her. We would not have known that Louis referred to his wife, Pearlie, as 'Mrs. B.' We also would not have known why, in 1881, Louis reports all his family's race and nationality as French, without this passage:
“I was born in the town of Highgate, Franklin County, Vermont, August 11th 1833, about one mile from Saxe’s Mills. My parents were French, as you can see by our name, and the French language was the first I ever spoke. One branch of the family was descended from a long line of warriors, which can be traced back to the belligerent Franks of ancient Gaul. In modern times they fought in this country, at Ticonderoga and Quebec, during what is known in American history as the French and Indian War.”
Louis' recounting of his ancestors' devotion to military honor led me to my next question: what did Louis have to say in his previously published book, Army and Prison Experience with the 5th New York Cavalry?
Louis was not just another story-less soldier in the masses of the Union Army during the Civil War. He appears in a number of books, particularly regarding the infamous Battle of Gettysburg, during which Louis, who served as the cavalry's Chaplain, was taken prisoner.
Louis also kept a diary, which commenced February 16th, 1863, of his time serving as Chaplain. "Away to war!" he wrote on this day. “This has been and is the cry and experience of thousands from the loyal Northern States for the past few months. It is also mine. I am going to do what I can for the interests of my bleeding country."
It is unclear why, at Louis' untimely death in 1892, he and Pearlie were in Chicago, and whether all the children accompanied them during the move from Canada, or if they went on their own. Looking into some of the childrens' life events gives some insight. For example, Louis Charles Beaudry married his spouse, Mary E Hayne, in Chicago in 1897, and Minnie Luella, who married William McMillan, died in Chicago in 1930.
John Beaudry married Edith Augusta Marler in Toronto in 1887, but worked as a physician in Chicago and died there in 1929.
Mary Angeline and Eve Rose Beaudry were difficult to track down, and it is entirely possible that Louis and Pearlie continued to have children after the 1881 Census mentioned earlier.