Seigneur-Becherer

 

Henri Seigneur and Lauretta Becherer

 
 
 
 
Henri Frederic Seigneur
(1892 - 1963)
 
 
Laurette Bertha Becherer
(1895 - 1960)
 
 
Georges F. Seigneur was born in the village of Audincourte, Doubs, France, in the Alsace region near the Swiss/German border.  When in his early twenties, he served in the French military.  Folloiwing his service, he left France for America.  Julie Marguerite Donze was born not far from Audincourte in the equally rural village of Brognard.  She too came to St. Louis, where she and Henri were married by a Justice of the Peace on 21 July 1884.  They lived in south St. Louis and raised three sons, the youngest of whom was Henri Seigneur.  As a boy, Henri went to school at Charless School on Shenandoah.
 
Laurette Becherer also grew up in South St. Louis.  As a young woman, she found employment as a secretary at a shoe factory in the neighborhood where she met Henri, who had also started working there after he finished school.  The romance of a young French man and his Swiss girlfriend was not thought of highly by either family.  For that reason they were married secretely by a Justice of the Peace in Waterloo, Illinois, on 27 November 1915.
 
When world War I was declared, Henri was ineligible to serve, as the middle finger on his left hand was missing and he was classified 4F.  (He had lost that finger several years earlier to a press machine.)  Throughout the years, he worked as an insurance agent for Metropolitan Life Insurance, selling real estate, and in a clothing store.  they were the aprents of two children, floyd and Norma.
 
Laurette Seigneur died of cancer at the age of 65 in 1960.  Henri grieved at the loss of his wife for three years until his death in 1963.  They are buried at New St. marcus cemetery in South St. Louis.
 
Copyright © 2001 by Edward E. Steele, St. Louis, Missouri.  All rights Reserved.
 
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