“Joliet’s dapper descendant Drops in for a friendly visit” from the September 23, 1969 Door County Advocate
PIONEERS of Sturgeon Bay and Gardner township, the Isidore Dery - Zoe Gauvin family, pose for a formal portrait in the late 1890’s. Back row, left to right, Adeline Dery, 1897-1937; Josephine Dery, 1871 - 1955; Mary Ursule Dery, 1877-1966; William Dery, 1872-1955; Mary Dulcine Dery, 1881 -——, and Alvine Dery, 1869-1952. Seated, left to right, are Alice Dery (Beach’s mother) 1876-1937; Mary Nathalie Dery, 1882-1946; Isidore Dery, 1841-1917; Zoe (Gauvin) Dery, 1892-1920; Joseph Eusebius Dery, 1884-1966. The women dressed in black are married, those in white are single.
Joliet’s dapper descendant Drops in for a friendly visit
By KETA STEEBS
Life in a newspaper office is rarely dull. The unusual usually happens and the unexpected becomes commonplace. Take the other day, for example, when along about noon a chipper, white-haired, sun tanned gentleman sauntered through the door carrying a framed picture almost half his size under one arm and bulky briefcase under the other.
He introduced himself in the old world manner by presenting his calling card—a small square of pasteboard bearing the unlikely name of Eliger Beach. The picture was reverently laid on my desk and Mr. Eliger Beach informed me its subjects were his ancestors—Door county pioneers who had lived in Sturgeon Bay and Gardner from 1869 to 1893. He was about to present his prized momento to the museum but thought the newspaper people might be interested in seeing it first.
There’s nothing extraordinary about pioneer pictures being brought in. The Advocate’s files are filled with them. Many have been published with the teasing caption “Do you know these people” or “Where was this taken”—but most photographs—even those preceding Matthew Brady—are properly dated and identified.
Mr. Beach’s prized picture fell in this category. Headlined “The Isidore Dery-Zoe Gauvin Family,” its 11 serious protagonists were individually named (left to right) with each nameplate bearing the birth and death date. There was no doubt about—this was the Isidore Dery family, all right.
ELIGER BEACH plans to present this portrait of his ancestors to the Door County museum. He believes it is one of a limited number of complete family pictures of that era (1890) in existence.
I thought fine, we’ll run a three column picture, name the people, say it’s going to the museum and let it go at that. Beach’s next words, however, changed my mind. “I am, in case you are interested, a direct descendant of Louis Joliet on my grandfather, Isidore Dery’s side.”
As Joliet hasn’t been around these parts for almost 300 years and didn’t stick around very long when he was here, I was skeptical. “How on earth do you know that?” I asked jealously (I can’t trace my own ancestry past three generations).
Beach reached into his case and brought out a pedigree chart large enough to cover a dining room table and proceeded to point out that Isidore’s maternal grandmother was a great great great granddaughter of the famed explorer.
The chart dates back to 1657 (Joliet died in 1700) and the marriage responsible for Beach’s ultimate appearance on earth occurred in Quebec in 1675. Joliet was then 30 years old and had accompanied Father James Marquette on his celebrated Green Bay voyage two years earlier.
In order to determine his lineage, Beach says he has spent the last six years traveling 140,000 miles from one end of the United States to another and has made two side trips into Canada. Not only does he want to know who begat who but wants irrefutable evidence as to where and when the effect took place.
So far Isidore’s birthplace is the only one which has eluded him. He knows his grandfather was born in 1841 but can’t find out where. “I almost succeeded this year,” he said with a hint of vexation, “but, had to give up with the cold weather coming. I’ll be back next summer to continue my search.”
Beach, a former northern Michigan resident, lives in Tampa, Fla., and uses a 20-foot mobile trailer for his forays into the hinterlands. Since his wife’s death in 1961, the childless Beach has relentlessly pursued his self- assumed task of tracking down his family. He’s traced the Derys back eight generations and the Gauvins go back even farther. One branch of his maternal grandmother’s forebearers (the Roussins) goes back to 1546— which is, according to Beach, 13 solid generations—dating, back to medieval France.
“I find most of my information in public libraries, historical libraries, newspaper clippings and files, courthouse records and early census reports. In Quebec, church records are meticulously kept and the provincial archives (libraries) have a copy of each christening, wedding and death provided by the churches. It’s easier to unearth ancient history in Canada than it is here.”
It was in Quebec that Beach’s connection with Joliet became known, and the direct line of descent remains unbroken to this day.
As a teenager, Beach was fascinated with his grandfather’s account of life in Door county. This early interest is significantly responsible for his later explorations into the past.
The Dery family moved to Sturgeon Bay in 1869 and lived in the city for four years before purchasing a farm in the town of Gardner. Six of the nine Dery children were born in Gardner and it was because of his profusion of daughters (seven) that Isidore packed up and moved to Menominee in the fall of 1893. Prospective husbands were more plentiful across the bay.
Isidore had only been here two years when the devastating Peshtigo fire of 1871 leveled Williamson’s Mill and nearly destroyed the towns of Brussels and Gardner. The Dery family escaped the holocaust but those who viewed the aftermath never forgot it.
A rescue party composed of Isidore and his neighbors dashed to Williamson’s Mill (or Williamsonville) and succeeded in saving five men out of seven who had climbed into a well. The death toll that day numbered 59 residents including “two unknown women and four unknown bodies.” One survivor, a certain Joseph Buckner, might have regretted his escape—he had both his legs burned off.
The employees of Scofield and Company’s newly erected shingle mill a short distance away fared even worse. Of 14 men at work installing machinery 12 were scorched to death. Isidore said 10 men were found lying a short distance from a mudhole and two, having reached their goal, found the water insufficient to save them. They were lying face down in the mud—dead.
Those days seem real to Eliger Beach who, although he has never lived here himself and has only one distant relative in Brussels, feels a definite empathy toward Door county. It was here his mother, Alice • Dery, was born and here that his grandfather helped rescue five men. The family lived here 24 years altogether and while they’ve been gone 76 years some roots are never severed.
Mr. Beach is in his seventies but his endless quest keeps him perpetually young. He promises to be back next summer and now that he has me wondering where Isidore was born, I can’t wait ‘til he returns.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
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Articles by Keta Steebs
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