Felicite is back home!

This painting of our great great grandmother, Felicite Constant Motier (1780-1873), crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois and returned to Missouri on March 27, 2024. This painting is now part of the permanent collection of the Missouri History Museum and Research Library.

Here is a summary of Felicite Constant Motier's life, as we know it from historical records.  Some facts are easy to find and verify, others are not. I assume and hope that facts are corrected and updated by future family historians. 

Felicite was born in the St. Louis area in 1780* to French-speaking parents Gabriel Constant and Marie Duplanty.  Marie was born in Quebec; Gabriel in Strasbourg, France.  Gabriel and Marie married in Quebec and made their way through New France, first to Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit;  then to Cahokia, Illinois; and finally to farm in St. Louis/Carondolet, Missouri.  (*Felicite may have been born in 1786, JoAnn Brennan found Felicite's baptismal record in St. Louis from 1780, but all of the other entries on the page said 1786. Was it a fluke that Felicite's baptism was listed with a later cohort or did they make a mistake with the date on Felicite's? I think the birth date of 1786 makes more sense for her marriage in 1805, it seems more likely to me she was getting married around age 19 than age 25, but we do not know for sure.)

At this time of Felicite's birth, the land west of the Mississippi was under control of the Spanish crown.   Most settlers grew wheat and corn as well as a home garden that would include beans, squash, greens, onions and more (the French settlers liked watermelons!). Felicite's father, Gabriel, got a large piece of land in Carondolet from the Spanish in 1795. Years later, this piece of land was contested by many heirs, including Felicite and her children, especially Margaret (Maggie) and Eleanor (Lillie).

Felicite married another French settler, Francois Motier, around 1805. Francois Motier (who seems to have had the nickname 'Rondin' meaning log) was born and lived in a nearby French settlement called Portage des Sioux.  After marrying, Felicite and Francois lived in Portage des Sioux with their growing family. 

Records of Felicite and Francois' family can be tricky to find.  First of all, this area was in a great deal of transition when they married.  The area had gone from Spanish to French to American control.  One can assume this causes confusion and disruptions with records, and it did!  Second, Francois' brother Antoine also married a woman named Felicite, Felicite Delor. Both brothers and their wives named Felicite lived in the same farming community, so there were two Felicite Motiers in the same area.

Bottom line: we are unable to find the exact marriage date for F&F.  There is a record of a blessing of their marriage in 1811, but they began having children in 1807, so we can assume the wedding occurred earlier, but was not recorded. It may be that their parish, St. Francis, was opened in 1811, we do not know.  We do know that F&F had the following children: Mary Elizabeth “Marie”, Francois, Basil, Constance, Joseph, Marguerite and Felicite Christine (she died young). Our direct ancestor, Joseph, was born in 1818. 

Francois died in 1828 at age 49, leaving Felicite with several young children who I presume lived with her and they continued to farm their land. In 1837, Felicite filed two lawsuits against individuals for the land in Carondolet owned by her father.  By this time, her father has died and the land was in dispute between Felicite's brother, Gabriel, her nephew Gabriel and others. Disputes over French land claims were fairly common for various reasons.  First off, the French farmed in ribbons of land and the Americans measured land in square acres.  Translating one's ribbon farm to acreage could be hard.  Second, when the Spanish left, they granted land but the records weren't always well recorded or maintained.  I am guessing that Gabriel's land claim was problematic for both of those reasons. 

Felicite did not have success in her law suits. Around 1840, Felicite moved to Davenport, Iowa to be around two of her adult children, Margaret and Joseph (our great great grandfather).  You can track Felicite in Davenport through census records and city directories.  She was living with or near her son Joseph and his wife Mary.  Felicite's name got anglicized and butchered in the records.  Sometimes she was called Phyllis, Phyllisse, Felicita or Felicite. It appears she was well known in town as she is referred to as "Grandmother Motie" in newspaper articles from the time.  Perhaps it was her fame or notoriety that got her both painted and photographed around 1871.(Photo at end of the blog).

Her grandson, Joseph Hebert, left an oral history in 1919 (50 years after her death) where he explains that French settlers in Portage des Sioux wore "bandana handerchief" to be spared from an Indian massacre.  Hebert also stated that he had Henderson paint a portrait of his grandmother in 1871. It is not known who had possession of the painting in Davenport after it was show at an art show. Did grandson Joseph Hebert have it? Did son Joseph and Mary Motie have the painting?  Joseph died in 1880 and his widow, Mary, moved to Chicago with some of her children around 1893.  Did Mary bring the painting with her to Chicago?  We don't know.  The painting ended up with the family of Helen Genevieve (aka Ella) Motie Ward. Ella's granddaughter, Mary Therese Hertel McDermott had the painting by the 1960s and Marie Therese did extensive research about the Motier family.  The McDermott family did an amazing job of preserving the painting and graciously decided to donate it to the Missouri History Museum this year.

On March 9, 2024 a group of Motie descendants (pictured above) met to say Au Revoir to Felicite from her Chicago ancestors. The attendees represented descendents of 3 of Joseph and Mary's children--Margaret, Ella, and Eleanor. Our group is only a small fraction of the many descendants of Felicite.

For now, the Felicite painting is safe and sound in the Missouri History Museum.  I am told they will be doing some restoration work and they are planning future exhibitions. It is now part of the digital collection and you can see it at this link: Felicite painting

When the painting is on display in 2025 or 2026,  I will let everyone know and hopefully we can, as the song says, "Meet me in St. Louis!"

Cheers,

Catherine

Big thanks go to:

John and Mike McDermott (and their brother Matt, too) for preserving this historic painting and photo with such loving care (they are pictured above)

JoAnn Brennan who is a wealth of Motie family history information

All cousins who attended the good bye party.

Dan and Jane Keating who hosted me in St. Louis several times and Jane who came with me to the MO museum several times

Meg Griffin, my daughter, who went on three road trips to St. Louis to get Felicite home!

Missouri History Museum

French Heritage Society

*The last name Motier has multiple spellings including Mocquet, Moitier and is anglicized into Motie after Joseph moves to Davenport in the late 1830s.  The letter "r" is added back on my some descendants.