French version of this text is published in PARTIR 24 (sept. 2021)

Annie Lounibos, born 16 Feb 1872 in maison Lounibos, was the last of our direct family to be born in the family maison in Ogeu Les Bains. When she was but an infant, her parents made the decision to leave their Bearnaise village and emigrate to San Francisco in California. Why, we do not know. But at that time, in 1873, both her parents Jean-Pierre and Marie Lassalle Maiste, with their three living children and her paternal uncle Germain Lounibos emigrated through Bordeaux.

Annie’s mother, Marie Lassalle Maiste (1844-1893), a skilled dressmaker, was born in Escou into a family of millers. She was of dark complexion and barely five feet tall. Annie's father, Jean Pierre Lounibos, in contrast was fair and grey eyed, and nearly six feet tall. He had been a carpenter in the village. He was born 30 July 1840 in Ogeu les Bains to Pierre Lonivos (1800-1863) of Ogeu les Bains and Engrace Capdepon Salenave (1805-1861) of Buziet. Grandfather Pierre Lonivos had been a teacher in the village along with his Pucheu uncles and cousins. In the 1841 Census the family was living in the village near the school, while Pierre’s mother, Marie Anne Lonivos (1769-1851) lived up in the family maison in the Quarter of the Fountains. There she took in foundlings from the orphanage in Oloron. Annie’s grandmother had been the sage femme of the village. Her mother, Engrace Capdepon Salenave, descended from the house of Labarthe Lassalle in Buzy and Arudy through her Boala grandmother. They had had a family of six children in their 35 years of marriage, and when Engrace died in the Fall of 1861, Pierre did not linger long before his death in the Spring of 1863. Three of their children had died before them, two in infancy, and their eldest Jean when he was only 29 years old. (Uncle John had suggested his death was the result of the Crimean wars). Their surviving three children became our emigrants: Germain Charles, Jean-Pierre and Marianne. Marianne’s emigration is detailed in “Marianne Lounibos and Andre Lembeye‘s Story”.

Jean-Pierre and Marie arrived in San Francisco along with their three children born in France: Eugenie, 5 yrs, Germain Charles, 3 years, and Annie, 1 year. In December 1873, their son Jean Baptiste was born, some say on the boat in San Francisco Bay (Records of their immigration have not been found). Jean Pierre and Germain initially worked as Carpenters in the growing City. They had lived on Powell Street in North Beach for several years amid the French colony there, many wine merchants, restaurateurs, bakers, glove makers, florists, and the numerous laundries which also served as an immigrant ladder for the young emigres who would arrive in the next decades. The laundries provided to those young faces the security of employment, shelter, and a gentler transition into a new language and culture. Early, the French had garnered the water rights to Crystal Springs Reservoir south of the City, insuring the city’s supply. The colony was strong and supportive, offering classes in English and citizenship, establishing banks and insurance leagues, Ligue Henri IV, the beloved French Hospital, and quickly constructing the, also beloved, church of Notre Dame des Victoires, and Julius S. Godeau’s mortuary. They had arrived from their artisan villages so skilled in dressmaking and millinery that the French were known as the most polished and well dressed citizens of the City. And they tailored to the other colonies and the Yankee upper class. It was often said that it was the French who finally cleaned up San Francisco after its wild and raucous days of the Gold Rush. Uncle Germain Charles remained in the City to live and work; he eventually fell ill with Tuberculosis and would die, unmarried, in 1888, near Sonoma. Jean Pierre and his wife Marie Lassalle Maiste made their way north across the bay into the Sonoma Valley with their young family.

As Annie grew to maturity, she caught the eye of Joshua Chauvet's young son, Henry Joshua (1865-1927) of Glen Ellen, just up the Valley from El Verano and Madrona Vineyard. Formidable Joshua Chauvet (1822-1908) had come to California in the 1849 Gold Rush. He was about 28 years old then. He was born in Saint Jean sur Moivre, Champagne, France, to Francois Chauvet (1797-1862) and Francoise Michelle Simon (ca 1803-1838). They had been millers for generations there. Young Joshua Chauvet had first tried his hand at mining in Calaveras county, but quickly saw that it would be more profitable to make bread for all the hungry miners. He opened the first bakery in Mokelumne Hill. In 1851 he moved to Sandy Bar where he opened a merchandise store. By 1854, he had moved out of the foothills and opened the first flour mill in Oakland. And by 1856, he had moved north to Sonoma and purchased 500 acres from General Vallejo. He sent a letter to his father in France requesting his father to send him grist stones, which Francois brought to his son himself. At first, the mill he built in Glen Ellen was for lumber, extracting timber down the slopes of the mountain. Then, as the buildings went up, he switched to a flour grist mill for the valley, as he began planting his vineyards and acquiring more land.

Joshua Chauvet became the largest wine grower and brandy maker in the region and Henry was quite a catch for the young Annie. But she was not so keen, and fretted about the match for some time. Though wealthy, the Chauvets were known to be a bit wild and crazy with the drink, it having taken both Henry's un-decorous mother, Irish Ellen Sullivan (1842-1876), and not long after, his younger brother, Robert (1868-1894). Not long before, even Henry had been dragged off to Napa State Hospital for a short time due to the drink. But he was an affable, gregarious fellow, a contrast to her more sober manner, and he was persistent. But Annie had more with which to concern herself, for her mother Marie Lassalle Maiste was gravely ill with Bright's Disease, and her elder sister Eugenie was quickly declining with Tuberculosis. Still, the family encouraged the marriage, though it was not a love match, and one day, while putting a pie into the oven, Annie sighed to herself: "Well, should I or shouldn't I?". She finally had decided she would. It would please her mother to see a daughter married. So, on 12 Nov 1893, Annie Lounibos married Henry Joshua Chauvet at Casa Madrona in El Verano and linked the two wine families together in a marriage that would last 34 years, until Henry's death in 1927, and blessed them with four beautiful children.

Marie Lassalle Maiste died the following day. And Annie's only sister, Eugenie, died the following month. It was a difficult time for the young bride. But Annie was strong in the face of adversity, comforting her father and brothers while she made her way up the valley to Glen Ellen. They moved into the Chauvet quarters over the brandy distillery in Glen Ellen, then to the little brick house in the village next to the Chauvet Hotel. Joshua offered the young couple a trip back to France or a new home, for a wedding gift. Annie, in all her practicality, chose the new home. It was built across the road from the distillery, high above Arnold Drive and possessed all the spacious grace of an East Coast Victorian home. Their four children were born there: Henrietta (1895-1933), Adele Marie (1897-1982), Leon Henry (1899-1913) and Arsene Jean (1901-1997).

When Joshua Chauvet died in 1908, his was the largest funeral to ever take place in Sonoma Valley. But as the mourners had gathered at Mountain Cemetery to honor the man, they began to smell smoke from up the valley. It had seemed an apt time, to the arsonists, to torch the Lemoine Winery for the third time, when all the valley would be gone to Joshua’s funeral. This time it burnt to the ground. The smoke blew south and west into the Petaluma Valley, alarming so many. A hunt was set to find the culprits. None was found, though fingers did point to certain individuals.

Annie had a young Italian immigrant woman, Louisa Chellini, to help her in the house with the children and after her marriage, a beloved Chinese cook, named Moon, whom the children adored. They were delighted when he would return from visits to Chinatown with pockets full of Lychee candies for them. Gradually (when Annie discovered that Moon was composting the garden with human excrement!), Moon’s duties were transferred to the distillery where he became a fine and skilled distiller of brandy. [In his later years, after the distillery closed in 1910, Moon served as steward for the Elks’ Club in Santa Rosa. He was honored by the county when he died, Senator Slater delivering his eulogy].

Arsene grew into a fine young man, an officer at his college, busy there in the theatre and in sports, and became an accountant. In 1927, he married his childhood companion and sweetheart, Marguerite Froment, one of the three Froment girls whose father, Antoine, had a French restaurant on the Plaza. He was also a wine dealer. Arsene's elder sister, Henrietta, married a newly arrived Australian immigrant, Reginald B Meller, an artist, when she was only 18 years old, in April of 1913. Annie was not keen on the marriage, but her daughter was in love and she could not object for long. [Jack London modeled one of his characters in a Klondike short story after Henrietta. We also see Jack take a stab at her peasant Frenchman grandfather Joshua riding over the hills of Glen Ellen in his novel Valley of the Moon]. It was the same year that Annie's brother had died and only months before the death of her son Leon. His youngest daughter Adèle waited a little longer than her sister to marry Charles Doyle in 1921; she was 21 years old.

Annie helped Henry manage their vast Chauvet holdings from the roll top desk in the office just off her kitchen. Her ledgers were still there when I visited the home in 1979. Some would say Annie was the brains behind Henry. And she kept him, mostly, off the drink. (My father would quip that Henry was always coming up out of the cellar when they would arrive on visits). As time went on and Henry grew ill, Annie gradually sold some of their land holdings in her own right, passing shiny gold coins with the deeds she signed, at a time when women were not known to do so. In her leisure time, she raised chickens in her yard, and visited with her brother Jean Baptiste and his family. The two wrote long letters to each other every week. They would make the journey from Petaluma to Glen Ellen in a hired wagon on the weekends, my father describing their entry into the Valley of the Moon through the Stage Gulch pass as though arriving into a cornucopia of plenty.

After Henry's death in 1927, Annie opened the upper rooms of the house for workers at Eldridge State Hospital just down the road. She also sold insurance in Glen Ellen and, with the help of her son Arsene, managed the village’s water company, the Chauvet Water Works which the family owned. The family had earlier sold Jack London the land for his great Beauty Ranch above Glen Ellen which eventually led them to court with him (1916) when Jack decided to build his sumptuous Beauty Lake on the mountain and had disrupted water service for the village. Dried it up. The case was a local sensation, with Jack appearing to give his testimony. Afterwards, on the courthouse steps, Jack invited the family up to his home for a fine supper two days later. As far as he was concerned, all was still friendly amongst them. He had not meant to cut off the water to the village and the villagers wanted Jack to use all the water he needed, but to allow the flow to also serve the village below.

They were all ready for a feast. Young 15 year old Arsene attended the meal with his parents, and sat at the far end of the table from Jack, closely watching all his elders. As he described to me, decades later, Jack's man servant brought out all the steaming servings to each of the guests. Fine Prime Rib. Then the family waited for Jack to be served. It seemed to take some time. When Jack himself was finally served--on his plate was a Wild Duck! What Arsene did not know was that in that same year, Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck, had been translated and this was Jack's little literary joke on the family. They had no idea! And Jack was a great jokester!

But their friendship [a friendship that has continued down through several generations] was fast, and when Jack’s beloved dream, Wolf House, had burned to the ground, all grieved for the loss. It was a beauty of a stone mansion. Nevertheless, my father would quip to me, years later, in his ironic and silly humor, “Well you know, Annie burned it down!!” He would also tell me that Annie had poisoned Jack! [Jack London had died quite unexpectedly three days after their Wild Duck dinner.] My father loved to outrage me and he still makes me laugh with it all. In my college years, I would often stay in Jack’s cottage on the Beauty Ranch with his great niece, Ann Shephard. At that time it was still residence of the London family and was not yet a State Park. Ann was a falconer and the skies were open on the ranch . We would hike round the grounds, over to the stone Pig Palace that Jack had been so proud of (though it proved fatal for the pigs whose hooves could not sustain the concrete floors). And we would wander up the hills to the Beauty Lake for cool swims in the summer heat, sit and sun overselves on the far stone dam that had dried up the Chauvet Water Works so long before. An exquisite spot. One afternoon, Ann led me into Jack’s study in the front of the house. At that time it was strewn with books, papers and manuscripts, covered with dust. I was amazed. Ann said, “Take what you like.” I was sorely tempted, but only began to browse the archive. Then suddenly I came upon a legal document, a transcript for Jack’s court proceeding with the Chauvet Water Works. His testimony! My resolve melted and I looked at Ann and asked, “May I?” She said of course! I rushed it home to my father as soon as I could to place the document in his grateful hands, though he did note that Jack had only retained his own testimony in the case.

In her declining years, Annie had moved out of the big house on the hill and into a little cottage on the banks of Sonoma Creek, across the road. It was nestled down beside the distillery. She was walking with a cane by then, but still in full control of her family, warding off the pleas from one of Henrietta’s children to give him land and money. He would make her angry, and Arsene would have to intervene. I remember, as a young girl, visiting her there in that cottage with my father, the house shaded from the summer heat by the great oaks of the Valley. It was a place where we children could run wild and free in the afternoons, splashing and catching frogs and crawdads in the creek, as the elders sat on the porch discussing the world events and Annie worrying to my father about the problems that daily beset her. But when we returned to the porch, all were glowing in her kind, though often fierce presence. When Annie was dying in her 87th year, her sister-in-law, Irish Agnes Norton, would often visit her. They had been great friends through life and through their thirty years of widowhood together. On one occasion, Irish Agnes asked Annie if she could bring a priest to her bedside. Annie looked wryly at Agnes, her dear friend through so much, and smiled, "No Agnes, tell him to spend his time saving some young souls and not be bothered with an old woman like me.” Annie had seen and endured much hardship and loss. But through her Bearnaise heritage, she had known from a young age that one must look forward, and not regret the past. She was a survivor and had helped Henry to survive. In her own words, she knew that “Life was but a Temporary Occasion”. We carry that stoic legacy of wisdom with us today.

Annie was buried in Mountain Cemetery in the Chauvet family grave site, just across from that of her own Lounibos family, in January of 1960. Still today, the family gathers there, often with a priest to bless the ground, to honor Annie and her family and all they gave to us, in their long journey from Ogeu les Bains to this new valley of springs and plenty. We also return to the valley of our ancestors to do the same honoring at the maison whose name is ever ours.

Marianne Lounibos and Andre Lembeye’s Story

My father had told me of meeting Marianne and Andre’s eldest son, Jean Pierre, in Sonoma after he had immigrated to California from Buenos Aires. But only in more recent years was I able to find documents of their family’s story.

Marianne Lounibos, Annie’s aunt, was born in maison Lounibos on 15 July 1844, the youngest of her family. Andre Lembeye, her husband, was born in maison Carrey on 6 Jul 1841, in Ogeu, to Pierre Lembeye (1796-1863) originally from Buzy, and Marie Jeanne Pebaque (1801-1884) of Lasseubetat. They were both millers. They had married in Buzy on 28 Oct 1822, and eventually settled in Ogeu where four children were born. Marianne and Andre had grown up together. They both had lost elder brothers in the Crimean War. And their fathers had died within ten days of each other in 1863. On 22 July 1868, they married in St Just church in Ogeu, and their first born, Jean Pierre, was born on 9 Mar 1871, a year before Annie.

We do not know why, but together the two young families had decided to emigrate, Annie’s family to San Francisco and Marianne and Andre’s to Argentina. Maison Lounibos, which had risen elegantly above the springs of Ogeu some two hundred years before, finally passed out of the Lounibos family. With their departure, Andre’s Lembeye family took residence in maison Lounibos and eventually Andre’s brother, Jean, bought the maison.

In 1873, Marianne and Andre Lembeye, with their eldest son, Jean Pierre (1871-1953) sailed on the new steamship Colina from Bordeaux to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they lived for over a decade in the parish of San Jose de Balcarce. There they settled into the large colony of French immigrants already there. Among them were Juan Descoito (1855-) et Maria Nequesaur (1863-) et Pedro Echeparre (1856-) who all acted as godparents for their four additional children born in Buenos Aires: Saturin (1876-1919), Maria (1879-), Pierre (1882-1917), and Casto Segundo (1884-), before their return to France in the late 1880s. A sixth child, Marie Anne Olympe (1889 -1963 Pau) was born in Ogeu shortly after their return to the valley. We do not know why the family decided to return to France at that time. They did not know that a great war would be looming over their four young sons and would claim one of them, Pierre, on the Plateau de Craonne in Aisne [Pierre left a young widow, Suzanne Lacamoire (1884 Buziet) in Arudy. They had married in Oloron on 24 July 1911. His promotion to corporal one month before his death, since all their officers had been killed in this horribly botched battle, provided her with a modest pension. Apparently she did not remarry after Pierre’s death, and died 2 June 1968 in Buziet, at the age of 83 years]. Saturnin, suffered with chronic bronchitis and a stammer when he registered in 1914, while living in Sévignacq-Meyracq. After 1914, we do not know what became of Saturnin. Casto Segundo registered in Oct 1908, but deserted the ranks after nine months. He was still missing to the military in 1935. Through Saturnin’s military records we know that Marianne and Andre were still residing together in Ogeu in 1896. Andre died in ancien moulin Somps, widowed, on 14 Nov 1916, six months before his son’s death in the war.

Rather than return to France, their eldest son, Jean Pierre, had decided to move to California in 1890. In 1900, he was working on the farm of Jesus Espinosa (Dec 1857 CA) of Gilroy in the Santa Clara Valley. His only French neighbor there, and next door, was John Frechou (Aug 1865 France) who immigrated in 1889. (When Jean Pierre applied for his naturalization in 1893, he could only leave his mark (X) for his signature, suggesting that he was either not educated in Argentina or was having some difficulty with the language barriers from French to Spanish to English). By 1910 he was still working there as a hired hand for the large Portugese/Mexican family of Joseph Garcia. He stated that he could speak English then, but could not read or write, presumably English. If the French military was able to contact him here, he seems to have ignored their summons. (His uncle Jean Pierre in El Verano, however, was reached, but he too, ignored it. By then he was well into his 70s). His nephew eventually settled into the French colonies of the Sonoma and Napa Valleys near his uncle namesake Jean Pierre, and his cousin Annie. Several of his Lembeye and Clavere cousins from Ogeu were also living in Sonoma and in San Francisco. Jean Pierre worked most of his later life in Napa as a gardener, and never married. As far as I know, there are no descendants of their family branch. Perhaps someone knows more of them?

LOUNIBOS family tree is on Geneanet and on Ancestry as the George Walker Family Tree.