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24 - Victorine Henriette Mangeot was born in 1860, the 4th child of a family of 5 children. Her oldest sister was married before her and her older brother was married after her. She had another sister who had died when she was 2 years old. Henriette had the unpleasant experience to see three wars in her lifetime: the 1870 war, the 1914 and the 1940 wars. According to Aline, she remembered the Prussians during the 1870 war coming in her parents house in Autreville, going up in the attic and stealing the hams. Henriette would pull on her mother’s apron to tell her mom “they are stealing our hams” but her mom would put her finger on her mouth to shush her.

Yvette remembers being in an orchard with her grandmother during the 1940 war and hearing some airplanes loaded with heavy bombs, flying through the sky. Her grandmother would raise her head and look at these strange things which Isaiah had spoken of in his prophecies. (Isaiah 5:27-28) “None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken; whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: ...”

We can suppose that like all the young ladies of that time period, Henriette did embroidery in winter because Yvette remembers her mending handkerchiefs with a beautiful draught-board work which resembled embroidery.

She did this work while tending her sheep in the fields. Yvette also remembers that she could knit some long stockings with beautiful designs.

She was the bone-setter in the village. A farm worker once came and see her after he had sprained his wrist. Henriette took a handful of greased and massage the sprain until the muscle went back in its place.

She knew the plants and dried them to make a variety of teas for various health problems. She always had some licorice roots for children’s sore throats.

She had some honey bees and gave us some honeycombs to suck on.

She had a quince tree and made delicious quince paste which children ate like candies.

© 2004, 2005 Jean-Marc Samson and Yvette Longstaff