Europe Trip: Day 9 (Willer-sur-Thur, Colmar, Riquevihr, Ribeauville)

As Eric and I planned our trip to Europe, my one non-negotiable point on the trip was visiting my ancestral hometown of Willer-sur-Thur, France. Now, I don't want to bore you both to tears with genealogy because obviously the two of you who read this are only here to see all my travel pictures. But, I am a genealogist through and through, and now I will tell you about my French ancestry.

For a long time Isadore Gasser was a mystery to me. I knew his name. I knew he married Maggie Browning in 1887 in Alabama, and they had children together. By 1900 Maggie was widowed, and the kids are listed in the census with a father born in France. I didn't know when he was born, who his parents were, what brought him to America, or anything, really. While I was still a student at BYU I used this branch of the family for a project in my Southern States family history class, and I made some headway on Isadore. I learned when he died, and I learned he was a hotel proprietor. I still didn't know where in France he was from or anything about his parents or siblings.

A few years later I took an AncestryDNA test. A couple of years after that I connected with a relative from the Gasser branch of my tree. The relative was descended from Isadore's youngest sibling, and the relative knew a lot more about the family than I did. Suddenly new records were opened to me, and one of my genealogy brick walls was knocked down. My good friend, Allison, used all the information that my relative and I put together, and she located the hometown for the Gassers. She also gave me pointers on using the digital archives so I could extend the family history.

Isadore actually came to the United States with his parents and siblings in 1851 aboard the New England to the port of New Orleans, as a three-year-old child. The family settled in Jefferson County, Kentucky. By 1870, his father had died, and his widowed mother eventually became a baker in a confectionary. (It seems so fitting that a French woman would become a baker in America.) Isadore first married Pauline Pargny on 23 February 1882, but she died on the couple's first wedding anniversary. From what I've been able to discover, Isadore left Kentucky around that time and settled in northern Alabama where he opened a couple of hotels and met and married Maggie Browning. (Her mother ran a boarding house, so it is possible the families were associated because of the hotel industry.)

I have found when I am more invested in researching a family, I love them more, and I feel more connected to them. I was thrilled to be able to visit the family's hometown in France.

This is the church in Willer-sur-Thur. My ancestors attended this church, and it is named after St. Didier. Isadore's father was also named Didier.

I loved the stained glass windows.

I lit a candle for my ancestors, which was special.

This is the font.

We also spent time in the cemetery, looking for my ancestral surnames. The people buried there are more recent than when my ancestors lived in the town. Although European cemeteries are beautiful, they re-use graves and don't always have grave-markers going back to the earliest interments in each spot.

After that we went to Colmar, the Little Venice of France. The church was (of course) beautiful.

And the canals were beautiful too. It was such a perfect little place. Plus we were there in perfect weather. With the heat wave Europe is enduring right now, I am just insanely grateful we went there when we did.

We went through a roundabout (or traffic circle, as the GPS lady called it), and we saw the Statue of Liberty. We actually went through the roundabout an extra time to snap a good photo of her. Many of our modern ideals of liberty come from French writers. I loved reading French literature (in English) when I took a French history class my last year at BYU.

A few years ago, Janssen blogged about her family's trip to Europe, and she mentioned going to one of the towns on which Beauty and the Beast is based. So obviously I had to go there too. We visited Riquewihr first.

And we hiked up to the castle ruins.

Obviously we sang Beauty and the Beast songs along our way. I have several on my phone, so we didn't even have to do it acapella.

It is just such an idyllic little town.

After our hike, we wanted to ride bikes over to the other town of Ribeauville, but we had forgotten that the French take lunch breaks that last 2.5 hours, so we weren't able to do that. I was actually fine with that since I was pretty sure I'd never make it up any of those hills, and I would just end up hating those towns. We drove over to Ribeauville, which is a bit more touristy than Riquewihr, but still lovely.

And of course I did my best Belle pose at a fountain.

I want to give a public thanks to Sophie. She hosts an AirBNB in Riquewihr, but we did not stay with her. (We stayed closer to Willer-sur-Thur.) But Sophie was incredibly helpful to us in Riquewihr, and she went out of her way to point us toward the castle, to identify where we could rent bikes, and to show us where we should get lunch. She even let us use her own bug spray before we headed out on our hike! If you are looking for somewhere to stay in Riquewihr, definitely consider staying in Sophie's place!