Shaped by the Past, part I

By Christian

Our family trunk

Not long ago, one evening after dinner, I was showing our friends Mike and Marylyn a beautiful wooden trunk from Alsace, dated 1776, that I'd inherited from my Mom. It had been in the family since… 1776! I also showed them some antique silver Berber jewelry from Morocco that I had just brought back to the USA. Then Mike asked me how my ancestors had gotten to Morocco in the first place. 

I’ll jump from 1210, where we find the first trace of a Petrus Meert in Belgium, to the 19th century. To make a long story short, our family, on my father’s side, originated from Belgium. After the Napoleonic wars, they settled in France. At least three of our ancestors fought with Napoleon. Their names are engraved in the Arch of Triumph in Paris, on the Champs Elysées: Général Jean François Aimé Dejean, and his son Général Pierre François Marie Auguste Dejean (whose son became the French Minister of War in 1870, when France lost Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans, first link to my Mom’s side of the family), and Baron Général de Chamorin killed at Campo Mayor, Portugal in 1811.

Arc de Triomphe, Paris

My great, great grandfather was already French and had opened the very famous Chocolaterie Meert in Lille It's still in business today, and still very famous, though sadly not in the family anymore, but still bearing the name. 

Emblem of the Meert's chocolaterie

The General

My great grandfather was a general in the French army, Albert Ambroise Antoine Meert. He came to Tangiers, Morocco, for his son’s wedding to my grandmother on February 19, 1917. The general, his wife, and their daughter got stuck in Morocco after the wedding because of the German submarines patrolling the Gibraltar Chanel. They were still there for the birth of my Dad in Tangiers, Dec. 20, 1917.

At the time, most European countries were fighting to annex as many colonies as possible. France fought against the Turks in Algeria. The Turks had occupied most of the Mediterranean basin for centuries, including Palestine and Israel. France's main goal was to stop piracy in the Mediterranean, to free Christian slaves/prisoners, and all Christians who had been forcibly converted to Islam, the Janissaries. Then the French moved on to Tunisia, in the East, to Morocco, in the west, and to the Sub-Saharan countries of Africa to the South.

Hélène

When I was a child, we kept the general’s uniforms in a large steel case along with his swords and hats. He had been governor of Dunkirk and St Malo, and had an impressive series of medals; the most impressive one was a huge star of gold and vermeil that he had received from the Tsar in person in 1901. He had been a prisoner in Germany from 1870 to 1871 and had served in Algeria and other wars and colonial conquests.

By now, you know that my grandfather, Michel Henry Meert had married in Tangiers. My Grandmother, Hélène, whom I never knew because she died in 1945, was a French lady whose family originated from Valparaiso, Chile. They were in the import/export business. She was an artist, and moved to Tangiers with her family because of health problems. In Tangiers, she founded a live theater company. One day my grandfather happened to be an understudy for a sick actor, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Her father was an inventor, and Freemason. 

He had invented the radial tire, but lost his invention to Michelin after a painful trial. 

He had also invented a transportation network of hot air balloons for Paris, a sort of aerial transport system where people could access and leave the balloons from rooftops. Sadly, it never took off.

Michel Henry

 

Michel Henry arrived in Morocco while serving in the military in 1912. Poor timing that made him stay there during and after WWI. 

The French Maréchal Lyautey was in charge of Morocco during WWI and kept all military personnel there to continue the development of the infrastructure: roads, railroads, electrification, telephone, and more. My grandfather worked for a Franco-Spanish railroad company that was building the railroad from Tangiers to Fez. As proof of originality, they named it the Tangiers-Fez Company. 

He was in charge of surveying construction and buying land from the local tribes.

From what I've been told, they had a pretty good life there, and lived on a grand scale. My grandparents had four children, starting with my dad, Pierre Ghislain, who was born in Tangiers, in 1917. I know they lived in Meknes, Morocco, for a while, to follow the railroad construction, Meknès being only 60 km from Fez. (More exciting stories to come...)