Family genealogy
Marie and Paul Parchewski
Mom often talked to us about her cousin Marie-Paul, who went to America because she had no one left in Paris.
My sister and I had imagined that it was the daughter of Itchè and Gutchè, whose parents had been deported.
It was necessary for Marie Kronental to reappear in my research, in order to conduct further investigations.
Among the family photos, we found a wedding photo dedicated to his Leizerson cousins, another from a honeymoon, one of a child, and photos from America.
In the Paris archives, I found her marriage certificate and all her civil status information:
Her birth name was Marjem Glajchman.
His date of birth was April 24, 1901.
the name of his parents, his father Jacob had died in 1925, but his mother Bejla-Szifra Kronental was a trader in Warsaw.
The witness at their wedding was Maurice Lazarson, a leather goods maker, residing at 7 rue St Claude, the brother of my grandfather living in New York (the one I keep looking for without success).
So this was my Grandmother's first cousin.
Here are my starting documents:
- I managed to find the marriage certificate by having the groom's name and the year of the marriage (1925). It was in the 11th arrondissement, thankfully.
I then learned the name of Marie's mother, Bejla Szifra Kronental, her date of birth April 24, 1901, and her place of birth, Warsaw. Her mother was still alive in 1925 and a shopkeeper in Warsaw.
On the back of a photo from their honeymoon was the following note:
"Dear Leizerson cousins, here's our photo on the beach, taken during our stay on the Atlantic Ocean. Kisses, Marie and Paul."
The deduction seems obvious, Marie's mother was the sister of Moshe-Aron, my Grandmother's father.
The signature on the note explains why my mother was talking about Marie-Paul. (There were several Maries in the family: my aunt, Itchè's daughter...)
In 1926, the same year as the birth of my mother and Daniel, their son Claude was born: on January 3, 1926.
There is no one left today to tell us about the close relationship between my grandparents and the Parchewski couple. Claude can be seen in the Kronental wedding photos, and with my mother (as a child) and my grandmother in some other photos.
They were married at the town hall of the 11th arrondissement; they were living at 45 rue de Sedaine at the time. Paul (Pinkus) was a traveling salesman and a native of Lodz. Marie was a milliner.
I found a newspaper clipping indicating that Paul went bankrupt in 1936 with his silk and woolens business. Is that what prompted him to leave for America?
Paul's mother and his brother AL Parsky lived in New York
He departed Le Havre on November 23, 1938, aboard the Champlain and arrived in New York on December 1, 1938, for a four-month stay. He must have explored the possibility of settling there. He must have returned and left again in April 1939, as he was aboard the Champlain on April 30, 1939.
Marie and Claude stayed in Paris. With the war, their departure was more complicated than expected. They had to go to Marseille, which they left on April 7, 1942, for Casablanca. From there, they left for New York aboard the "Serpaz Pinto" on June 7, 1942. They arrived in New York on June 25, 1942. Apparently, they joined Paul.
On Paul's naturalization record, he is still listed as Pinchos or Paul Parczenchevsky. It was later that the family adopted the name Pasquier. The record indicates that he left Lodz in 1904 and emigrated to Canada via Montreal on January 31, 1942.
Apparently, Marie remained in contact with her cousins in France until the 1950s. But there is no letter that specifies what they were doing in the USA.
I just discovered that Paul and Marie divorced in 1944. Their years of separation must have been fatal for them.
Claude served in the military from June 12, 1944, to April 15, 1946. He was a World War II veteran. He was naturalized on August 4, 1944. He studied at Cambridge in 1950.
Marie was naturalized as an American citizen under the name Pasquier on January 15, 1945.
She died on June 20, 1983 and was buried in New Montefiore Cemetery in New York.
Paul died on October 11, 1963 in New York.
I found documents on Ancestry indicating that Claude returned to France for visits (crossing from New York to Le Havre on June 27, 1952 for two months, then on July 7, 1953, and then on October 9, 1960; he returned from France by plane with TWA). I don't know if he saw my mother again.
He married Evelyn Vandevander on May 2, 1959 in Ridghield, Connecticut, and I just found the trail of their 3 children.
One of them was named Peter Charles Pasquier (1964-2021), he has unfortunately already passed away, but he had a brother and a sister, so I am going to go and look for them.
He died of a myocardial infarction at the age of 50, on July 8, 1976, in Lexington, Virginia. He was cremated. He was an electronics engineer.
