Page de Steve Devaux
22 novembre 2000
Dear Jim, Alain, and Pere Gilles:
Please excuse my writing in English, but my skill in other languages is very limited. My name is Stephen Arnold Devaux, I live in Boston, Massachusetts, I am 51 years old, and I, like Alain, am the great grandson of Emile Devaux of St. Lucia. I am also the nephew of Edward (Eddie) Devaux and the first cousin of Ian de Minvielle-Devaux. (I first was shown the information [that Uncle Eddie wrote and that is posted on the web page] by my father back in the early 1960s.)
My father was Marie Joseph Henry (Harry) Devaux, third son of the marriage of Jean (John) Devaux and Anne Marie Blanche Therese Isabel d'Etchepar de Minvielle. Harry was born in St. Lucia in 1907, younger brother of Leonard (father of Ian de Minvielle-Devaux) and Edward (father of John, currently a judge in England), and older brother of Joseph (died in St. Lucia about 1990) and Marie Devaux Forbes, who lives in Bermuda. Harry married Dorothy Joan Reece of Barbados and had three sons, Anthony Arnold who lives in Colorado, Philip Arnold who is immigrating to Australia tomorrow(!), and myself. I have two sons, Alexander Jefferson (age 14) and Eric Lincoln (9).
Anthony and I no longer communicate, but he has two daughters: Anne who lives in Cheshire, England, and Dorothy Markham who married Neil Markham of Wales and now lives in Auckland, NZ, with their infant son Daniel John Markham.
My father's younger brother Joseph married Joan Du Boulay (who still owns Souffriere Planation in St. Lucia and runs the Botanical Gardens, a major tourist attraction there) and had three daughters and four sons. Three of the sons, including David and Martin, live in St. Lucia, and one, Christian, is a doctor who lives in Australia. The three daughters were Mary, who is married and lives in Britain, Suzanne who lives in Canada somewhere, and Louise, whom I don't know > what happened to.
A few items about the Devaux family that might be of interest are as follows:
- Empress Josephine was a fourth cousin whom family lore maintains was born in Souffriere, St. Lucia, before being taken to Martinique for baptism a few days later. (The birthplace is disputed in official biographies, although Josephine appears to have spent much of her childhood in St. Lucia.)
- When Theodore Roosevelt toured St. Lucia in 1916, he was introduced to (I believe) Emile's brother. When he heard the name Devaux, T.R. reacted, saying that his grandmother was a Devaux. Research revealed that one branch of the family who left France in the 18th century traveled to the US, where in the early-nineteenth century Anne Marie (I believe it was!) Devaux married a Georgia farmer named Bullock, and gave birth to T.R.'s mother. (Whether FDR and Eleanor are also realted, I don't know.)
- A Devaux was part of William's force that conquered England in 1066. The name underwent some anglification. One version is Vance, and a helpful web site is:
http://www.chartiers.com/beers-project/articles/vance-54.html
- During WW II, Pere Robert Devaux was credited with saving the lives of many Jews in (I believe) the Lyons area of France. The details are hard to pin down, but there are two Devauxs listed on the Wall of Rescuers at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
- There is a champagne called Veuve Devaux, and Guy Devaux was a very famous vintner in California till he died within the past decade.
- I have always been delighted by palindromes, and have spent many hours composing them. (My masterpiece: "A man? A prisoner! A cage? Iron! Did Noriega care? No, sir! Panama...") I had always regarded this as an idiosyncracy until, a few years ago, I saw a Devaux family tree which listed one of the 18th century branches as having an oldest son named Xuaved Devaux. tell me, is there any other evidence of love of palindromes among Devaux genes?
- The web page http://TreasuresofBritain.org/Aberdeen.htm is maintained by my first cousin Keith Forbes and his wife Lois. There was a Devaux page at this site, but it seems to have disappeared within the past month. However, Keith is very interested in Devaux genealogy and can be reached at: kforbes@ibl.bm
Keith's mother, my Aunt Marie, married Bill Forbes and their four children are Keith, Chris (who lives near Pittsburgh), Valerie (whose married name I do not know but who lives in Canada near Montreal), and Will, who lives with his wife and family in Bermuda.
Good luck, cousins! If I can answer any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Steve Devaux
Pour rejoindre M. Devaux