Our French Connections

an art store, a breveted chocolate shop, a milliner, four photographers, three soldiers, a historian and more… a picture story spanning two continents, six generations and almost 200 years…

born in the 1840’s: Pierre Marie Germain Rachel

born in the 1870’s: Auguste Sarah Frederic

born between 1890 & 1907: Jessie Simone Fred Jr

born in th 1920’s-30’s: Alain Guy Edward

born in the 1950’s-60’s: Florence Penny Tom

born in the 1990’s: Sophie Anna

Germain Pondarre (Pierre’s brother-in-law), Pierre Gentieu, Auguste Pondarre, Orthez, 1898

Rue de l’Horloge, Orthez, Lower Pyrenees, France, 1898. Photo by Pierre Gentieu on his only visit back to Orthez, after emigrating to America 38 years earlier. The shop on the left, with the Papiers, Peints, Peinture, Encadrements sign is an art store owned by Pierre’s sister and husband, Marie and Germaine Pondarre. Marie, with Pierre’s other sister, Rachel Gentieu-Baillan run the Gentieu-Baillan Chocolatier Brevet shop up the street, which is an old family business breveted by the Duchess of Berry in 1828, when she was visiting Orthez on her way to Cauterets.

Map of 1828 Orthez given to me by Orthez historian Emmanuel Labat in 2019 showing La Praire, an apartment building owned by the Pondarres, and the location of the chocolate shop close to the art store. Up the street is the castle and across from that, the Gentieu family homestead, which could be the same house where Emmanuel lives. (The initials, PGB, which could stand for Pierre Gentieu-Baillan, an ancestor, and the year 1769 are carved above the doorway.)

Sarah and Auguste Pondarre (son of Marie and Germain), c. 1905. Standing by a gate with a bicycle. Sarah was a milliner and upon their marriage in 1905, the art store became her hat store.

Baby Simone Pondarre with the geese, c. 1908, La Prairie, Orthez.

George Gentieu, stationed in France during the Great War, visited Orthez and the Pondarres in 1919.

May 25, 1952: on the right, Guy, Alain, Edmond and Simone Mousques, Sarah (Simone’s mother), Nelly Bessouat, Berthe Dornercq, her husband Eugene Dornercq, Paul Humbert, the son-in-law of Mn ch Hlad,(?) Domercq. __ Auguste Pondarre the photographer.

We visited Orthez and Simone at her fortified farmhouse in 1994. Here is Tom and Anna, sitting between Simone and Sophie at Simone’s table.

1994: Simone holding a family photo (c.1928) of George and Fannie Darrigrand Swahn, descendants of the Brooklyn Darrigrands who owned the Darrigrand French Bakery on the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush, where Pierre first lived when he came to America.

*Anna on rue de l’Horloge, lower right corner, standing in same spot as the little boy in Pierre’s photo.*

meanwhile, back in Brooklyn…

Darrigrand French Bakery, 452 Dean Street & Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York (1877?)

452 Dean & Flatbush 1872 – 2014 with envelope from Orthez dated April 1872, Darrigrand French Bakery and Cake Ambiance, 2014

The Cake Ambiance, 452 Dean Street, 2014, was a recent establishment in the building where my great great grandfather Pierre Gentieu lived when he first came to America. It is also where my great grandfather, Frederic Auguste Gentieu was born, before the family grew larger and our branch spread out across the country.

Pierre took his camera to Orthez in 1898 and brought back not only a history for his family, but a future as well. He brought dirt from the family vineyard and nuts from a walnut tree that he planted and one grew tall in his backyard. He adopted the city’s motto, Toques si Gaouses (Touch It If You Dare) as the American Gentieu’s family motto. In 1929, his son Frederic commissioned a stained glass window to be made of the motto. It was never installed in the house he was remodeling, as the stock market crash put a halt to that. One of Frederic’s daughters kept it and now I have it. It sits on my window sill lit from behind by the picturesque contemporary version of Pierre’s old neighborhood of 165 years ago.