Home, Business, and Getting Along
Last week I shared some photos of the home of Felix and Odile Pratte Valle in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. I showed you scenes from the home’s living quarters, but like many houses the French built there in the 1700s and early 1800s, the Valles’ house was both a home and a business. It is now called the Menard-Valle House. Menard was Felix Valle’s business partner.
The Menard-Valle House is part of the Felix Valle State Historic Site. While we waited for our tour to begin, Ray and I enjoyed browsing the gift shop inside the historic home next door. We also enjoyed playing with the selfie frame and costumes they provided for their guests.
After the Louisiana Purchase, American immigrants joined the French settlers of Sainte Genevieve, as did several German immigrants. Philadelphia businessman Jacob Philipson had the Menard-Valle home constructed. Rather than building it with vertical logs like the French had done, Philipson hired men to quarry and cut local limestone to build the house in the American Federal style. Locals were impressed. The home looked like a palace to them compared to the typical vertical log homes. Philipson never lived in the house. He sold it to Felix Valle’s father, Jean Baptiste Valle. Jean Baptiste lived nearby and offered for his son, Felix, his young wife, Odile, and their infant son, Louis, to live in this house. Jean Baptiste Valle’s family had come from Canada, then settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois, and later settled in Sainte Genevieve. Ownership of the home passed from Jean Baptiste to Felix when Jean Baptiste passed away several years later.
Notice the difference between the two front doors. The door on the left has a transom; the door on the right does not. Sainte Genevieve citizens knew exactly what that meant. The living quarters of local homes had a transom above its entrance; the business entrance did not have a transom. The Portuguese began the practice of the two distinct doors for business and living quarters. The practice spread in Europe and the French brought it to Sainte Genevieve.
Even the back of the Menard-Valle home featured this same door design.
Valle and his business partner, Menard, hired French voyageurs to trap furs and to trade for furs with members of native nations. Valle and Menard also brought goods up the Mississippi River from the port of New Orleans.
These are the products we saw when we walked into Menard and Valle’s mercantile.
Dishes and Containers
Fabric
Buttons and Furs
Hats and School Books
Tools
Shoes
Cooking Pots
Blankets
Soap, Bottles, Scissors, Tinware, Toothbrushes, Quill Feathers, and More
Felix Valle’s successful business gave his wife and their only child, Louis, the opportunity to enjoy some of the finery available at the time, perhaps including objects like these.
China, Glassware, and Silverware
A “sink” (once lined with lead)
with a drain so that water
could fall into a container
behind the door at the bottom
A wooden building set and marbles like these for Louis
Odile’s fancy armoire
Our tour guide led us through this interior door that connected the mercantile side of the house with the living quarters side of the house.
She said that the family would have used this interior door, but that customers and guests would never have used it. If customers left the mercantile and went to visit the family, they would have gone outside through the front mercantile door and then entered the living quarters from the outside through the door with the transom.
Our tour guide pointed out the portraits of Felix Valle’s parents that hung in his and Odile’s living room.
Our guide felt sorry for Odile because she lived under the watchful eye of her mother-in-law’s portrait. However, she didn’t mention evidence that the two women had a troubled relationship, so I’d rather think that their relationship was a good one. Odile was very devout and I know that is what Jesus wanted for them. It is what He wants for us, too.
The glory which You have given Me
I also have given to them,
so that they may be one,
just as We are one;
I in them and You in Me,
that they may be perfected in unity,
so that the world may know
that You sent Me, and You loved them,
just as You loved Me.
John 17:22-23