See pictures of the Haute Saône district today.	After a couple of years of looking for the French ancestors of the Monnets (the family of my father's mother), I recently got an email from a Tulsa, Oklahoma woman whose maiden name is Monnet. She is descended from Julien Monnet, founder of the Law School at the University of Oklahoma and its first dean. This Julien Charles Monnet is the brother of my grandmother's mother. The email was my first clue to where the family came from. It's the village of Gy, in the Haute Saône district southeast of Paris, and not Ky as recorded in the obituary of my great grandmother, Louisa Monnet. Many thanks to Maureen Monnet Hyde for much family information. Thanks also to The Dean, a biography of Julien Monnet by Dave R. McKown.
Jean Baptiste Monnet of Gy (he originally came from a hamlet nearby called Etrelle) married Eleanore Pernot in September of 1849. About 1855, amid political turmoil in France, the stone mason Monnet traveled to America where he settled in Louisville, Kentucky. He left behind his wife and baby daughter, Louisa. Somewhat later, Eleanore and her daughter, together with her father, Jean Pernot, joined him. They moved to Keosauqua--the name signaled the "big bend" on the Des Moines River-- in southeastern Iowa a few years later, in 1856 or 1857. Visit Keosauqua today. The Van Buren County area is fully as beautiful as the Haute Saône. Check out particularly the "historic sites" section to see a number of buildings the Monnets would have known.
	Jean Monnet died in 1878 leaving his family relatively well off. Here is the family at Christmas 1904. Left to right: Ulysses, Cora (Mrs. Lucas), Estelle (Mrs. Charles Smith, "Aunt Stell" in my memory), Julien Charles, Louise (Mrs. C. A. Cornell, my great grandmother), Eleanore Pernot Monnet (with open book) and Marie (Mrs. Elrick). Eleanore Monnet was a widow until she died in 1917 in the Chicago home of her daughter, Estelle.
Lora Cornell Helgeson, from a family portrait of about 1920.	Grandma Helgeson (she's the lady of the leaves on the first page of this site) was a remarkable woman. Born Lora Augusta Cornell, in 1879 (before Iowa kept birth records!), she finished high school in 1896 in Keosauqua where her family lived on a nearby farm. She was the daughter of Louisa Monnet and Charles Augusta Cornell, a German emigrant farmer. After high school, Lora went to a teacher training school and then taught school. At some time, she went to North Dakota, perhaps at the behest of her Uncle Julien Monnet, whose stenographer she was for awhile when he practiced law in Cando, North Dakota. In 1904, in Cando, she married Herman Helgeson. They settled in Osnabrock, North Dakota and had three sons. The first died in infancy. My father, Robert, was the second, and Kenneth was the third.
The family stories about Grandma made her a conscious role model for a young girl who wanted to become educated and have a career. I never tired of hearing how, after my grandfather lost his money in the stock market crash of 1929, she went to work as a chambermaid and then as a seamstress for Carson Pierre Scott in downtown Chicago. One day she was walking down Foster Avenue and saw North Park Junior College, and according to family legend, she walked in spontaneously and enrolled my father. He graduated from North Park and subsequently from Northwestern in 1932--at a time when many others did not get higher education because of the cost. Grandma helped him out of her earnings--though he also worked as a night watchman.	Grandma with my sister and me in the early 1950s
Lora Helgeson about 1970. She died in 1971 at the age of 92.	Lora was also a skilled water colorist. She said that many of her works were copies from pictures she found on calendars. I remember my grandparents' apartment with a dozen or more of her paintings on the wall. I have only one now. My cousin Lora has "The Fish"--a painting I found a little too realistic for my taste. It was of a freshly caught fish on a wood background in so much detail that you could distinguish droplets of water on the scales. I used to stare at that fish at meals! I've never much liked looking at fish. All of her grandchildren, though, remember her ability as a seamstress; she always took in sewing projects for people. Whenever she saw one of us with some new item of apparel, she would take the fabric between thumb and middle finger on her right hand and feel the fabric to assess its quality. I can see her hand right now in my mind's eye investigating the fabric. I never feel a piece of cloth that I am not conscious of how my fingers feel like hers did. I can also see her using a thimble. I have one of her thimbles, a silver one with the top worn off from constant use. Grandma supported the family through some hard times and then, in the 1930ies when my grandfather had sworn off the stock market, she invested, made money and eventually bought a six-flat apartment building just off of Marine Drive on the North side of Chicago. She managed that building until she was nearly 90 years old! And one of her investments, in a real estate firm which started out with oil interests in Louisiana, was passed on as her financial legacy to her sons.