Virgin of Mount Gédry

(La Vierge du Mont Gédry)

by Bernard L. Geddry

When I was a lot younger than I am now, about forty-two years younger to be exact, my Uncle James Geddry told me that his father, my grandfather, had told him the family once owned lands in Alsace, France. In fact there was even a mountain named after us. That was odd because another relative, Florence Guiddry, who claimed she was a distant cousin, had told me her father was certain the family originated in Normandy. Well, Florence was suspect because she spelled her name so funny (the only family I knew of then spelled it Geddry), but then again, Grandpa wasn’t the most reliable of sources either. The net result was none of his 13 children believed him. They never gave it a second thought. Neither did I... at least not at that time.

A couple of years later, when I began unearthing the family genealogy in earnest, I was told by Bona Arsenault and Father Clarence d’Entremont, both researching French Canadian genealogical works at the time, that the family came from the Village of Guitry in Normandy - in my mind that settled it. Florence with the funny name was right after all. It was down and out for Alsace...although I did search the entire map of France for that mountain.

I remember going to the Boston Public Library and pulling out maps of France and going through them with a magnifying glass without success. Of course I checked the card catalogs and a number of books that looked promising as well. No mountain, with the name Geddry or Guidry or Guedry or any of the other variations I had come across by that time, could be found. From there I went to various genealogical libraries and even chatted with Father d'Entremont about the mountain. He was amused partly because his own name means “from between the mountain(s).” He assured me he had never heard of a mountain with my family name. I stopped looking... for decades.

Fast forward forty years to 2006. Now there is Yahoo and Google and other search engines. The Virgin of Mount Gédry Forty years ago, there weren’t even personal computers. All searches were done manually. Now a search that would have taken months in 1966 takes seconds. It is now possible to make dozens of searches using different names or key words in a matter of hours. How the world has changed.

In the years since these tools became available, I searched the Internet using over 20 variations of our family name. Those searches helped me immensely while researching my own book, “The Story of an Acadian Family” which I published in 2004, just in time for the reunion in Meteghan, Nova Scotia. The book relates the history and genealogy of the Geddrys, Guedrys, Guiddrys (Hey, Florence was related after all), Guidreys, Jeddrys, and Jedreys of Clare, Nova Scotia and New England. I’m from the New England branch. We’re here because, back in 1755 when the English were kicking our ancestors out of Acadia, our particular ancestor, Augustin, escaped, hid in the woods with the MicMaq Indians and eventually became the pioneer settler of Cheticamp (now called St. Alphonse), Nova Scotia. The Geddrys (and other Gédry Mountain spellings) that live in Nova Scotia and New England today are all descendants of Augustin. Augustin was the son of Pierre and the grandson of Claude, our common ancestor.

In my book, I mention the mountain and the fact that I thought Grandpa might have meant “Upper or High Normandy”, the location of Guitry. I rationalized that, with French being his first language, the English word “upper”, in his mind might have been confused with “hill” or “mountain”. I thought I had solved the “problem of the mountain”...but I was wrong.

Last spring, I played around with Google a bit more. This time I searched Google Images as well as the “normal” Google that searches for text. To my surprise, when I entered a new variation of the family name, my own spelling Geddry minus one of the “d”s, I found out that Grandpa wasn’t as unreliable as his children believed. I found the mountain, Mount Gédry. It’s in Haute Saône, Franche Comté… right next door to Alsace. Sorry for doubting you Grandpa. You weren’t off by all that much.

At the summit of the mountain (it’s really just a hill) stands a statue of the Virgin Mary. That’s how I found the mountain. When I searched Google Images using only the word “Gedry”, up came pictures of La Vierge du Mont Gédry. It was one of those “eureka” moments. I think I actually sat there for a full five minutes just staring at what was the culmination of forty-two years of wondering and searching.

Mount Gédry is located in the Village of Arpenans, not far from Lure and about fifty miles from the Swiss and German borders. I found the name and address of its Mayor, Monsieur Humbert, and dashed off a letter (in French of course) to him.

Several weeks later I received a reply that related a fairly complete history of the statue but nothing about the history of the mountain or how it got its’ name.

The Virgin of Mount Gédry is actually a relatively recent addition to the mountain. It was erected in 1901 after being left to the town, along with most of the cash needed to put it up, by a spinster whose name was Françoise Sémonin. Françoise died at the age of forty-four in 1877. Why it took so long to implement her bequest is anybody's guess.

The letter from Arpenans included the name of Monsieur Jacques Mourant with the invitation that I might write to him if I needed further information. Since there was nothing in that first reply that tied the mountain to our family, I wrote to him next.

Shortly thereafter I went back to Google and found the e-mail address of the group that had posted the picture of the Virgin’s statue and dropped them a note as well. Right now I am waiting for replies to both missives. When (and if) I get either or both replies and if there is information in them of interest to our family, I’ll pass it on. Meanwhile, I’m plodding ahead on my own.

I look at it this way. Grandpa was right about the mountain. Maybe he was right about Alsace too. Franche Comté is in the same part of France. On the other hand, maybe he just heard about the mountain somewhere in his travels and related the story to his kids, with a little embellishment, of course.

I wish to thank Ghislain Savoie, Gérard, my favorite French waiter, and Elaine Clement for their help with the English-French and French-English translations.