1986. Vionville. An unusual appointment …
I never go to France in the winter time, but in 1986 our daughter Monique was released from her French-Belgium mission on Thanksgiving Day. It was my privilege and opportunity to go and pick her up and take her to visit my family, particularly my mother who was 96 years old at the time, in a rest home. The following paragraph is taken from my journal in February 1987.
“We were at the railroad station in Nancy, France, standing in the line to obtain travel information at the information counter. Monique noticed two Elders (missionaries) who had just come at the other counter. Of course, we wanted to meet them and visit for a few minutes. While Monique talked with the senior companion, I visited with the junior companion, Elder Charles B. Smith, who had just arrived from the mission home in Provo. I mentioned doing genealogy while in France. Immediately, he told me of an old original French parish register in the possession of his grandfather in Oregon, not being too sure how it had come into his hands. He could not remember the place but thought that it was from somewhere in Lorraine. Of course I wanted details which he could not give me, therefore I obtained the grandfather’s address, wrote to him and received a very nice answer with two or three Xerox copies of pages from the register. The record was an original parish register from the village of Vionville, Moselle, France, from 1693 to1740 (baptisms, marriages and deaths).
I later learned how Mr. Sypher, grandfather of Elder Charles B. Smith, happened to have a French parish register in his house. Mr. Sypher had a neighbor, an officer of World War II, who had died. The son of the officer, James B. Helser, decided to have a book sale. Mr. Sypher, a member of the LDS church, attended for the purpose to purchase some books. At this time, James B. Helser showed him the parish record of Vionville, which his father had found in a pile of rubble after a bombing while he was in France, during the second World war. Mr. Sypher borrowed the parish register book from Mr. Helser to keep it safe. He inquired about it to his home teachers and also wrote to the Priest of Vionville to know who this record belonged to and what to do with it. But he received no help from the home teachers nor answer from the priest. That is when his grandson, Elder Charles B. Smith, was called on a mission to France and Brother Sypher commissioned him to find out more about it.
After corresponding with the Archivist in Metz, I learned that the parish registers of Vionville had been marked in the various inventories as missing since 1944. Actually, two volumes of Vionville’s church records were missing (vol.1: records from 1665-1693 and vol. 2: 1693-1740, which was in the hands of Mr. Sypher). We soon had this second volume microfilmed in Salt Lake, then returned it to the archives of Metz. As a result of finding this one volume and in the course of research done by the archivist of the archives of Metz, the second volume, also missing since 1944, was found in France.
Needless to say that when I went to the archives in Metz, two years later, I was well received by the archivist. When I told her that I had my camera with me, and asked if I could be permitted to photograph the second volume, she immediately offered me a free copy of the microfilm which had already been made. I made a counter offer to pay for it. But all payment was refused and, within an hour, I had a microfilm copy of the second record of Vionville (1665-1693).
The perilous travels of the book and many timely events are very astonishing:
Found in a pile of rubble after the bombing in 1944
Salvaged by an American officer
Brought back to America
Carefully preserved on a book shelf in Oregon by a lover of old books for 42 years
Death of its keeper prior to Charles B. Smith’s Mission
Book sale
Brother Sypher (grandfather) going to the book sale
His interest in preserving the book for its return to its owner (the French government)
Elder Charles B. Smith called to a mission in my home town in France having just arrived in Nancy from the Provo MTC.
The Lord’s appointed RENDEZVOUS at the railroad station.
I knew that the Lord had placed these records in my hands so that the Temple work could be done for these people. One of the surnames that I remember was Degouttin. That surname appeared almost on every page. Degouttin had married Degouttin. Eventually, these two films were extracted and all the names were submitted for Temple work.
As I pondered over the strange experience of going to France in the winter time, meeting two Elders on the other end of the world in a railroad station, I have reflected upon the timing of the Lord — a two minute deviation in the Lord’s scheduled appointment, some seven thousand miles away from home, would have defeated the whole purpose of finding these lost records.
(Written in 2014 from journals entries)
– Yvette Longstaff