Click here for the Suisse geneology site for families of Neuchatel Switzerland (aka NewCastle)

Dec 2012

From Beth to Jeanne

Hi Jeanne,

I asked Charlotte what extra info we had on Vera's mother and I received this from Charlotte. 
Did you ever receive this info from Charlotte before?
I don't know who put it together for her but I sent her an email and this is what she
sent me back.  It's new to me and great info. 

Have you ever seen this before?  You may want to email Charlotte about who sent her all
this info.

http://www.sngenealogie.ch/webtree/individual.php?pid=22273I&ged=FAVRE

~Beth

Beth, Charlotte, Anne,

Wow!......love all the siblings, and parents names.  I’ll try to get this all into my ancestry site TODAY!!

Charlotte, where did you get this?

Clicking on these various links, look how far back we go on Elise Favre’s tree.
Love seeing my name in there Jeanne Marie (though I was named for the French side of my mother’s line).

Also, second picture below, it notes where many of the boys died, and one of those cities is the same as this website, neuchatel.   They also note SWISSE.   Did the family later move to Switzerland?   If so, do you know when they left Russia and exactly where they went?

~Jeanne

Jeanne,

We have a photograph of the house in Lausanne, Switzerland where Vera and her parents
moved to and where they lived.  It's on the website you set up somewhere because I saw it and
we even have the street address noted also somewhere.  In fact, Vera's parents must be buried
in Lausanne also.  Look and see if you can find that picture of the house and maybe there is
more info about the family on that page of your site.

Elise died in 1906 in Lausanne and so they must have moved from Russia to Lausanne before
that date.

~Beth

I just started looking on the web for the Favre family. Mother once mentioned that Vera's maternal grandfather had run a Swiss watch company and that Vera's parents met in Switzerland when W. MacCallum was there on a ski holiday; we always knew that Elise Favre was from Switzerland (I always thought she was from Lausanne but maybe not, maybe Neuchatel). That is why they moved to Switzerland (Lausanne) when W. MacCallum retired from his job in Russia as the managing director of the Schlusselburg Calico Printing Co. which was one of the many companies owned by the Hubbard family, an English family that Vera's sister Margaret married into after her first husband died. Margaret's first husband was a Gibson...Patrick Gibson's grandfather. Obviously, Margaret was Patrick's grandmother.

By the way, I was always told that I was named Elise Charlotte after Vera's mother. I saw nothing on this site to indicate that her middle name was Charlotte.

Anyway, I started to explore the web looking for Favre watch company and found that there is a watch company named A. Favre & Fils that dates back to the 18th century(1700s). The originator was a man named Abraham Favre and whose son also had the same name. This company has continued and was bought out in the 20th century but the name was re-bought in the 21st century by a member of the Favre family. I am assuming that this family is somehow related to us but I haven't found that link yet except for Mother's comment about Elise's father's occupation. I haven't examined all the names yet from the website I sent to all of you. Maybe her father did not run the company but was a relative who worked for the company. On various websites about the company are histories about the "CEOs" from the generations of the Favre family. One such is Fritz Favre who traveled extensively around the world; one of his stops was St. Petersburg!!! So...when I return home and have more time I will explore the web some more. Maybe I'll email the current Favre with the watch company to see if I can find a link.

Maybe Jeanne can check out these names and find the link. My I-Phone which is what I have with me wouldn't let me see the whole ancestor chart that I forwarded to you. So I won't get to see it all until I get home on the 17 th of this month.

I thought that the family left Russia around the time of the revolution which was after 1916, right? That cannot be right if Elsie died in Lausanne in 1906

~Beth

Beth, you are right...they did move to Lausanne earlier than 1906. When Elise died, Vera was in St. Louis visiting   Arthur and his family. Her father then had her return to Lausanne and then for a prolonged mourning period, he had his unmarried daughters with him while they did a bit of traveling. Venice was one of their destinations. As we know, Vera and Arthur were married in May 1908 in Lausanne.

~Charlotte

By the way, the photos I have are not from my trip but from old loose photos in a box that must have belonged to Vera.

~Charlotte

The parents and unmarried children left Russia before 1906. Louise, one of Vera's sisters, was married to Mr. Raitt in St. Petersburg and had a daughter named Dorothy (An Intrepid Woman). And Margaret, another sister, was married to Mr. Gibson who ran the calico company after W. MacCallum retired. We know Louise's story from Patrick Gibson's book. And I believe but do not know that Margaret was there 
much later and possibly until the revolution. I always heard from Mother that when they fled Russia, they first buried their silver in the ground!!!

~Charlotte