Travel

Some people sample and collect fine wines, but I like to collect and savor vintage museum experiences.

Following a workshop last spring at Cape Girardeau, I visited the Felix Vallé House State Historic Site in historic Ste. Genevieve. The experience of discovering a truly unique aspect of Missouri life interpreted by a first-rate museum made this French-American varietal a very special vintage indeed.

While Missouri was the American frontier for a very long period of American history, it was also the New World long before there even was an America. My German ancestors in the 19th century envisioned the Missouri River valley as a New Germany that would preserve their culture in an abundant natural setting; many French people a century before them also projected their dream of a New France into the fertile river valleys of North America.

Missouri had a way of transforming such cultural dreams, though, and the Felix Vallé House State Historic Site at Ste. Genevieve tells the story of what happened in the New World to their dream of a New France. The Felix Vallé House State Historic Site in historic Ste. Genevieve offers visitors an opportunity to see how French cultural traditions, especially their unique architectural style, were translated here on the Missouri frontier.

The site features the 1792 Amoureaux House, a rare example of traditional French architecture in North America, and the 1818 Felix Vallé House, a residence and mercantile store that interprets American influence on this French community following the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent American settlement. Telling the story does require a little bit of French vocabulary. Parlez-vous francais?

Les Habitants

Or as Mr. Rogers might say, "Who are the people in your village?" Ste. Genevieve was founded by French Canadians who followed the explorations of Joliet and Marquette. According to Bonnie Stepenoff of Southeast Missouri State University in her book From French Community to Missouri Town: Ste. Genevieve in the 19th Century, by 1750 Ste. Genevieve was a mature village of some 600 people. It was also a diverse, Creole society, free and slave, French, French Canadian, American-born French of mixed racial backgrounds with few traditional feudal obligations on land ownership, opportunities for a rising merchant class, and even strong rights for women under the law.

More French moved west across the Mississippi River after 1763 in the wake of the French loss to England during the French and Indian War. Even though France ceded its western land claims to Spain, Ste. Genevieve remained a French colonial village with light Spanish control or influence.

At the Felix Vallé House, you can see how Americanization and mercantile capitalism brought dramatic changes to this unique cultural landscape. As contemporary America struggles mightily with the concept and issues of cultural diversity, we might want to consider going back to this period and talking with les habitants about their experiences.  

Le Grand Champ

The Great Field, or common land, at Ste. Genevieve, represents both a unique and tangible system of land allocation and some highly intangible French beliefs about the New World. Le Grand Champ was 3,000 acres of rich, alluvial soil given to Ste. Genevieve by King Louis XIV as common lands. The land was then divided into extremely long, narrow lots, one mile long and 192 feet wide, reaching all the way down to the river. This system of long lot subdivision ensured all farmers in the village access to good river land and reinforced village life, still a core value of French culture.

You can still see the long-lot pattern from the air in Louisiana parishes, and you can still see the pattern of tight little villages surrounded by open space on train trips across Quebec. Or you can come here and see both in an impressive diorama of Ste. Genevieve in 1832, on display at the 1792 Amoureaux House.