A new round of emails began, more difficult this time because my French is limited. I emailed a dozen sources that somehow seemed connected to the Isle of Chausey- webmasters, tourism bureaus and media sources in the prefecture of Manche, the closest place on the mainland to where Chausey was situated. I received responses immediately, interested and polite but nothing definitive or encouraging. Several weeks after this flurry of emails I received an email from one of the contacts by the name of Hervé Hillard saying:
Sorry for this late answer, but I first thought your mail was some sort of a joke.
In fact, the little boy on the pictures is one of my friend’s father! His name was: Jean Thévenin (my friend’s name is Jean-Michel). Jean Thévenin became a Chausey’s fisherman, got married and had two boys, Jean-Michel and Stéphane, and died about 20 years ago. I’ve the professional e-mail of Jean-Michel. The best would be to write him directly because he has thousands of questions to ask you! Thanks by advance. It’s quite an incredible story and I do hope we’ll all get all the answers we’re looking for!
It didn’t seem real to me. I had located the child. I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to tell the boy grown into a man that my father had saved photographs of him until his death, nor would I be able to ask the questions that I hoped to get answers to, but it really was enough to be able to give a name to the child with the bright eyes in the picture. I responded to Hervé by saying that the news that he could identify the boy in the picture had my head spinning. What could I possibly respond when Hervé replied to me that
Well, for us, too, it’s something quite incredible. Because Jean-Michel has in his house your pictures. And doesn’t know at all the “why”, “how”, “who”, and so on!
So, it seems as if the photograph of the French boy and American G.I. that my father saved for 55 years, until his death was also saved by said boy, Jean Thévenin, until his death, and now it was up to me to discover why.
I began a correspondence with Jean-Michel, the son of Jean Thévenin, and he shared his copious and scholarly knowledge of the wartime history of Normandy and the Islands with me. Born and raised on the island of Chausey, leaving only briefly to attend school on the mainland, he shared his father’s and his grandparent’s story with me. The name of Joe Baker wasn’t included in that narrative, although he had the same pictures that I did, saved by his father, like they were saved by my father, with no answers to why. My daughter Savannah was living in Prague at the time and Jean-Michel, who was captain of an off-shore oil rig in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Angola in Africa, suggested that if I come to visit her that I should stop by- it was on the way. In my head, I started to pack my bag.
My first trip out of the United States was exciting, to be sure. I was so happy to visit my daughter in Prague and to see the Czech Republic. A brief few days in Paris was everything I had imagined that great city would be. But waiting for me at the train station in Granville was Jean-Michel Thévenin and his wife, Marie Odile, and perhaps the answers to questions that I had not even been able to articulate.
I arrived in Granville and was welcomed warmly by Jean-Michel and Marie Odile and whisked away through the narrow and medieval streets of that beautiful coastal town. The next five days I spent as guest of the Thévenins, traveling throughout Normandy to places that Jean-Michel knew through our correspondence my father had visited; Omaha Beach, St. Lo, Pointe du Hoc. Jean-Michel’s historical expertise was impressive and deep and I felt fortunate in having such an intelligent, articulate, and knowledgeable guide. Neither of us could provide any additional information about our father’s connection to each other but I was looking forward eagerly to the voyage we were taking to Chausey on the following day. I wanted to go to that place where our fathers had stood together and somehow, thinking magically, understand it all.
The hour long ferry ride to Chausey carried summer residents and day trippers and was accompanied by a group of dolphins who swam alongside. I took that as a good omen. The island of Chausey was magical, like Avalon, rising from the mists. Once ashore, it became quickly evident that there were no cars or bikes of any kind. Waiting at the dock were various sizes of pull carts to transport supplies from the mainland to each home. The island is owned and under the protection of a type of property investment partnership called a SCI so that no one can buy or sell any property on the island, what we might call a Land Trust. One of the regulations of their charter is that no one can build or change the exterior of an existing structure. The result is that when I set foot upon the rocky surface of Chausey it appeared exactly the same as it appeared to my father, sixty-two years before. Nothing had changed.
Next week Part 4 The Final Chapter- More discoveries on the island of Chausey
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