Rene Grandjean Collection

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René Grandjean was born April 21, 1889, in Vouziers, Ardennes, France. He left France ca. 1909, and after briefly stopping in Cuba, moved to Haiti where he lived for two years. In 1911 he came to the United States settling in New Orleans in August of that year. Because of his French and Haitian background, he became acquainted with members of the Creole of color community, prominent among whom was Rodolphe L. Desdunes, author of Nos hommes et notre histoire. Through Desdunes, Grandjean met the Dubuclet family, descendants of Reconstruction state treasurer Antoine Dubuclet. Grandjean and Assitha Dubuclet married on October 29, 1913. Because Louisiana law forbade interracial marriages, they were wed in St. Andrew, Jamaica. An important aspect of Grandjean's life lay in his preserving and translating the records of a group of Creole of color spiritualists, Le Cercle Harmonique, that included Henry Louis Rey, a Creole New Orleanian who evolved from a curious participant in séances to host of Le Circle, and, by extension, an author, civil rights leader and leader of the community during both the Civil War and Reconstruction. Mainly in French, these records, which are a major part of the collection, detail séances by listing mediums and messages, messages which members believed were from spirits. The messages were from such diverse figures as Voltaire, Vincent de Paul, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as from deceased members of the spiritualist group.
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Séance register 65-70
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