I visited Issy-les-Moulineaux on July 8 with my mother, coming in by subway from Paris; it’s the end of the line. I visited because I knew my grandmother was born there in 1931 and, though her family moved away within a year, they had lived in this inner-ring Parisian suburb for the entire period between World War I and the Great Depression. In fact, they prospered there.
I didn’t know much about my ancestors’ life in the city, and my grandmother didn’t dwell on it. Even though I visited my grandparents every summer in nearby Versailles, we never stopped in Issy on our way to Paris. For this to be the case, my great-grandparents must never have reminisced very much about Issy in front of my grandmother. More formative to her was her second home in Amboise.
A few years before my grandmother died, she pulled a box of documents down from a high shelf in her apartment and let me flip through them. She didn’t add much explanation or narrative at the time, but my questions inspired her to annotate some of the documents with details or identifying family members in photographs. Among these documents were marriage photos, letters of recommendation, letterhead from new businesses, new drivers licenses, and more, all from Issy. It was here that my great-grandparents entered the middle class, it was here that my great-grandparents met each other, and it was here that modernity found them.
The town dates back to pre-Roman times, the name Issy said to derive from Issiacum, itself derived from the name of a Gallo-Roman landowner with Celtic roots suggesting a meaning of "under the wood.” The town was rural until 1860, when the city of Paris annexed a third of its territory. Just outside the Porte de Versailles, Issy rapidly industrialized in the nineteenth century with access to Parisian labor and frontage on the Seine.
An aerodrome began drawing major parts of the French aviation industry to Issy. My great-grandfather, Pierre, was a flying ace for France in World War I, fighting at Verdun and elsewhere. He learned how to fix planes, including models designed by Aéroplanes Voisin. Voisin picked up shop in 1920 and relocated their factory from Billancourt to Issy in order to pivot to automobile manufacture. Pierre moved as well, working in the garage.
36 Boulevard Gambetta
The former site of the Voisin factory (actually more likely further down the road due to street name changes), this address is now occupied by an office building directly in front of the Correntin Celton 12 train stop.
Pierre Caudrelier, my great-grandfather, officially started working with Avions Voisin in 1924, becoming Chef de Service des Transports. In 1925, my great-grandmother, Lucienne Montillier, started working in the billing department. Soon after, her sister Renée also joined. Lucienne and Pierre met at the Voisin factory and were married in 1929. Soon the company was buffeted by the global economic crisis. In February 1930, Lucienne was laid off. Pierre followed in June.
16 Avenue Verdun
We know how Pierre ended up in Issy. But what about the Montilliers? Lucienne, Renée, and their parents lived in Issy before the sisters began working at the Voisin factory. The Montilliers hailed from Charolles, a tiny village in Burgundy famous for cattle. Lucienne and Renée’s parents had met in Paris, somewhere on the border of Clichy and the 17ieme Arrondissement. Jean’s trade was menuiserie, cabinet-making or fine woodworking. (Before modern times, homes didn’t have closets. Rather, clothing and items were stored in large cabinets, armoires, and the like).
I am not sure how the Montilliers came to Issy, but once there, they set up a woodworking workshop at 16 Avenue Verdun, apparently in partnership with the Berthelot family. This cabinetry atelier stayed in business until the second world war.
When we visited, the area of 16 Avenue Verdun was obliterated by new construction. The site was to become a station in the new Grand Paris transit network, in time for the next Olympic Games.
Issy itself rapidly de-industrialized after the second world war, transitioning economically into office and other service industries. It is now the center of France’s television industry, with many networks headquartered there.
8 Rue Berthelot
I am not quite sure of the nature of the relationship between the Montilliers and Berthelots. They were friends and business partners, certainly. They seem to have taken vacations together. And stranger yet, the Montilliers lived at 8 Rue Berthelot, a street named after the famous chemist Marcellin Berthelot. I do not know whether the cabinetry-making Berthelots were related to the chemist, but the naming coincidence points to some connection.
The house at 8 Rue Berthelot has been quite freshly refronted in brick, and a peek inside hints at American expat occupation. However, the bones of the building suggest continuity with the 1920s. The apertures and facade composition are reminiscent of early modernist housing styles, and in this first suburb west of Paris, the residents could not have been unfamiliar with the experiments of Le Corbusier in Garches and Poissy, just a few towns over. The Montilliers and Caudreliers had been, and would remain, fans of modernist home design.
Église Saint-Étienne
The Church of Saint Stephen in Issy was the family church in this time period. Lucienne and Renée were confirmed in the Catholic Church there, their younger brother Jean was baptized there, and Lucienne and Pierre were married there.
The current form of the church dates from 1645, but stone remnants date from the 7th century. There are rumors that the church is older still: one legendary etymology for the town’s name is based on the rumored existence of a former temple of the goddess Isis on the site of the church.
But no one in the family remembered Issy after they left, and no one in Issy remembered the family. I certainly never heard of the Berthelots growing up, and apparently neither did my grandmother.