Rochechouart—Shumate Ancestral Home

Wednesday, May 29

We had a big day planned for today.  It almost became what Tom calls A Day Too Long.  We left Limoges fairly early for us!  Today, I was to again be indulged with a visit to Rochechouart, the village from whence the Shumates in America came.  Our French name is de la Chaumette.  The Chaumettes left Rochechouart in the late 1600s due to persecution by King Louis XIV (the Sun King) and by the Rochechouart countess for being protestants, or Huguenots. Col. Robert S. Riley (Ret.) contracted with a qualified French genealogist  to have the family researched, and a book called History of the Shumate Family Kentucky Pioneers, 1475-1992, which has very good information about the history of the family in France, at least, as much as can be found given the inability or destruction of record keeping in the late 1600s-early 1700s.

Rochechouart today is a very well-kept village.  It is obvious that some care has been taken in keeping up homes and gardens.  A small area east of the chateau that leads up  to the church is pedestrian only.  When I got out of the car, Mom and Tom asked what I was going to do, and I said, I don’t know.  We had parked in an area in front of the chateau, so I took a few pictures. 

  

  Then, I started walking up the pedestrian only street.

I believe,  but I will have to check my sources, that behind the fancy doorway is a possible meeting room for the local Huguenots in the 1670s-1700s.

Rochechouart and environs are known as Meteorite Country.

Catholic church

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 There were a few people about, and I stopped a man who had just come out of the boulangerie with his dog.  I asked to pet the dog, then asked if he knew of anyone in the village who had the name de la Chaumette.  He didn’t recognize the name, and I told him I was researching my family’s roots and that my family had come from Rochechouart.  He put his hand on his heart to express his pleasure when I said I had come home.  He suggested that I ask the boulanger or at the Mairie about anyone in town named de la Chaumette.  The boulanger did not recognize the name and suggested that I go to the Tourism office just across the way.  At the Tourism office, the woman at the desk said she recognized the name, but didn’t know anything else.  She gave me a brochure about the history of the town, none of which mentions anything about the Huguenot persecutions.

 I walk back toward the car and stop in the Mairie (city hall) to ask.  One of the women recognizes the name and asks me to wait.  I hear her calling her Papa, whom I assume must be a town historian.  She comes back to say that there is no one in the town now who has the name de la Chaumette.  Shumate family:  someone needs to come here and buy one of the several houses for sale to reestablish our presence in our ancestral village!

In the meantime, I guess I have been gone longer than I thought, and Mom tells me that she went in the Mairie asking if anyone knew If I had been there.  Tom went in the chateau and said that they were going to call Monsieur Poirot to look for me! 

Our next goal was to continue our Plus Beaux Villages tour.  We spent more time making wrong turns and circling villages that lead to time lost and finally deciding to head for our evening stop in Aurillac.  So far, our Plus Beaux Villages tour has not panned out to showing us anything plus beaux!  A circulade in France is a village built up in a model of a labyrinth up to the church, which is the center of town.  Tom has decided that our definition of circulade has come to mean circling around the villages/cites looking for wherever it is we want to get to!

Some views of our drive:

We totally misguessed time needed to cover the territory in order to visit a number of villages.  The pretty constant rain did not help.  

First village:  Aubeterre sur Dronne.  Everything was closed here, and if there was really anything worth seeing, we missed it.

A sign that caught our attention while we were waiting in traffic:

We spent at least an hour in Aurillac searching for our Ibis hotel.  It turns out that the hotel has only been open for 2 weeks, so signage has not been established, and I finally got out my iPhone to try to use the GPS map.  Success!  

We were tired, grumpy, sore, and hungry by the time we arrived.  The restaurant next to the hotel had excellent food.  After dinner, I think we all went right to bed.

Thursday, May 30,

We decided to make today a rest day.  Mom wants to do laundry, I have some school work to finish and the blog to catch up.  In the middle of doing my grades, we lose the internet.  I had had to switch rooms the previous evening because the internet would not work in my room.  Next thing I know, Tom is at the door with Mom’s iPad which also will not get an internet connection.  Tom has brought Nicholas, the front desk person, with him, and Nicholas is at a loss about what to do.  He calls his boss who tells him to turn off the network, then restart it.  Peeps, this is the first rule of electronics, which I also told Nicholas, turn it off, then turn it back on to reset.  Most of the time, this works.  Most of the time.  This time, it did.

I have spent the day catching up the blog and adding pictures.  Mom and Tom did the laundry.  We have regrouped, discussed how/where to spend our last week, and had another wonderful dinner at the restaurant next door to the hotel.  Tomorrow . . .is another day!