Aunt Victoire
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Victoire d’Oultremont - Fritz. 3 mar 1873. Born 8.10.1842; died 4.2.1919. |
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Aunt Victoire was a full sister of Wilhelmina, later Wilhelmina Aarsse-Fritz. There were five Fritz children: Charles, Anthelme and Henri, Victoire and Wilhelmina, and two half-sisters, Henriette and Lydia de Ridder. Victoire became a companion of the d’Oultremont family in Brussels. She then married, in church, Octave d’Oultremont, 1813-1898. As a consequence, she also became Catholic. When she was scolded by her sister Wilhelmina for turning Catholic from Protestant, she replied: “Le comte faut bien une messe.” She then called herself Madame de Grauw, because the prefix “de” suggested someone of nobility, and so was much more posh than the name Fritz. The Count d’ Oultremont had been married before, but whether his first wife had died and whether there were children from the first marriage is not known. Aunt Victoire had four children, three daughters and a son: Marie, Edith, Charles and Leonie (or Nini).
Aunt Victoire owned a villa on Badhuisweg in Scheveningen, and a country house in the Ardennes on the Ourthe. As it was then the custom for children to stay with relatives in the summer, everyone saw each other in Scheveningen or at the country house on the Ourthe in summer.
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Aunt Victoire’s eldest daughter, Marie Walhain de Grauw with Jacques and Symone [Carte Postale - Salon 1904 - Ch. Wlhain - Dans l’Atelier]. |
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The eldest daughter, Marie (1875) married a well-known painter: Charles Walhain (1877-1936). The couple had six children: Octave, Pierre, Marie-Louise, Jacques, Symone and Michel. Aunt Marie was a handsome woman, as shown in the painting: “Dans l’atelier”, from 1904. She is depicted there with two of her children, Jaques and Symone. Charles Walhain was a portrait painter and a member of the Academie Francaise. The family lived in Paris, where Aunt Do and Uncle Huug sometimes visited them. Daughter Marie-Louise was born on the same day as Grandpa Louis Hahn, 1 August 1904; she was called “Malie”. Her father painted her in: “Sur la Côte d’Emeraude” (very famous), in: “Petits Hollandais” and in: “Enfant de Véere”. In: “Petits Hollandais”, she poses with her little brother Jaques. The painting: “Sur la Côte d’Emeraude” hung at the 1913 Salon exhibition, and was bought there by the Princess of Liège, because: “The girl looks so much like my daughter”. It was later revealed that the Princess of Liège was related to d’Oultremont.
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1904. Nini de Grauw [sic. Nini d’Oultremont] who later entered a convent. | Villa Pacis (a). Where Nini taught French in Rome. | Villa Pacis (b). Postcard from Nini to Huug and Do |
Aunt Victoire’s youngest daughter, Léonie (1885), was called Nini. Nini later became a nun, which no one expected because she was a fashionable girl. For instance, at one of Aunt Victoire’s stately dinners, she had stood up, tapped against her glass and said: “Je propose que chacun donne un baiser au voisin á droite” and later repeated this for the “voisin á gauche”. Aunt Nini joined a large monastic order, for which a hefty dowry had to be paid. She was a French teacher and taught at the Villa Pacis, at Via Camilluccia 567 in Rome. Aunt Do and Uncle Huug sometimes visited her there. Uncle Huug wanted to take a photo of her, but she couldn’t because she had to ask mère supérieure first. Without asking, she also couldn’t write a small piece at the bottom of the postcard for Aunt Jet. She did, however, love the fact that someone called her Nini’ again. One of her pupils was Paola, the later Princess of Liège.
Aunt Victoire’s second daughter was Edith, married to Francois van Campenhout. Of Edith’s five children, we know “Berthe” best (from 1909). Berthe was married to Eddy Hartert, who became director of the Union Minière in the Congo. Berthe and Eddy lived on an estate in Lodève, near Montpeilier. Aunt Do and Uncle Huug visited them there a few times, on their way from Spain to the Netherlands and vice versa. Eddy was extremely kind, always busy with his estate. Aunt Berthe was always weak, sick or nauseous, except when she went out, then she dressed up.