When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].
Arsene Gremaux, born in France. In 1847, when Arsene was four years old he sailed with his parents on the ship Vespace from the Port of LaHavre to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America. From there, the family moved to Indiana where there was a settlement of other French families. They had seven children, including a set of twins, Alice and Emil.
A family named Pernot also lived in Indiana. One of their daughters, Rosa, had asthma, which was a serious illness for a youngster. Rosa was sent to relatives who lived in Colorado where the climate was thought to be better for asthma.
In Colorado Rosa met Louis Resouches, who's father owned land, which later became the Union Pacific Railroad yards. The three sisters made a pact between themselves to never marry. But Rosa fell in love with Louis and they married and then moved to Parker, Colorado. They had three daughters, Olive, Clara and Julia. One of the Gremaux family was Clara's godfather. Louis Resouches was a prospector and they moved several times following mining, living in Silverton and Pueblo. Rosa tired of the boom and bust existence Louis' mining interests gave them so she divorced him, took their three daughters, and returned to her parents in Indiana for a time.
While they were in Indiana, the connection with the Gremaux's was resumed, and Clara's beauty bewitched Emil Gremaux. Emil and Clara were passionately in love and when she was 19 years old they conceived a baby. To avoid being ostracized, and uproar that would have ensued if the pregnancy became known, the Resouches family hurriedly sent their errant Gremaux son and his pregnant bride to Danvers, Montana where Clara's uncle, Frenchy Pernot, had a stage stop. Frenchy drove bull trains into Montana. Clara's mother, Rosa, returned to Pueblo, Colorado.
Emil and Clara filed for a homestead. They lived in a dugout house until the baby was due, and then went to the stage stop where their healthy son, Faulkner (Foxy) was born. Two years later, their daughter, Dorothy Ellen, was born.
When Clara became desperately ill a few years later, she returned to Indiana and was placed by her doctor in a sanitarium that cared for people with tuberculosis. At that time, the disease was considered a disgrace also, so the children weren't told what ailed their mother. Tuberculosis was generally fatal. Foxy was kept in Indiana by his grandparents, Arsene and Melinda Gremaux. Dorothy was sent to Colorado to her grandmother, Rosa Resouches.
Later, when the widowed Emil Gremaux married Edith Barney, Foxy and Dorothy were reunited with him at their ranch near Danvers, Montana.
Arsene and Melina Gremaux are both buried in Indiana.
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