We'll start with the end of a story here - a tombstone in St. Johns Cemetery in Jackson, Michigan that stands as a silent reminder of a family long gone. The beginning was in Belgium, where Peter Voorhies was born in 1870, and in Flanders, where Juliana Desmyter was born in 1875. Peter immigrated to America as an adult in 1892 but Juliana was a toddler when her family arrived in 1877. The couple married in 1893.
They were living in Scio Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan in 1900 where Peter (left) who had been a buggy maker in the old country, was now a farmer, and the couple had two little daughters, Florence and Marie. In 1910, the family had moved to Jackson City where Peter was employed as a laundryman at a hotel, and Juliana had borne two more children, sons Lawrence and Edward.
Ten years later, the family was living in Summit Township, East Jackson; Peter was working for the railroad as a track foreman and a last little son, Louis (named for Peter's father) had joined the family. This photo shows the family plus a fellow named Harold Brown, seated far right, who was or would become Florence's husband.
Here Peter and Julia, as she was called, smile on the wedding day of their oldest son, Larry, and his bride, Phyllis Phillips (who would have only one child, my mother). Not long after, in 1926 at the age of fifty-six, Peter passed away but Juliana lived until 1952 with her single daughter, Marie. Sadly she lost two sons, Lawrence and Edward, before she died.
I feel quite unfortunate that these hard facts are the only things I know about Peter and Julia (below). They lived through so much, overcame many obstacles and a large measure of their life must have been difficult. Why did they leave Europe and were they happy in America? What kind of personalities did they have? I can only speculate but I am glad that at the very least, I have these few photographs.
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