Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand, The Empress’s Oracle

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. For at least a couple of years, I have had Marie and Adelaide Lenormant on my list as a potential October topic listener John requested an episode on her back in twenty nineteen, but I don't think she made it onto my shortlist right away. Le Normal was a fortune teller in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for multiple years now, I've been in this pattern where I pencil her in for a late October and then some other stuff comes up and shuffles the schedule around, and then I go, oh, whoops, October is going to be over, and I put the topic aside. And that has been kind of a relief every year because this one has some stumbling blocks in the research. It is way easier to find information on Le Norman cardimancy decks, which are named for her, and if with one exception, everyone I have heard talk about these decks has talked about them saying it le normand not Normal, as though it were French way easier to find information on the decks though, than on her, and a lot of the information that is out there is contradictory, or it can't be substantiated, or both. One particular article about her was printed in multiple publications starting around eighteen forty five, and that seems to be the source for a lot of the basic information. One of those publications was Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, and it included this editor's note quote, the above article is communicated by an English gentleman residing in France. We would be understood as not pledging ourselves for the literal correctness of all its statements, though neither have we any reason to doubt that it has been prepared from the best sources of information which may be available in the case. So that is just it's not a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of the whole thing, and that's sort of the foundation that this whole episode is built on. So anyway, this year I decided let's go for it, and if it winds up coming out in November, fine, So here we are. I kind of love the look. We don't know, but we're printing it anyway. Marie and Adelil Lenomon was born in Allenson, in the Normandy region of France, on May twenty seventh, seventeen seventy two. Her father was a draper named Jean Louis Antoine Lenoment, and her mother's name was Marie en Guilbert. She was the oldest of their three children, with a younger sister and brother, and today you will see the family's last name as Lenoumont, or, as Tracy said in relation to the Cardimanci decks, le Normande all one word, but you will also see it in the historical record as le Normande, with the love part being its own word. The article the so. Marie's father died when she was still a child, and her mother remarried, but then her mother also died, leaving Marie and her siblings as orphans in the care of their new stepfather. When he remarried, though, he and his wife wanted to start a family of their own, so Marie and her sister were sent to live in a series of Benedictine convents, and their brother eventually joined the military. Their stepfather seems to have supported them financially, but otherwise they didn't really have much of a relationship. Marie first started predicting the future while living at one of these convents. The eighteen fifty eight book Remarkable Women of Different Nations and Ages by JP. Jewett described it this way. Quote it was in the house of the Bene Dictines that Mademoiselle commenced her vocation by predicting that the superior would soon be deprived of her office, for which ill boding the young lady was subjected to punishment and underwent a penance, But the event soon justified the prediction. In other words, the abbess was indeed removed, and Marie also predicted various details about her successor. From there, Marie started learning everything she could about divination, prophecy, and fortune telling. Here's how Frank boot Goodrich described it in his eighteen fifty seven book on the Court of Napoleon. Quote, she versed herself thoroughly in the annals of Greek and Roman oracles, in those of the Gallic druids, of the prophets of Baal, of the Hebrew philosophers, and of the miracle workers of antiquity. She studied the interpretation of dreams and the doctrines of second sight, and at the age of twelve was a complete adept in the practice of judicial astrology, in the drawing of horoscopes, and in the combination of catallistic figures. She examined the mysteries of the white of eggs and the grounds of coffee, but only to reject them. She inquired what degree of confidence was to be placed in the assertions of Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch that Socrates foretold the principal events of his own life, and in that of Tacitus that Tiberius and Marcus Aurelius expounded dreams. She investigated the cures effected in the Middle Ages by amulets and the relics of saints, and the power of healing the king's evil, said to have been possessed by the kings of France since the time of Clovis. Hey, if you're thinking, what does healing the king's evil mean? Good news, you can look forward to a Saturday classic that will explain that. Oh, maybe you've been listening to the show for a long time and you're now already know I know that one. So when Marie was about fourteen, she started to worry that she might never have a life beyond the convent, and she really did not want to become a nun. Her stepfather was living in Paris, and she asked if he could find her a situation there. He got her a job working at a milliner's shop, where she learned to sew and decorate hats, and also how to run a business and keep the accounts. She also continued her study of divination, developing her own methods for palm reading and cardimancy. In seventeen eighty nine, just before Marie turned seventeen, the Estates General convened de Versailles for the first time since sixteen fourteen. The Estates General was an assembly for representatives from the three Estates, that is, the clergy, the nobility and commoners, and King Louis the sixteenth had summoned them to try to find a solution to France's financial problems, including an enormous budget deficit. Marie made her first major prediction in connection to this assembly and the words of Frank boot Goodrich quote. She foretold the downfall of that monarchy, which numbered eight centuries of existence, the dispersion of the clergy and the suppression of the convents. At Versailles, the three Estates disagreed over how to vote the Third Estate, or the commoners, was the most numerous, so voting purely by number almost certainly meant that the Third Estate would get its way. But if voting took place by a state, then the clergy and nobility, which were already more powerful and wealthier than the commoners, could band together to outvote them. This assembly ended on June seventeenth, when the Third Estate redefined themselves as the National Assembly representing the people of France. This was a key moment at the start of the French Revolution, which of course did lead to the downfall of the French monarchy. All of the uncertainty and chaos around the French Revolution meant that a lot of people from all walks of life were seeking reassurance and guidance from fortune tellers. In the words of an anonymously written piece from eighteen forty five, Leneman quote found the troubles of the times, which unhinged the minds of all around her and filled them with alarm and anxiety, very propitious to her views. Even though fortune telling was in high demand, it was also illegal. When Marie was twenty, she started working with and studying under a fortune teller named Louise Gilbert, who she may have been related to on her mother's side. Both of these women faced multiple arrests for fortune telling, but they also had some very powerful clients who were able to get them released. One of Leonarmand's clients during these troubled times was Marie tres Louise of Savoy, Princess de Lamballe, the friend and confidante of Marie Antoinette. According to some accounts, Leonarman and the princess conspired to free Marie Antoinette from prison, and this led Leonormo to be arrested and jailed. It's possible that this is an embellishment, though, and this imprisonment was just one of the times that she was arrested for fortune telling. Marie trez was imprisoned in August of seventeen ninety two and then was murdered not long after that during the September massacres, in which more than a thousand people were killed in prisons around Paris. Le Normal reportedly foretold the Princess's very gruesome death. In seventeen ninety two, Lenormand also reportedly had a session with revolutionary figures Jean Paut Marrat, Maximilian de Robes, Pierre and Louis de Saint Just. She foretold Marat's imminent death and said that Robespierre and Saint Just would die quote at the hands of an indignant people. They did not take her seriously until Marat was assassinated on July thirteenth, seventeen ninety three, when Robespierre and Saint Just returned to Lenormand. After that she reportedly told them quote, they would be devoured by their own work and become victims of the bloody drama which they were themselves enacting. Lenormal's relationship with her most famous client reportedly started during one of her imprisonments during the Revolution, and we will get to that after a sponsor break. While being held at La Force Prison, starting in seventeen ninety four, Marie and Lenormant received a letter from a woman who was being held at carm Prison. That was Marie Joseph Rose Tascher, wife of Alexandre de Bournay. Rose's husband had been arrested as an enemy of the Revolution, and then a few weeks later Rose had been imprisoned as well, largely because of her connections to him and his associates. She heard about Lenormal's skill of divination from one of the other prisoners, and she and several of the others had pulled everything together that they would need for her to draw up their horoscopes. They convinced guards to smuggle these notes from Carme to la force. Le. Normal wrote back to Rose that she was going to soon suffer the greatest of calamities, but that she would survive it, and then quote Mary a man destined to attain the loftiest dignities and astonish the world. Rose was, of course the future Josephine Bonaparte. Alexandre de Beauharnat was guillotined on July twenty third, seventeen ninety four. Rose was released from prison a few days later after Maximilian Robespierre was beheaded on July twenty seventh, at the end of the reign of Terror. Louis de Saint just tou l'demand, had also predicted would be devoured by his own work, was guillotined the following day. Rose, who was not yet connected to Napoleon and who did not have Josephine as part of her name, had gotten her fortune told as a child in Martinique. According to Lenormand's account of Josephine's life. This fortune teller named Euphemia had told Rose that she would marry twice, that her first husband would die and leave her with two helpless children, and that then her second husband would quote fill the world with his glory and subject a great many nations to his power. Euphemia also said that Rose would become an eminent woman. At this point, Rose's first husband was dead, as Euphemia had foretold, and although Rose and her husband had not been at all happy together, being left a widow with two children to support could be interpreted as a calamity. So Rose went to Lena mont Salon on Rue de Tournant to try to get more information on this great marriage that each of the fortune tellers had suggested she would have, and she took a friend with her, both of them disguised as ladies' maids. Yeah a lot of people reportedly went to see her in disguise because of the whole illegality of fortune telling. Lenormal apparently saw through their disguise as immediately and told Rose that not only would she marry well, but that one day she would become empress. A fictionalized version of this scene appears in Alexandra Dumont Pere's eighteen ninety four novel The First Republic or The Whites and the Blues. In that novel, when Leonorman tells her this, in response, Josephine says, Empress, I you are mad, my dear. Lenomon's popularity and that of other fortune tellers continued to grow after the end of the Reign of Terror, through the Thermadorian reaction that followed, and into the establishment of the French First Republic in seventeen ninety five. Some of this popularity was connected to the years of violence, upheaval and change that everyone had been living through. People were just looking for reassurance and for some kind of idea of what they might expect to happen next. Yeah, there's a level of irony here that because France also saw as self as this pillar of rational enlightenment, people were really into fortune telling. Well, that's why it was illegal, Yeah, for a lot of people. Though, in addition to what Holly just said, there was also just a sense that France had gone through a revolution and the fall of the monarchy and then a massive wave of violence and death, only to wind up with a situation that wasn't actually that much better than it had been before. So people looked back to earlier times and bygone traditions with a sense of nostalgia, and that included the idea that something might be found in ancient wisdom to restore a social and political balance. This also meant that fortune tellers and occultists in France were often, but not always, drawing more from alternate readings of biblical texts and classical works, so things that could be seen as already part of French hist and heritage, rather than from sources that seemed really new or strange or bizarre. Rose had trouble supporting herself and her children after she was released from prison, but she continued to consult lenormand she made ends meet, primarily by having affairs with wealthy men who were willing to support her in her family. And then in seventeen ninety five she met Napoleon Bonaparte, who she married in seventeen ninety six. It was through him that she became known as Josephine. That is probably a nickname he gave to her, maybe based on her name of Marie. Joseph Rose allegedly Josephine took Napoleon to see Lenarmond after they met, and Lenormand told him he would gain battles, marry a widow, conquer kingdom's distribute thrones, astonish the world, and finally die in exile. Eventually, in eighteen oh four, Napoleon declared himself emperor and Josephine became Empress of the French. She kept consulting le Normand extensively both before and after becoming empress. Talked to her about her own life and her husband's political and military pursuits, and Lenormand's own account. Josephine described it as a small folly to believe her predictions, but a greater one to doubt what she said in Remarkable Women of Different Nations and Ages after Jpgewett wrote of this quote, Josephine, as is generally known, was a firm believer in auguries and prophetic intimations. The early predictions of her future greatness and its termination has been so frequently repeated without receiving any contradiction, that it has become a fact which no one questions, and would easily account for the firm faith she reposed in the oracles of Mademoiselle Lenormand, to whom she constantly sent to ask, amidst other questions, explanations respecting the dreams of Napoleon, and when the latter projected any new enterprise, the Empress never failed to conce the reader of futurity as to its results. Jewett went on to say, quote, the disasters of the Russian campaign, it is said, were clearly predicted by Mademoiselle Lenorment. And it was from her also that Josephine received the first intimations of the divorce, which was in contemplation, which premature revelation, unfortunately for the Authoress, procured for her an interview with Fouchet. So Fouchet was Joseph Fouchet, Minister of Police. As a side note, someone who's been on my list for a while. And there are a lot of accounts of Lenormal's fore telling of Napoleon's divorce from Josephine and how it might have led to problems for Lenorment. In one account, on May second, eighteen oh one, Lenorman met with Josephine at Chateau de Madmaison and told her, quote, you cherish projects, Madame, for the advancement of your husband. Take care. If he should ever grasp the scepter of the world, he would abandon you, for he is ambitious. Nevertheless, you are destined to enact the first part in France, and the day is not far off. Josephine continued to consult the Norman for years, and in October of eighteen oh nine, Le Norman reportedly predicted that something nefarious would happen on December sixteenth. That is the day the Senate adopted a decree dissolving the civil marriage of Napoleon and Josephine. That is, something they had each agreed to the day before. In some accounts, Napoleon had Le Norman jailed when he heard about this specific prediction, and that while she was in solitary confinement she quote occupied her leisure by the evocation of spirits. But as is the case with many things about Lenormand's life, the timeline here is a little fuzzy, and there are some questions about whether her arrest was really connected to that divorce prediction. It is absolutely true that Napoleon did not like Josephine's consultations with a fortune teller or normal's influence on her, but the events of December fifteenth and sixteenth were not a surprise to Josephine at all. Napoleon had told her he was going to divorce her at least two weeks before because she had not borne him a son. In a book Le Norman published in eighteen fourteen, she claimed to have first predicted the divorce in eighteen oh seven, but it's not clear whether that really happened. Even if it did, rumors about a possible divorce were already circulating by then, and Josephine wrote a letter in eighteen oh seven saying that Joaquim Murat, Marshal of France and Napoleon's brother in law, was trying to get Napoleon to divorce her. The Norman's connections to Josephine had, of course bolstered her popularity. She was fortune teller to the Empress of the French. That connection was gone after the formal ceremony of divorce that took place on January tenth of eighteen ten. But it doesn't seem like the end of Josephine's marriage to Napoleon really affected Luarmant's popularity at all, possibly because people thought she had successfully predicted all of that we are going to talk more about Marine adele Ldermon after we pause for a sponsor break. In eighteen twelve, two years after Josephine and Napoleon's marriage officially ended, Marie Ann Lanarmond met with Fortunata Humphreys, wife of Alexander Humphries Alexander, and then with Alexander himself. Alexander and his father had gone to France during the Peace of Amia in eighteen oh two, and then they'd wound up stuck there when hostilities resumed in eighteen oh three. Based on family lore from his mother, Alexander believed he should be the next Earl of Sterling, even though that title had passed on to other people. When he consulted with Leonormal, she told him that he would go through a series of trials and difficulties, but that he would attain distinction and opulence. Alexander and his wife were ongoing clients of Lenormal for the next thirty years, and this led to a very long and convoluted series of events involving forged documents that purportedly supported Alexander's claims to the Sterling peerage. One of these was a map of Canada with writing on the back, some of which was attributed to King Louis the fifteenth. Leonormal gave this map to Alexander, saying it had been left by two people who had come in for a reading the day before. Letters between Leonarment and Humphries Alexander were used as evidence in a court case focusing on seventeen forged documents that he was using to try to make this case that he had this legitimate claim. Ultimately, a found that the documents had been forged, but not that Humphries Alexander or Leanormand had created those forgeries or even new that they were forgeries. Uh. Seriously, this is so drawn out it could be its own episode. I don't know if it will, because the book of court documents about it is five hundred pages long, and I found it dizzying to try to make sense of It is not clear whether Lenormal was involved in making these forgeries or how much her predictions influenced Humphries Alexander's decisions as he pursued his claim to the title. Napoleon was forced to abdicate the throne in April of eighteen fourteen, following his failed invasion of Russia and other Nations formed the Sixth Coalition to fight against him. He was sent into exile on the island of Elba. Lenormand, having predicted the failed invasion and Napoleon's downfall, started getting even more powerful clients. Includings are Alexander the First of Russia when he was in Paris. After Napoleon's defeat, she also started writing and publishing books, some on fortune telling and the occult, and eventually a two volume the Historical and Secret Memoirs of the Empress Josephine. Josephine died of pneumonia on May twenty ninth, eighteen fourteen, before any of Lenarman's work about her was published, so she was not there to confirm or deny anything that Leonormal wrote about her, but Josephine's daughter Artense described this book as absurd. Napoleon's exile on Elbow was brief, and he returned to Paris in March of eighteen fifteen. This kicked off a period known as thee hundred Days, which ended when King Louis the eighteenth was restored to the throne on July eighth, eighteen fifteen. The Battle of Waterloo took place during this period and after Napoleon's defeat and the restoration of the monarchy, he was exiled to the island of Saint Helena. Baryomira wrote about this in Napoleon in Exile or a Voice from Santalena, which includes a passage in which Napoleon tried to dispel the idea that he was an atheist. According to Omira, Napoleon said quote man has need of something wonderful, it is better for him to seek it in religion than in Mademoiselle Lenormand, in spite of her connection to Josephine, it seems like Lenormal was always at heart a royalist and a supporter of the Bourbon monarchs. She claimed to have discovered prophecies about the Bourbon restoration. One was known as the Prophecy of Orval, which supposedly dated to the sixteenth century and was written in the style of Nostradamis. It was interpreted as foretelling the rise of Napoleon and a young Bourbon prince being restored to the throne with the help of a great warrior. However, this whole thing seems to have been a fabrication. Lenomond continued to see clients in Paris through the eighteen teens in twenties, and we have a lot of accounts of what these sessions were like. Because fortune telling was illegal, her business was registered as a book shop with a sign out front that read Mademoiselle Lenormon Lebree. According to at least one eyewitness account, actual readings happened in a room behind a secret panel to avoid detection by the police. The entry room that people saw when entering the building was also furnished to keep from attracting suspicion. Rees Howell Groenow, who was a military officer and a member of parliament, who was also described as a dandie and a writer of reminiscences, described it as quote plainly but comfortably furnished with books and newspapers about as one sees them at a dentist's. But in Frank boot Goodrich's words, the room where actual readings took place was another matter. Entirely quote. The visitor to the Dwelling of the Pythons was shown into a room in which books, prince paintings, stuffed animals, musical and other instruments, bottles with lizards and snakes and spirits, wax fruits, artificial flowers and a medley of nameless articles covered the walls, the table, and the floor, leaving the eye scarcely an unoccupied spot to rest upon. The Furniture of the Cabinet of Consultation was in maple. The walls were adorned with portraits of the Bourbons, with a painting by Grooves of great value, and with her own portrait by Isabe. Her cards, which were of large size and covered with colored hieroglyphics, were painted by Carl Verne. Pythoness if you're wondering is just an archaic word for fortune teller or sear something similar. Uh grownut makes this room sound even creepier quote. The walls of the room were covered with huge bats nailed by their wings to the ceiling, stuffed owls, catalystic signs, skeletons, in short, everything that was likely to impress a weak or superstitious mind. I think this room sounds amazing. I'm like, how can I recreate this roupe in my home? We also have various eyewitness accounts of what Lenormand did during a reading. Groow describes her spreading out several packs of cards quote with all kinds of strange figures and ciphers depicted on them. Her first question, uttered in a deep voice, was whether you would have the grand or petigiu, which was merely a matter of form. She then inquired your age, and what was the color and the animal you preferred. Then came, in an authoritative voice, the word coupe, repeated at intervals till the requisite number of cards from the various packs were selected and placed in rows side by side. No further questions were asked, and no attempt was made to discover who or what you were, or to watch upon your countenance the effect of the revelations. She neither prophesied smooth things to you, nor tried to excite your fears, but seemed really to believe in her own power. She informed me that I was a militarire, that I should be twice married and have several children, and foretold many other events which have also come to pass, though I did not at the time believe one word of the Sybil's prediction. Diarist Francis Lady Shelley gave a similar account. Quote On a large table under a mirror were heaps of cards with which she commenced her mysteries. She bade me cut them in small packets with my left hand. She then inquired my age, apoupre my day of birth, the first letter of my name, and the first letter of the name of the place where I was born. She asked me what animal color and number I was most partial to. I answered all these questions without hesitation. After about a quarter of an hour of this mummery, during which time she had arranged all the cards in order upon the table, she made an examination of my head. Suddenly she began a sort of measured prose, and with great rapidity and distinct articulation, to describe my character and past life, in which she was so accurate and so successful even to minute particulars, that I was spellbound at the manner in which she had discovered all she knew. Len Armand's predictions for Lady Shelley started with you will soon be ill, but it will pass. And she fainted at the opera that night, and considered that first prediction to be verified by the time she recorded it in her diary. Yes, since it was a diary, time had not passed enough yet for that entry to have anything else besides the fainting at the opera. Past podcast subject Washington. Irving traveled around Europe in the late eighteen twenties, and his journals from this period include anecdotes about Lenormal from some of his acquaintances. One was Henry Bulwer, British secretary of the Legation, who found her quote prone to put questions and draw hints and conclusions from the replies. The other was Alexandre Florian Joseph Colonna, Count Valeski, who was the son of Napoleon and Maria Veleska. He said that he had gone to Le Norman knowing that a woman he was involved with was planning to get a reading from her. He paid Leonormal to tell this woman specific things in that reading, and according to Irving's journals, quote the lady's fortune, past and future was told in a manner to astonish her and greatly to the advantage of mister Velevski. After the July Revolution of eighteen thirty, Louis Philippe became King of the French and the government of France was established as a constitutional monarchy. It seems that after this point Lenormand retired from fortune telling. She bought land and a house in Alanson, where she had been born, and when people asked her to read their fortunes. She said that she only did that in Paris. Lenormal never married or had children. In one source described her as never desiring or thinking about it. She also outlived both of her siblings. She had premonitions about her brother's death in service to the French army, and was informed that he had been killed after she had already bought her mourning clothes. She predicted that she would live to a very old age. In some sources that was one hundred and eight and in others one hundred and twenty four. But she died in Paris on June twenty fifth, eighteen forty three, at the age of seventy one. She's buried at Perlichez Cemetery. All of her belongings went to her one surviving relative, her sister's son, alexandre Ugaut, who was described as devoutly Catholic. She had become very wealthy, owning several properties and a very significant art collection, and he kept all of this, but he burned her occult materials, including her divination cards. It seems like other people had already started capitalizing on the Normal's name while she was still living. For example, a book, published in English in London in eighteen twenty five, was titled The Oracle of Human Destiny or the unerring Foreteller of future Events and Accurate Interpreter of mystical signs and influences through the medium of common cards. This was attributed to Madame the Normal, professor of the Celestial Science at Paris. It included a preface a method for doing card readings and meanings for a set of fifty two cards. But this preface is signed Victory in the Normal, which was not a name that she actually used, and the biographical details from this preface purportedly written by the author are just totally different from anything else written about linermal uh I was not able to figure out other history about this working kit where it came from, but it's so associated with Lenorman's name that there are a bunch of digital copies of it floating around the Internet that like definitively lists her as the author. After she died, people started printing divination cards using her name. Laurent Jeu de Mademoiselle lenormand came out two years after she died. Jeu is the French word for game. This includes fifty four cards and was developed by a Madame Breteau, who claimed she had been Le Norman's student. Another deck, the Petit le Normal, which again I mostly heard people call the Le normand was created in Germany in eighteen forty five, that includes thirty six cards, and this is the one between those two that's probably the more well known today. Each of the cards in this deck has a specific set of meanings, and during a reading, they are combined to create a sentence or a series of sentences. Practitioners usually describe this as a more straightforward and direct reading than something like Tero, which can involve more subjective interpretation of the symbolism of the cards rather than specific meanings assigned to each of them. Lenorman was incredibly famous and influential in France during her lifetime, but her reputation among other figures within France's occult revival seems to have been mixed. Alfonse Luis Conston, known by the pseudonym Elephas Levi, was a big figure in France's nineteenth century accult revival, and he described her this way quote. Mademoiselle Lenormand, the most celebrated of our modern fortune tellers, was unacquainted with the science of Taro, or knew it only by derivation from Ettela, whose explanations are shadows cast upon a background of light. She knew neither high magic nor the cabala, but her head was filled with ill digested air audition, and she was intuitive by instinct, which deceived her rarely. The works she left behind her are legitimist tomfoolery, ornamented with classical quotations, but her oracles, inspired by the presence and magnetism of those who consulted her, were off an astounding She was a woman in whom extravagance of imagination and mental rambling were substituted for the natural affections of her sex. She lived and died a virgin, like the ancient druidesses of the Isle of Sane. Had nature endowed her with beauty, she might have played easily, at a remoter epoch the part of a Melusine or a Veleda. Or, to put it more simply, another commentator, who was paraphrased by Frank Bot Goodrich, summed her up as quote which or no which a certain share of admiration will always be due to her, for having contrived to be believed in an age which neither believed in God in his angels, nor in the Devil and his imps. Do you have listener mail? I predict listener mal I do have listener mail. It is from Jerry, and Jerry wrote, Dear Tracy and Holly, I'm writing to thank you for Last Falls episode about E. Pauline Johnson, the Mohawk Canadian writer and performer. My husband's family has Mohawk heritage, descending from his great grandfather. He was admitted to the Mohawk Institute Residential School in nineteen oh two, a few decades after Pauline's brothers. We visited the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario many times, and my husband and children are enrolled members. But somehow we hadn't heard of Johnson, so we gobbled up your episode and visited Chief's Wood when we were there in July of this year. We were lucky to receive our own tour of the house from Quenton, staff of Six Nations Tourism. Just in case he's a listener, Quentin, you led a great tour. Attached her a few photos of the interior, Pauline's writing desk in her bedroom, the travel desks she took on tours, and the front door facing the Grand River through which Mohawk visitors entered, and yes, the door facing the road where white visitors entered, looked just the same. To pause from the email real quick if you did not hear that episode, this house had two entrances, and generally Mohawk visitors arrived on the river by canoe, and usually a white visitors came on the road via a horse or walking or whatever. So returning to the email, I'm also enclosing a photo from an exhibit in the Woodland Cultural Center, a museum on the grounds of the Mohawk Institute. During renovations of the school building, several items were found inside a wall, including the school application form for my husband's great grandfather. This article contains a photo of the entire case, with other found objects and details about the survivor led efforts to continue searching the grounds. Only after we saw this form did we learn that he had a brother. Your coverage of someone who we did indeed miss in history class was such a gift to our family as we try to learn more about my husband's ancestors and their history. We are American and live far away from the reserve, so our opportunities to learn are mostly virtual. I'm also enclosing pet pictures for tax Jet. So is the yellow one. Her name is a rough phonetic spelling of the kanya ka how ward Sicho, meaning fox. Harriet is the gray one and she's part gremlin. And Doug is the Cocker Spaniel, our pandemic puppy who was actually a senior and was rescued from a medical neglect situation. He's the happiest dog I've ever had. In the moment he meets you, he loves you. Thanks again for all your work, Jerry, Jerry, thank you so much for this email. Honestly, this is one of the best emails that we've gotten in a long time. I think I love these pictures from chiefs Wood. It really struck my heart. The application for him and realizing that your husband's great grandfather had a brother that you had not known about before, and then of course the animal pictures. I hope I did an okay job of saying the word for fox that was not a word that I found a pronunciation for. But these man what cues, what cute doggies. I also am so happy to hear about a cocker Spaniel who is the happiest dog that you've ever had and loves everyone he meets because I only grew up with high strung cocker Spaniels and didn't know they could be any other way. So thank you, so so so much, Jerry for this email. If you would like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and we're all over social media. Missed in History. That's where you'll find our Facebook and Pinterest and X thing or whatever. We still haven't started accounts on those other ones, and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you liked it at your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.