Juana Amelia VIDAUD CAIGNET

María Magdalena Gonzales-Rodiles Vidaud and Carmen Luisa de Granda Vidaud were certainly not the first members of their family to leave Cuba. Nunú ( Maria Magdalena Gonzales-Rodiles Vidaud ) herself mentions her cousin, the first communicant in Barcelona, who I suspect was Rafael Calbetó Vidaud, born in Havana, the son of Juana Amelia Vidaud Caignet, sister of María Vidaud Caignet. Like María, Juana Amelia also married a man from Catalonia, Rafael Calbetó y Sambeat, who was Comandante del Presidio de la Habana in the early 1890s and published a report about his work there. They also settled in Spain sometime in the 1890s. (As it happens, a gentleman from Barcelona, Juana Amelia’s grandson, also found my blog and contacted me, providing some lovely photographs and much valuable information, to which I hope to return soon.) María and Juana Amelia must have missed their faraway birthplace, but Nunú and Carmela lost their country.

https://robertissimus.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/xiii-communicants/

An amateur genealogist in Barcelona not long ago read my blog and kindly emailed me three pictures of children. The girl seen here is Juana Amelia Vidaud Caignet, my correspondent’s grandmother, born in Guantánamo in 1851. She is also the sister of Alberto Vidaud Caignet, my grandmother’s grandfather, who was born, it seems, in 1848. Like their sister, María Vidaud Caignet, whose son at one point headed the Futbol Club Barcelona, Juana Amelia ( Vidaud Caignet) ended up spending much of her life in Spain. As I recounted earlier, she married Rafael Calbetó y Sambeat, who was Comandante del Presidio de la Habana in the 1890s. A married couple with a young son, they went to live in Catalonia; he, after all, had been born in Viella, in the province of Girona.

And here we have her again, little Amelia (as it appears she was known) in a feathered hat with an anonymous child — “un niño desconocido,” as my correspondent puts it. It is not farfetched at all — in fact, it makes sense — to assume that the little boy in the top hat is one of her brothers, either Alberto Vidaud Caignet, my second great-grandfather, or, more probably, Severo Vidaud Caignet, born in 1849, the only other boy among the seven siblings. Severo ( V.C.) is arguably the most interesting character in our family tree, and I hope to return to him (and his direct descendants) again, but suffice it to say for now that he’s a bit of a legend, a gentleman who traveled to Europe many times, a bon vivant who appears to have shocked — at least a little — his more conventional relatives in Cuba, France and Spain. He appears as a bachelor in the faire-part announcing the death of his aunt in Auch: “Monsieur Sévère Vidaud du Dognon de Pomerait,” plain and simple, without a wife or children. (His older brother appears as “Monsieur et Madame Albert Vidaud du Dognon de Pomerait et leurs enfants,” a paterfamilias, while Amelia, by then a widow, is “Madame veuve Calbetó, née Vidaud du Dognon de Pomerait, et ses enfants.”). Years ago, we spent a week in Dinard, on the northern coast of Brittany. When I told my grandmother — she was in her late eighties then — about this part of our itinerary, she mentioned that one of her great-uncles (or was it an uncle, or a cousin?) used to summer there. I like to imagine that man was her tío Severo (V.C.), and I like to imagine too that this little boy is Severo, or Sévère, himself, posing already with an finely crafted product of elegant millinery, one of the many hats he must have worn during his life. But what do I know? Most sources indicate that both Alberto and Severo were older than their five sisters, and this boy looks younger to me than the girl whose hand he is delicately holding. Maybe the accepted chronology needs to be revised in light of these hats? Or maybe a boy at that age looks smaller than a sister born two years later, since girls are said to grow up faster?

https://robertissimus.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/xviii-crowned-heads/

As weeks and months passed, readers of this blog, including old and newly found cousins, have kept searching for the elusive Adolphe and Charlotte. A gentleman from Barcelona, you may recall, contacted me with childhood pictures of his own grandmother, Juana Amelia Vidaud Caignet, Adolphe’s and Charlotte’s daughter. He also provided me with a copy of the his father’s birth certificate. Rafael Calbetó y Vidaud, as he was called, was born in Havana, where his father commanded the Presidio, in 1893. In the document, Amelia’s parents are said to be living (unlike her father- and mother-in-law, who had died in the province of Girona, where her husband was from). Adolphe’s and Charlotte’s birthplaces are mentioned as well, but their names are now given in Spanish, and Adolphe has even acquired a new first name, which we had never heard of before. The child, Rafael, is said to descend “por línea materna de Don Pedro Adolfo Vidaud, natural de Santiago de Cuba, provincia de ídem; y de Doña Carlota Cagnet, digo Caignet y Herrera, natural de New Orleans, casados y vecinos del mencionado Santiago de Cuba.” Whoever copied the original certificate seems not to have been in top form; not only is Caignet at first misspelled, Carlota’s maternal surname is changed from Hevia to Herrera. Yet one thing appears to be certain. Both Adolphe, or Pedro Adolfo, and Carlota, or Charlotte, were still living in the 1890s. And we now had official confirmation of Adolphe’s Cuban birth.

https://robertissimus.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/xxii-to-reconnoiter/

Rep cristiana sepultura a la ciutat de Barcelona el malaguanyat jove D. Adolf Calbetó Vidaud, que temporalment havia residit a la nosta vila.
A son desconsolada mare, donya Amelia Vidaud , viuda Calbetó, germans i demés familiars i especialment a son oncle nostre apreciat amic don Rafael Llopart i Ferret, testimoniem nostre sentiment.

Baluart de Sitges, de 8 de mayo de 1915, núm 709, pag 3

En el cementerio Nuevo recibió ayer cristiana sepultura el cadáver de doña Amelia Vidaud Caígnet, viuda de Calbetó. En paz descanse.
Llorarán su muerte no sólo sus hijos y demás deudos que la idolatraban, sino también sus muchas amistades, entre las que era muy estimada por su virtud y su bondad.
La conducción del cadáver a la iglesia parroquial y después al cementerio, que se efectuó ayer a las once de la mañana, constituyó una sentida manifestación de duelo.
De todas veras nos asociamos al dolor de la Conocida familia de Calbetó

El Noticiero Universal, de 29 de octubre de 1928, pag 12

Dª. Amelia Vidaud Caignet
VIUDA DE DON ANTONIO CALBETÓ
falleció el día 27 del pasado
HABIENDO RECIBIDO LOS AUXILIOS ESPIRITUALES
Sus hijos Ana Mª, Gabriel y Rafael, hijas políticas Josefina de Grau y Concepción Galiana, nietos, hermanas María Vidaud, viuda de Llopart; Carlota y Magdalena (ausente), sobrinos, primos y demás familia, y la casa R. CALBETO, ruegan a sus amigos y conocidos la tengan presente en sus oraciones y se sirvan asistir al funeral y misas que, para ei eterno descanso de su alma, se celebrarán el lunes, día 5 del corriente, a las diez y media, en la iglesia del Buensuceso (capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores), por cuyo acto de piedad les quedarán sumamente agradecidos.
El duelo se da por despedido
No se invita particularmente

La Vanguardia 03/11/1928, Pag 01

Dª Amelia Vidaud Caignet
VIUDA DE DON ANTONIO CALBETÓ
falleció el día 27 del pasado
HABIENDO RECIBIDO LOS AUXILIOS ESPIRITUALES
(E. P, D.) - —
Sus hijos Ana Mª., Gabriel y Rafael, hijas políticos Josefina de Grau y Concepción Galiana, nietos, hermanas María Vidaud, viuda de Llopart; Cariota y Magdalena (ausente), sobrinos, primos y demás familia y la casa R. CALBETÓ, ruegan a sus amigos y conocidos la tengan preseme en sus oraciones y se sirvan asistir al funeral y misas que, para el eterno descanso de su alma, se celebrarán mañana hiin.'es, día 5 del corriente, a las diez y media, en la iglesia del Buensuceso (capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores), por cuyo acto de piedad les quedarán sumamente agradecidos.
El duelo se da por despedido
No se ínvita particularmente

La Vanguardia 04/11/1928, Pag 01

La Punta 04/11/1928, Pág 3

En Barcelona ha fallecido la bondadosa y caritativa señora D.^ Amelia Vidaud Coignet, viuda de D. Antonio Calbetó, y que era muy apreciada en la capital y en esta villa, en donde había pasado diversas temporadas. D. E. P. y reciban sus afligidos hijos y demás familiares y en particular su hermana D.^ María Vidaud viuda de Llopart, nuestro pesar.

La Punta 11/Nov 1928, Pág 3

NECROLÓGICAS.—En la Iglesia del Buensuceso, de Barcelona, el lunes se celebraron funerales en sufragio del alma de la que fué bondadosa señora D." Amelia Vidaud viuda de Calbetó. También con esta Parroquia el jueves tuvieron lugar solemnes funerales en sufragio del alma de D.^ Teresa Porta Montané, viuda Canals. Ambos sufragios se vieron concurridísimos, patentizándose las generales simpatías que disfrutaban las lloradas finadas y sus respetables familias, a las que reiteramos nuestro pesar.

En álgún árbol de Geni, aparece como "Juana Amelia" Hijos : Ana Maria Calbetó Vidaud ( ¿? - Feb 1972 ),
Gabriel Calbetó Vidaud ( ¿? - Oct/1957) casado con descendencia
Rafael Calbetó Vidaud ( ¿? - ¿? ),casado con descendencia
Adolfo Calbetó Vidaud ( ¿? , Mayo/1915 )

Fuentes:
Libro "Sitges-Guantanamo-Sitges" (2006 ), de Juan Carlos Llopart M.
Otros árboles colgados en geni.com

María Vidaud Caignet, whose son at one point headed the Futbol Club Barcelona, Juana Amelia ended up spending much of her life in Spain. As I recounted earlier, she married Rafael Calbetó y Sambeat, who was Comandante del Presidio de la Habana in the 1890s. A married couple with a young son, they went to live in Catalonia; he, after all, had been born in Viella, in the province of Girona.

https://robertissimus.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/xviii-crowned-heads/