Some Stories of John Mery as Told by My Grandmother

At one time, my grandmother told me that John Mery had either told her directly, or this story was relayed to her by my grandfather.  It was said that John Mery's earliest childhood recollection was being taken somewhere on a wagon with, who he believed were his biological parents, and traded to some people in France for a chest full of money and/or jewels.  He said that he thought he may have been born a Russian Jew (or maybe a gypsy).  He then said he was adopted by a French family and brought up as a French Duke.  My grandmother told me that he spoke and wrote 11 different languages fluently.  She also told me that he had killed somebody in a duel and maybe that was the reason he came to America, and she didn't believe that his real name was John Mery, it was probably the name he was given on the ship or at Ellis Island, because they couldn't pronounce his real name.  My grandmother told me that she though his real first name was something like, "Ignate" or "Ignacious," but never offered any speculation as to what his real last name might have been.

She said when he came to America, he was a wealthy man; but he had a penchant for betting on horse races and consequently lost all of his money.  there was also a neighbor in Appenzelle, who John Mery referred to as "Uncle Louie" whose name was Louis Gustave Seurat.  My guess is that he maybe was Blanche Seurat's brother (purely speculative). [Update:  Louis Gustave Seurat was Blanche Seurat's son either out of wedlock or by a pervious marriage.]  I gathered this information from a Reading Eagle article in the "Socialite Section" which made reference to Therese Blanche Mery Slagel and her son's visiting her brother, Louis Seurat.    However; Louis Gustave Seurat was born in America.

Evidently, my grandfather didn't remember coming to America on a ship, or he didn't want to remember, as when WWI rolled around my grandfather wanted to join the service, and he couldn't because he had no birth certificate proving he was an American.  I found a letter written by the Clerk of Courts at Monroe County Courthouse, giving testimony to my grandfather being born in America, which basically said that record-keeping at that time wasn't very good, and the birth record must have been lost.  Anyway, he didn't get in the service, instead he went to work as an apprentice in an auto paint shop in Philadelphia, but he was pulled away in 1916 when my great-grandmother was taken ill.

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