ANNE SYLVESTRE
Author, composer, singer, performer and writer, very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, Anne Sylvestre died on November 30, then aged 86. His name and his famous “Fabulettes”, in particular, are known, his family origins not necessarily.
A last name difficult to carry:
Her real name, Anne Sylvestre was called Anne-Marie Thérèse Beugras. She was born in the 6th arrondissement of Lyon. His father Albert Beugras (1903-1963) is a chemical engineer at Rhône-Poulenc, originally from Burgundy. In the interwar period, from 1936, when France joined the Popular Front, he joined the French Popular Party (PPF), devoting real disgust for the Communists and Bolshevik ideas in general. During the Occupation, Albert Beugras embraces collaborationist ideals and becomes the true right-hand man of Jacques Doriot (1898-1945), president of the PPF and staunch supporter of Collaboration (who will even become a lieutenant in the Waffen-SS). After a turnaround … at the Liberation, he will be imprisoned for ten years in the prison of Fresnes.
Anne-Marie then takes the pseudonym of Sylvestre to bury this painful past, just like her sister: Marie Chaix (born in 1942) who will reveal this heavy family story in her work. Laurels of Lake Constance, published in 1974.
Paternal origins in the heart of Burgundy:
The first known Beugras, sometimes called “Boeufgras”, was born at the very beginning of the 17th century. He is a plowman in the region of Saint-Vallier (Saône-et-Loire), between Creusot and Paray-le-Monial. This Antoine Boeufgras unites with a Burgundian, called Beaujard or Baujard, certainly before 1629.
Among the ascendants allied with the Beugras, we note the Morin families, around 1661, Tramaille-Franville (de Marigny) in 1682, Deschevrier, de Sanvignes-lès-Mines in 1704, Griveau or Grivaut (de Marigny) in 1742, Gillot, in 1766, Debrière in 1788. The Boeugras or Beugras remained farmers for several generations at the Château de Marigny throughout the 18th century. Other families from the Burgundy region (Saint Martin d’Auxy, Saint Eusèbe and Marigny) also figure among this Beugras ancestry such as Blandet or Blondet, Gandré, Decombin or Decombain, Voisin, Lavaut or Venot.
Two daughter-mothers among the ascendants of the paternal line:
The singer’s grandfather, Louis Beugras (1874-1955), initially a modest fitter, climbed all the levels to reach the post of controller and then ended up as director of the Saint-Nazaire shipyards. The latter married in 1897 Marie Claudine Berger (1875-1945), a young seamstress from Lyon.
The great-grandparents, Louis Berger (born in 1847, died after 1874) and Claudine Dambrière (1858-1877) married in Saint Micaud (Saône-et-Loire) in November 1874. They are, curiously, both from of two “daughter mothers”.
An Alsatian and German maternal line:
Alice Litolff (1904-1971), Anne Sylvestre’s mother married Albert Beugras in 1924, in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin). This Alsatian family formerly called Lidolf or Lidolff comes from the small town of Sausheim (Haut-Rhin), located a few kilometers north of Mulhouse. The Litolff / Litolf have been known since the very beginning of the 17th century in this same village. The men exercise modest trades (workers, day laborers and farmers, mason or farrier. Among the most recent alliances forged with these Litolf, we note the Liebenguth of Ottmarsheim, the Resch of Didenheim, the Ernst of Bantzenheim (all in le Haut-Rhin). Anne Sylvestre’s maternal grandmother, Anna Kroeber (1878-1925) – wife of Jean Litolff (1872-1911) – is a native of Strasbourg but the line of her father, Otto Rudolph Richard Kroeber ( born in 1848, died after 1878) is German. The Kroeber family comes from Altenburg in the region of Münster, in North Westphalia. The Kroebers linked to the Kipping forge alliances with the Droesch (Strasbourg), Bossard and Westheimer families and Tatz, among others.
The etymology of Beugras:
The name “Beugras” is formed after the name bœuf, from the Latin “bos” or “bovis”. This family name is undoubtedly born from the nickname attributed to a portly man or “strong as an ox”.
The implementation of the name:
It is especially in Saône-et-Loire that this name is found, after all quite rare. With 191 births registered on French soil since 1890, this surname is in the 50,827th place of the most popular names. About sixty holders of this surname still remain in France in 2020.
The name is mainly present in the localities of Saint-Eusèbe, Vaumas, Le Creusot, Marigny and Montchanin.
Variants:
Beugras, Boeufgras, Boeugras.
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