The Hair Book

This  charming and slightly eerie book  has no documentation except the slip of paper shown with the cover.  It says, " Hair Book, belonging to Mrs. McLean.  The hair at the top right that of Mrs. McLean's Great Grandmother, Marie Geneviene Adlee (or Adlais,) Nee Marie Genevieve de Fondelique, born in 1733 (Mr. Machen)"    

The hair lock described is shown below in close up, and at file # 13

"It was probably Nativité (Marie Genevieve Nativité  Tessier McLean)  who saved papers and mementos contained in the Machen Collection.  One of the interesting items in the collection  is a "Hair Book."  This is a small book about the size of an autograph album, its pages filled with locks of hair from five generations of the family.  Strands of hair have been braided and formed  into loops and whorls, each tied with a small piece of  faded  ribbon.  

Mr. Machen believed that the book had been started by Marie Genevivie de Fondelique, with pieces of her own hair and that of her husband Etienne Adlé.  Jean Baptiste Etienne Adlé is represented there, as are his sons and his daughter Pelagie.  Pelagie contributed locks of her own, those of her brothers and sisters, and of John Michel Tessier and the children of her marriage to Tessier. 

 A tiny wisp of baby hair is that of Divinité Tessier, the baby born after Jean Michel died.  Pelagie's daughters Erazia Roger and Marie St. Anne Schamp and their husbands are also represented.  Nativité added hair from the heads of all three of her husbands, her children and her grandchildren."    George Damon Tessier of  Natchitoches,  Louisiana,  Evelyn T. Smith, 1990

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