The Louis and Antoinette Thuillier story.
In a small French village in France during World War 1 , an enterprising couple Louis and Antoinette Thuillier set up a photographic studio to capture photographs of soldiers passing through their village to and from the front lines.
Louis was a farmer who dealt with farm machinery but was curious about the world around him including photography which he learned to do by manuals while driving his tractor in the fields. There is even a story of him killing all the farm chickens while learning to develop the photos using a cocktail of chemicals. Such was the pairs entrepreneurial desire in a time of war and associated shortages.
Every family in the village baked and made goods to sell to the large number of soldiers present.
Food and clothing and lodging was required .......Vignacourt and villages just like it filled a necessary gap.
Antoinette, his wife was clever and engaging and they soon had soldiers in their droves calling into the family barn to have their photo taken as a memento to keep or take home. The family children posed with a variety of nationalities while Louie used his motorbikes and other props to make their photographs memorable.
The Thuilliers could not have known that they were capturing moments in time that would leave a lasting legacy.
After the war the soldiers departed and Vignacourt returned to the usual small French rural village.
Louis bought motorbikes from the departing soldiers and his interest for all things machinery continued opening a local bike shop.
He soon became known as Peugot Thuillier after the brand of the bikes he dealt with.
Antoinette continued to tend for her family and the photographic hobby ended with the glass plates stored in trunks waiting to be discovered again nearly 93 years later.
The Thuillier photographs were to become the Lost a Diggers of Vignacourt.
Now these events so rich in story is to become " Photos in the Attic"
Louis was a farmer who dealt with farm machinery but was curious about the world around him including photography which he learned to do by manuals while driving his tractor in the fields. There is even a story of him killing all the farm chickens while learning to develop the photos using a cocktail of chemicals. Such was the pairs entrepreneurial desire in a time of war and associated shortages.
Every family in the village baked and made goods to sell to the large number of soldiers present.
Food and clothing and lodging was required .......Vignacourt and villages just like it filled a necessary gap.
Antoinette, his wife was clever and engaging and they soon had soldiers in their droves calling into the family barn to have their photo taken as a memento to keep or take home. The family children posed with a variety of nationalities while Louie used his motorbikes and other props to make their photographs memorable.
The Thuilliers could not have known that they were capturing moments in time that would leave a lasting legacy.
After the war the soldiers departed and Vignacourt returned to the usual small French rural village.
Louis bought motorbikes from the departing soldiers and his interest for all things machinery continued opening a local bike shop.
He soon became known as Peugot Thuillier after the brand of the bikes he dealt with.
Antoinette continued to tend for her family and the photographic hobby ended with the glass plates stored in trunks waiting to be discovered again nearly 93 years later.
The Thuillier photographs were to become the Lost a Diggers of Vignacourt.
Now these events so rich in story is to become " Photos in the Attic"
The Thuillier family grave site in Vignacourt France.
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The legacy of Louis and Antoinnette is the amazing story of Vignacourt and the people of this small village in northern France who made a home away from home for soldiers from many countries who came from across the globe to take part in a war to end all wars
