Henriette Françoise Emilie Juvet, 1843–1920

Born on 3 July 1843 in Geneva, Switzerland, Henriette Françoise Emilie Juvet was the first of two daughters of Frédéric Alphonse and Antoinette Marguerite (Dupin) Juvet. Perhaps in response to the widespread turmoil in Europe in 1848, the family came to America in 1849 and settled initially in New York City. The name Frédéric Alphonse Juvet, a jeweler, appears in the New York City directories from 1851 through 1857, where his family lived at 133 Amity Street in Manhattan.

The Juvet family first appears in the St. Louis records in the 1860 U.S. census, living in St. Louis’s third ward, with daughter “Emily,” age seventeen. During the 1860s, the family lived at several different addresses in the vicinity of Dollman and Hickory Streets. By 1868, the family had moved to Papin Street and appeared in the fourth ward in the 1870 census.

Miss Emily Juvet appears as a teacher at Bonham’s Female Seminary, along with her mother, Madame Juvet, a French teacher in an 1868 St. Louis city directory. The 1870 U.S. census of St. Louis lists Emily as a teacher. She taught at Chouteau School in 1871 according to the city directory.

Emily’s teaching career was set aside after 5 June 1873 when she married John Sibley White, age forty-five and apparently unmarried previously. John S. White was in St. Louis by 1866, employed at St. Louis Coal Tar Company as vice president. In 1874, Mr. White became president of the company and remained in that capacity until 1889. The couple’s only child, Bernadine Antoinette White, was born on 11 March 1874.

The White family moved frequently within St. Louis, sometimes sharing quarters with Emily’s parents and later with Bernadine White’s in-laws, the Mertons. The Whites lived at 1509 Papin Street from 1874–5), 1816 Gratiot Street from 1876–80, and 1837 Preston Place from 1881–84. They shared a home with Emily’s parents at 2104 Waverly Place from 1885–95. Later they lived at 2125 Geyer Avenue (1896–98), 4177 Shenandoah Avenue (1899–1905), and 3950 Russell Boulevard (1906–08). The family was active in the Unitarian Church of the Unity.

In 1890, John S. White left his position as president of the St. Louis Coal Tar Company and became president of the Commonwealth Casualty Company. He stayed in this position until 1893 when he became secretary of the Bradbury Marble Company. He served as secretary and treasurer until 1907 when he was age eighty.

With her daughter grown, Emily White resumed teaching in 1900 at Hosmer Hall until at least 1906. This was a private girls’ school, which opened in 1884.

Following her husband’s death in 1912, Emily lived with her daughter Bernadine Merton’s family on Meramec Avenue in Clayton, where she died on 27 July 1920. The death certificate indicates she died from “cardiac dilatation” with contributory arterial sclerosis and that her cremation occurred at the Missouri Crematory on 29 July 1920.

(Sources are available upon request.)

Written by Charles Livermore Wells, CG
January 2018

© 2018, St. Louis Genealogical Society