5.7
NICOLAS EMIL DONTENVILLE (1879 - 1920)
MARY GIGLER (1882 - 1964)
Nicolas Emil Dontenville, the ninth of twelve children of Gregoire Dontenville and Madeleine Freppel, was born in Breitenbach, Alsace on December 6, 1879. Nicolas Emil arrived in New York City on October 7, 1908 aboard the ship Barbarossa that sailed from Bremen, Germany.
When he arrived in this country he used the name Emil rather than Nicolas Emil. He traveled to Connecticut, where, according to the census, he found work as a gardener for a well to do Greenwich family There he met Mary Gigler, a young girl, who was working in the same household as a maid. While her grandchildren believe that she came from Germany, 1920 census records report her country of birth as Hungary.
Emil and Mary were married sometime in 1916. The date and place of that marriage is not known. A son, Emil, was born October 16, 1917 in Killingworth, Connecticut. On March 5, 1920 Emil Sr. died in Greenwich of the flu that was ravaging the world at that time. He was just 41 years of age and his son was not yet three. In 1922 Mary and her five-year son traveled to Europe to visit her family and visited Alsace to meet the Dontenville family in Alsace.
In the mid or late 1920s Mary married Steve Gazdak. Her son assumed the Gazdak name and continued to use it until his second son was born in 1953. Mary and Steve Gazdak had a daughter Mary. The Gazdiks eventually moved to Cleveland where Mary's two sisters were living. Steve Gazdik died in Cleveland, November 24, 1946. Mary died July 23. 1964.
57.1 EMIL DONTENVILLE - MARGUERITE BUTTY
