A Longtime Reader Is No More

Regular and longtime readers of the blog will no doubt be familiar with comments from someone calling themselves 'chm'. This is our old friend Charles Henry Michel, resident in the US since the seventies, but French born and raised. I learnt yesterday that he died on Friday. He was 99 years old, and had been bedridden, living in an aged care home (and complaining about the food) for several years.

 

A gathering of 10 different nationalities of bloggers at our place in June 2012. Charles Henry is fourth from the left, standing in the back row, next to Simon and behind me.

He had been reading the blog, and adding his thoughts, insights, anecdotes and opinions on a frequent basis since 2007, so almost from the start. He found us through his friend Ken's blog Living the Life in Saint-Aignan. Saint-Aignan sur Cher is not that far from us, and it was Ken who introduced us in person when Charles Henry came to visit.

He was a tall, charming, elegant and handsome man, even in his 80s when we first knew him, always dressed in white, with a good head of white hair and a beard. He had grown up in a family of artists and doctors from what I understood from his stories, and every year until his health prevented it he would spend the summer in France.

 

Charles Henry, centre, with Ken on the left and me with my back to the camera, in Saint Savin in June 2009.

I knew I could count on him if I had a question about mid-20th century French life, or the proper way to prepare some delicacy, or for a steer towards extra information about some historical object or place. There wasn't much about French culture he didn't know about or wasn't interested in, and he was always willing to share his knowledge and experience.

Curious and generous minds like his are always a loss, and the blog and our lives are richer for having him involved, and will be poorer having lost him.