Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper), Their family tree tells only a small part of the Croquet/Mercier story. For nearly 200 years a combination of uncles, nephews, and extended family members have retained a direct connection between Belgium and a remote Native American tribe. What follows is their shared, but little-known saga …
Adrien Croquet (1818-1902) was born in Braine l’Alleud ,Belgium. He was ordained in 1844 as an abbot after studying at the University of Louvain. Missionary work in America was his calling. Fr. Croquet traveled to The Oregon Territory on the distant Pacific shore—then a remote, North American wilderness. The territory was decades away from official American statehood.
There were few European settlements but this demographic was rapidly changing as settlers were finding their way to the territory via the infamous Oregon Trail. Adrien was the lone Catholic missionary on what was to become the Grande-Ronde Reservation—a vast area of confederated Native American Tribes. Father Adrien became well-known throughout the territory.
Sources, albeit limited, portray Adrien as widely accepted by the local indigenous tribes. He learned to speak Chinuk Wawa, the lingua franca of the Pacific Northwest. He delivered his sermons in that native language as well as in English and French.
Adrien’s lifestyle was austere to the extreme as he lived in the same manner as his Native American neighbors. In 1879 he and his mission lost a great deal of their income and assets (political polemics) and Adrien went into personal debt on behalf of the Native American community. He sought financial help by writing long, eloquent, heartwarming letters to his extended family in Belgium. So compelling were his letters that they were published in many local Wallonian newspapers. Fr. Adrien’s missionary project was able to stay afloat with donations from his countrymen.
For the next 40 years, Fr. Croquet managed to direct the building of St. Michael’s Church (still standing!), administer a boarding school, and institute successive orders of Catholic teaching nuns. He recorded births, deaths, marriages, and confirmations at the Grand Ronde Reservation and his work constitutes the most complete genealogical record of the era. Fr. Adrien Croquet has been called the “Saint of Oregon.”
During Adrien Croquet’s period of financial difficulties, a nephew named Joseph Mercier ventured to Oregon to help. The non-ordained Joseph Mercier married into the local tribe and grew to be a respected tribe elder. He was a revered individual who over time provided wisdom and leadership for the amassed tribes. Under Joseph’s tutelage, the Grande Ronde Tribe was able to navigate their way through the various, often confusing (and unfair) U.S. governmental treaties with the Native American Tribes.
This was no easy task but through Joseph Mercier’s advocacy, at least some degree of autonomy was achieved. Even to this day, Joseph Mercier’s Belgian/Native American progeny has served as a long line of Tribal Elders and council members. For example, a 2011 obituary for Dean “Running Bear” Mercier mentioned that he had served as a Tribal Council member for 14 years. “Running Bear” Mercier was noted to have traveled to Washington D.C. to present his case for the Grande Ronde tribe. Today, Chris Mercier serves on the Council and is one of an estimated 800 extended family members.
One of Adrien’s other nephews and first cousin to Joseph Mercier was Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier– best known as Belgium’s staunch resister to the German occupation of World War I. Born in Uncle Adrien’s hometown of Braine l’Alleud, Cardinal Mercier became a national hero to the Belgian people as he carried on a determined campaign for the rights of his countrymen. He wrote one of the first 20th Centuries treatises on human rights titled; Patriotism and Endurance.— his writings came to personify Belgium’s determined resistance to Germany’s occupation. His open letters were distributed covertly from church to church. Cardinal Mercier was kept under house arrest and many priests who read his letters aloud were arrested. His passionate unflinching words were taken to heart by the suffering Belgians, giving Mercier the moniker; “The Fighting Cardinal of Belgium.”
Human rights, empathy, and leadership qualities are qualities not usually associated with a family’s DNA. The Croquet/Mercier family tree may be the exception that proves the rule. What is unique about the family legacy is that the altruistic nature of Uncle Adrien and his nephews continues today. Suffice it to say that a little bit of Belgium is alive and well today in this remote part of the United States.
