Tardent Family History

Postcards from Australia to Lausanne!

Mademoiselle Lina Blum received many postcards from Henri and Hortense Tardent's children and grandchildren while staying with Mme Anita Couchepin at her house Le Jasmin, Rue du Vallon, Lausanne Switzerland. While clearly Swiss, after returning from Australia she travelled to Ukraine, Russia, the Bosphorous and Egypt, suggesting that the relationship with the Tardents maybe from the days as proprietors of a private school in Nikolaiev, after moving from Chabag. So who is this amazing lady? We commit to more research to find out! What is clear is that she was beloved of generations of the Tardent family as well as many other people she met in Queensland in the early years of the twentieth century. These are just some of the treasure trove of her postcards.

Marie-Louise Tardent of Kirchlindach Switzerland remembered reading this paragraph from "Account of our journey to Australia" by Henry A. Tardent: The big decision! (to emigrate to Australia)

"On March 1 1887, my thirty-fourth birthday, I informed my family and friends of my decision. After the first gasp of amazement they all agreed that my idea was perhaps less outlandish than it first appeared. My dear good wife was the first to give approval to it for various reasons. The children received it enthusiastically as did also my brother Emile, aged twenty-two who promptly declared that he wished to accompany us. The same decision was made by an old friend of the family Mlle Lina Blum of Lausanne who, having no relatives left in Europe, wished to throw in her lot with ours."

The Couchepins are a notable Swiss family. Michel Martin of Vevey, descendent of Joseph Couchepin, husband of Lina's friend Anna Couchepin-Bellet, inherited a trove of postcards from an old family house in Lausanne. He found some of them to be very interesting postcards written to a Mlle Lina Blum who was staying with Anita Couchepin, Joseph and Anna's daughter, at the beginning of the twentieth century on return from Australia. She was clearly held in very high regard with the younger generation of Tardents, and perhaps taught French to the young Tardents and other families in Queensland. Michel has deposited the originals with the Archives of Lausanne. Here are a few of them, a glorious reminder of the past, and the early twentieth century in South-East Queensland, within a few hundred kilometers radius from Brisbane. More postcards from the Ukraine to Lausanne available on request! If anyone knows any more about the redoubtable Miss Blum, please get in contact. Below are some of the postcards from Australia to Lausanne, and a memorial pamphlet to Edward Felix Tardent sent to Lina by Henri and Hortense.

Extract from 'Armorial Vaudois'

Postcards from Australia to Lausanne!