Maison DemanArchives de famille

Family portrait · West Flanders

Eleven children, one war and four lives

The Deman family of Mannekensvere

Mannekensvere · Westende · Ostend · Nieuwpoort · Keiem1872–2010Published 18 September 2026
BThéodoor’s memorial card and documented heritage contextCHousehold, occupations, marriage and children from compilationsTLocal accounts concerning Léon, Nestor and Karel await confirmationOpenIndividual records and the family’s wartime refuge remain unknown

Audio version · English

Listen to the story

Eleven children, one war and four lives, narrated with the Henri Guillemin voice.

Théodoor Florimond Deman in a family group photograph
Théodoor Florimond Deman, also called Theophiel in some sources. The child in the foreground has not been identified. Family identification supplied by Johnny Deman on 5 October 2026 (T).
Family portrait of Urbanie Maria Baeckelandt
Urbanie Maria Baeckelandt, Théodoor’s wife and the mother of their eleven children. Family identification supplied by Johnny Deman on 5 October 2026 (T).
Family portrait of Aimé Deman
Aimé Deman, son of Théodoor and Urbanie and Johnny’s direct ancestor. Family identification supplied by Johnny Deman on 5 October 2026 (T).
Dutch memorial card for Théodoor Florimond Deman, who died in Westende on 13 January 1946
Memorial card for Théodoor Florimond Deman. It confirms his birth in Mannekensvere on 17 December 1872, his status as Urbanie Baeckelandt’s widower and his death in Westende on 13 January 1946. The religious image on the memorial card is not a portrait of Théodoor.

Théodoor Florimond Deman’s memorial card reduces seventy-three years to a few lines: born in Mannekensvere on 17 December 1872, widower of Urbanie Baeckelandt, died in Westende on 13 January 1946. It says almost nothing about the home they built together. It does not tell us that eleven children carried their name between 1894 and 1909. Nor does it say that war would empty their village, hand it over to armies and leave it in ruins.

For years, our earlier research retained only four of those children: Léon, Aimé, Nestor and Karel. The family file now enables us to name eleven. That changes the view. We are no longer looking at a few isolated lives, but at an entire Deman generation born in the polders, marked by early bereavement, swept into the First World War and scattered across the twentieth century.

Théodoor and Urbanie: a home in Mannekensvere

Théodoor — also called Theophiel in some sources — was the son of Joannes Baptiste Deman and Maria Ludovica D’Haene. The Patronomia compilation lists him as landbouwer, winkelier and werkman: farmer, shopkeeper and labourer. These terms suggest several occupations over time rather than one unchanging trade.

Urbanie Maria Baeckelandt was born in Slijpe on 28 July 1875. The same compilation calls her a winkelierster, or shopkeeper, and dates the marriage to 4 March 1894 in Mannekensvere. These details agree with the present genealogy file, but the original marriage and birth records have not yet been added to our archive. They therefore remain level C research data rather than primary proof.

Mannekensvere was a small rural village in the West Flanders polders, near the River Yser. The Deman household grew quickly. Over fifteen years, Urbanie gave birth to three daughters and eight sons.

The eleven children recovered

The fullest list currently available is:

  1. Maria Irma Deman (1894–1894);
  2. Irma Maria Deman (1895–1900);
  3. Hieronimus Joannes Deman (1897–1912);
  4. Léon Seraphin Deman (1899–1970);
  5. Amatus Constantinus Joannes, known as Aimé Deman (1901–1935);
  6. Gaston Henri Deman (1902–1902);
  7. Emilius Josephus Deman (1903–1985);
  8. Nestor Hector Deman (1905–1976);
  9. Augusta Ludovica Deman (1906–2010);
  10. Carolus Ludovicus Georgius, known as Karel Deman (1907–1947);
  11. Léopold Albert Deman (1909–1972).

The dates alone reveal part of the story. Maria Irma lived only briefly. Irma Maria died at about five. Hieronimus did not reach adulthood. Gaston Henri died in the year of his birth. Théodoor and Urbanie had therefore lost four children before the war even began.

At the other end of the sibling group, Augusta Ludovica lived through almost the entire twentieth century and died in 2010. Between these extremes lie lives about which the record remains silent. We know the years of Emilius and Léopold, but almost nothing of their paths. Naming them does not artificially fill the gaps; it restores their place and shows where the research must continue.

Family tree showing the eleven children of Théodoor Deman and Urbanie Baeckelandt, born between 1894 and 1909
The eleven children currently attributed to Théodoor Deman and Urbanie Baeckelandt in the Patronomia compilation. Their individual records still need to be assembled.

1914: the village disappears into war

When the First World War reached the Yser in October 1914, Théodoor was forty-one and Urbanie thirty-nine. Their surviving children were between five and nineteen years old.

Flanders’ scientific heritage inventory records what happened to Mannekensvere. After the fall of Antwerp, the Belgian army took up positions behind the Yser. The church tower was blown up on 15 October so that it could not serve as an observation post. The first German soldiers entered the village on 18 October. The inhabitants were evacuated. At liberation, Mannekensvere was described as entirely ruined: its centre, farms and surrounding landscape had been battered by four years of war.

The family file does not yet tell us where Théodoor, Urbanie and their children spent those years, or whether the household remained together throughout the evacuation. Inventing a refuge or route would be tempting and dishonest. What the sources do establish is powerful enough: their village was emptied, occupied, shelled and later rebuilt.

A local account says that Léon lost an eye during the war and wore a glass eye afterwards. The detail recurs in earlier research, but the complete reference and any military record still need to be found. It is therefore presented as a serious lead awaiting confirmation, not as a fact proven by an original record.

Four brothers emerge more clearly

Léon, a local character

Léon Seraphin Deman was born in Mannekensvere on 11 October 1899 and died in Ostend on 3 December 1970. He married Magdalena Rotsaert. A local text once located on the Middelkerke website described him as a popular figure and an exceptional hunter despite the loss of an eye. The same account attributed his death to a road accident.

These details give Léon a presence, but they still need to be linked to the original page or contemporary evidence. They are preserved here with that reservation.

Aimé, the interrupted patrol

Aimé was born in Mannekensvere on 19 May 1901. He married Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé in Nieuwpoort in 1926. His memorial card and several newspaper cuttings report his death near Keiem on the night of 31 October 1935, during a patrol against poachers. He was thirty-four.

His story now has its own article on Maison Deman. Through him runs the direct line to Johnny: Théodoor and Urbanie → Aimé → Odette Deman → Jean-Marie Deman → Johnny Deman.

Nestor, the carpenter in Ostend

Nestor Hector Deman was born in Mannekensvere on 8 December 1905 and died in 1976. Earlier research describes him as a carpenter in Ostend and attributes at least one daughter to him. Until the relevant population register, civil record or occupational source is found, these details remain to be consolidated.

They nevertheless open an interesting line of enquiry: the movement of part of the sibling group from the rebuilt village towards the port city of Ostend.

Karel, tragedy at a cycle race

Carolus Ludovicus Georgius, known as Karel, was born in Mannekensvere on 10 December 1907 and died in Ostend on 6 October 1947. A local account says that he was fatally injured during an amateur cycle race in Mannekensvere.

His death and parentage are well integrated into the working file, while the precise circumstances still require an identifiable newspaper report, record or local chronicle.

After Urbanie, the family continued

The compilation states that Urbanie died in Mannekensvere on 13 October 1931, aged fifty-six. She therefore did not live to see Aimé’s violent death in 1935 or Karel’s in 1947. Théodoor survived her by a little over fourteen years. His contemporary memorial card confirms that he died in Westende on 13 January 1946 and identifies him as Urbanie Baeckelandt’s widower.

By then, their children had become adults in a rebuilt region. Some remained connected to Mannekensvere; others appear in Ostend, Nieuwpoort and elsewhere along the coast. The family’s geography follows maritime Flanders itself: polder villages, reconstructed towns and a port city.

What this sibling group restores

This article does not complete the story of the eleven children. It sets it upright again.

First, it corrects a view that had become too narrow. Théodoor and Urbanie were not merely the parents of four sons whose lives left clearer traces. They had eleven children, endured at least four bereavements before 1914, saw their village disappear into war and took part, directly or through their children, in life along the rebuilt coast.

It also restates a central rule of Maison Deman: silence in the archive is not permission to invent. Emilius, Augusta, Léopold, Maria Irma, Irma Maria, Hieronimus and Gaston will not be given fictional lives to balance the narrative. They receive something better: their names, their known years and an exact place in the research still to come.

The next step is to locate the records of all eleven children, the Mannekensvere population registers and traces of the household during the wartime evacuation. Only then can this family photograph without a photograph gain new faces.