Maison Deman

Family portrait · West Flanders and Côte-d’Or

Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé

Between the sea, exile and return — a childhood disrupted by war, a home on the coast and a widowhood the newspapers now allow us to describe more precisely.

Nieuwpoort · Pouillenay · Keiem · Ostend1907–1989Updated 31 August 2026
BMemorial card and contemporary press CDates and links from compilations TPortraits and provenance confirmed by Johnny OpenRecords and nominal lists still sought

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Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé, between the sea, exile and return.

Black-and-white portrait of Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé
Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé — family portrait identified by Johnny Deman. Its date and photographer are unknown.

Jeanne looks back at us, but the photograph does not say when it was taken. Her face is clear; her journey less so. Between Nieuwpoort, Burgundy and the Belgian coast, her life crosses two wars, a family displacement, two marriages and a brutal loss. To tell it honestly, we must accept that some documents speak loudly while others are still missing.

A daughter of the coast and of a family from the Amblève valley

The strongest working date places Jeanne Hortensia Lexhardé’s birth on 6 September 1907 in Nieuwpoort. She is named as the daughter of Émile Joseph Lexhardé, from Aywaille, and Elisa Maria Mortier, born at Oostduinkerke. Family compilations describe Émile as a labourer and later a stonecutter, and Elisa as a worker or domestic servant. Their marriage is dated 14 August 1903 at Nieuwpoort.

These details converge in Patronomia and several online trees, but the original records have not yet been added to the file. They therefore remain level C. An older account placed Jeanne’s birth on 15 October 1907 at Aywaille; it is retained as a corrected error so that it cannot later return as a second truth.

Black-and-white portrait of Émile Joseph Lexhardé
Émile Joseph Lexhardé — identified by Johnny as Jeanne’s father; date and studio remain unknown.
Historic portrait of Elisa Maria Mortier
Elisa Maria Mortier — portrait linked to her profile in a family-tree screenshot. The original photograph file is still to be found.

1914: leaving Nieuwpoort

In the autumn of 1914, Nieuwpoort became a decisive point on the Yser front. The town was destroyed and, from late October, the plain was deliberately flooded to stop the German advance. The inhabitants of Nieuwpoort, Ramskapelle and Sint-Joris were displaced and fled. Jeanne was seven.

Two occurrences of the Lexhardé surname appear at Pouillenay in Côte-d’Or. Germaine Albertine Rachel Lexhardé is said to have been born there on 28 February 1916, and Marguerite Sophie in 1918. These births make a stay by Émile and Elisa in Burgundy highly probable. They do not yet prove that Jeanne accompanied them or establish the family’s exact administrative status.

What we can write: the Lexhardé family very probably stayed at Pouillenay during the war. What is missing: a refugee list, census, relief file or other document naming Jeanne personally in the household.

The return, Aimé and the Deman household

After the war, the family returned to Belgium on a date that remains unknown. The compilation dates Jeanne’s marriage to Aimé Constantinus Joannes Deman to 15 August 1926 at Nieuwpoort. Aimé’s memorial card confirms that he was born at Mannekensvere on 19 May 1901 and was the husband of Jeanne Leschardé, a Flemish variant of Lexhardé.

Odette, Georgette and Anita are currently named as children of the couple. The total remains uncertain: trees, narratives and even the press disagree. This article therefore fixes no definitive number. Population registers and birth records must reconstruct the household child by child.

Portrait of Aimé Deman in an unidentified uniform
Aimé Deman — family portrait. The uniform, date and possible unit have not been identified.
Aimé Deman with an unidentified child beside an old motor car
Aimé with an unidentified child beside a motor car. The registration plate, model and setting are dating clues, not proof of identity.

31 October 1935: what the clippings establish

Family memory held that Aimé, a gamekeeper, had been shot by poachers. Three newspaper clippings authenticated by Johnny now take the story beyond oral tradition alone. They describe Aimé as an assistant gamekeeper and report that he was killed during a night-time confrontation near Keiem. Jeroom Daele, who accompanied him, was wounded.

The articles name Firmin Van Massenhove as the man who fired the fatal shot and Maurits Denecker as his accomplice. The West Flanders assize report announces ten years’ penal servitude for Van Massenhove and two years in prison for Denecker. The newspaper titles and exact publication dates are still to be identified.

One clipping calls Aimé 35 years old and the father of six children. Born on 19 May 1901, he was 34 on the date of the shooting; only three children are currently named and other sources give different totals. The press documents the tragedy strongly, but does not replace civil records for every detail.

Dutch-language newspaper clipping reporting the death of Aimé Deman
Wildstroopersdrama te Leke — the first account. Newspaper and exact date still unknown.
Newspaper clipping reporting that the Aimé Deman case had been solved
Het wildstroopersdrama te Keiem-bij-Diksmuide opgehelderd — investigation and reported confessions.
Newspaper clipping reporting the assize verdict in the Aimé Deman case
Assisen van West-Vlaanderen — the verdict against Van Massenhove and Denecker.
Dutch-language memorial card for Aimé Deman
The memorial card gives Mannekensvere, 19 May 1901, Keiem, 31 October 1935, and “husband of Jeanne Leschardé”. It speaks of the indignation against the man who took his life.

A widow, then the wife of Michel Marcel Borny

Jeanne was widowed at twenty-eight. A family tradition says that she wrote to the queen asking for mercy for her husband’s killer. That letter is not held in the file and remains a lead for judicial or royal archives.

The compilation dates her second marriage, to Michel Marcel Léopold Borny, to 19 February 1939 at Mannekensvere. Jeanne is said to have lived until 1 October 1989 and to have died at Ostend. Between those dates lie fifty years about which our records are still almost silent.

A story the records are still writing

Jeanne was not only the wife of a man whose death made the news. She was first a child of Nieuwpoort, probably displaced by war, then a woman who returned to the coast, a mother in a household still to be reconstructed, a widow and finally a member of a blended family.

The portraits restore her face; the clippings restore Aimé’s story; the missing records must still restore the precise stages of Jeanne’s own life. That is both the boundary and the strength of this article: to tell what already stands, without making the silences speak for her.