By Diane Euston
At the heart of a family- at the core of its existence – is a mother. Without the nurturing of a creature at birth, one cannot survive and thrive.
Motherhood is no cakewalk even in the 21st century, and to imagine what mothers centuries ago endured is left, in some ways, ambiguous. History, in general, has been written by men, and the enormous sacrifices of the women who birthed them, raised them, cleaned off their faces and comforted them is rarely mentioned.
You could choose to believe it was what was expected of women in the centuries that have passed to provide their “womanly duties” with little acknowledgement and few complaints. But behind most revered men in our city’s history are exceptional women who, in the face of so much adversity, was able to keep a family safe, protected and loved in the wide-open, often dangerous, frontier.
John Calvin McCoy (1811-1889), founder of Westport and Kansas City, is coined the “Father of Kansas City.” When he arrived in the area in 1830, there was already an established small community of French-speaking Catholics sprinkled near the riverfront. He watched as the area grew from a few dozen families to a city of over 130,000 people.
One day while riding on a cable car, McCoy saw a familiar face standing at 8th and Cherry. A smile crossed his aging face. “I at once recognized her as one of my oldest and most valued friends,” McCoy later wrote. “Ah, there stands at least one relic and landmark of the olden time that is left to us, worthy of all honor and our warmest love; not only that, but one above all others that merits the distinctive honorary title of ‘Mother of Kansas City.’”
The tall, straight, gray-eyed woman, heavier in appearance than in her younger years, was none other than Berenice Chouteau, and her life was one that warrants the title as our city’s beloved mother.
Berenice Chouteau’s Life in Kaskaskia
Therese Berenice Chouteau was born in 1801 in Kaskaskia, Ill., the fifth child of six born to parents Pierre Menard (1766-1844) and Marie Therese Michelle Godin. Her father, an established trader with Native American tribes, co-owned stores in Kaskaskia and across the river in Ste. Genevieve, Mo. and served as the first lieutenant governor of Illinois.
When only four years old, Berenice’s mother died, and in 1806, her father remarried Angelique Saucier and had 10 additional children.
Pierre Menard was able to provide much more than the average person of the time period. Just across the Kaskaskia River opposite the town, Pierre built a stately home for his large family which stands today. It is French Creole in architecture and includes an impressive wraparound porch which functioned as a place to sleep, eat and conduct business. The foundation was raised and the house was built on a terrace below an abandoned French-era fort known as Fort Kaskaskia.
From this parcel of land, Berenice received a common education for girls, likely at home or in the nearby town. While her brothers went off to school, Berenice stayed home. Historian Dorothy Brandt Marra, co-author of Cher Oncle, Cher Papa: The Letters of Francois and Berenice Chouteau, explained, “She had mastered the techniques of food management, probably learned to operate small boats on the Kaskaskia River that ran in front of her father’s house, and was skilled at riding the horses from her father’s stable.”
Due to her father’s career, Berenice had one solid advantage over many people at the time – she wasn’t afraid of Native Americans. Her father’s business ventures involved often negotiating with tribal leaders, and Berenice probably spent many days in Kaskaskia playing and socializing with Native American children. Like most families in Kaskaskia, Berenice’s family spoke and wrote in French, and later Berenice was able to compose letters in English as well.
John Calvin McCoy wrote of her girlhood,““Mrs. Chouteau had been reared with all the advantages that wealth and high social position could at the early period give, and possessed more than ordinary vigor of intelligence and force of character, and through her long and eventful life was favored with perfect health.”
In 1819, 17-year-old Berenice married Francois Gesseau Chouteau (b.1797) in Kaskaskia. The Chouteaus and Menards knew each other professionally and personally; Berenice’s stepmother, Marie, was a half-sister to Pierre Chouteau’s second wife. Pierre’s son from his first marriage was Francois, thus connecting the family in multiple ways.
The Chouteaus of St. Louis often worked with Pierre Menard in the Indian trade, and Berenice even spent time in St. Louis in the same household as her future husband.
In 1821, she gave birth to their first child, Edmond Francois (called “Gesseau”) in St. Louis, and the following year, a second boy named Pierre Menard (called Menard as a child and Mack as an adult) joined the family.
As part of the American Fur Company, Francois was tasked with continuing Indian trade out to the newly-opened western border of the United States, as Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821.
This meant the comforts of home were short-lived for Berenice as her husband looked west toward their future. St. Louis traders were ready to take over the fur business abandoned by Fort Osage, and the convergence of the Missouri and Kaw Rivers was the perfect place to set up a permanent residence.
Childbirth Against the Frontier
In the fall of 1821, Louis Bertholet, known as Grand Louis, was sent up the Missouri with his wife, two employees and his stepson to prepare for this new trading post at Randolph Point, a famous crossing place for Native American tribes.
In early 1822, 35 employees, three keelboats of supplies and merchandise for the Indian trade, pushed up the Missouri River with Francois and Berenice at the helm. Berenice literally carried her one-year-old son, Gesseau and three-month-old son, Menard with her to a land completely unknown. The journey took 60 days and required staying on a keelboat in a 10×12 foot cabin.
Dorothy Brandt Marra noted the importance of Berenice’s arrival at the future site of Kansas City. “Berenice’s move to western Missouri is significant in that she was one of the first white women to make a real commitment by bringing her ‘life’ here – babies, [the enslaved], furniture . . . for a permanent residence.”
The Chouteaus purchased vast landholdings, but in the early years of their marriage, the couple lived at the trading post. The location guaranteed many active days and long nights. Her husband was gone often conducting business, riding through the country negotiating with tribes as well as transporting fur pelts on the Missouri River.
In April 1826, a flood destroyed all six buildings at the trading post. As luck would have it, the land to the south- which was on higher ground and had better river access- had been ceded a year prior by the Osage and was open for settlement.
A second post in 1827 in the heart of what would be Kansas City, only in operation for one season, sat at the foot of the river on the south bank near Troost Ave. The Chouteau’s acquired several hundred acres, including a working farm. Francois moved his trading post a final time to the south bank of the Kaw about two miles above the city of Argentine.
Even though Berenice was commonly described as healthy when wellness was beyond pertinent on the frontier, she was at a critical period of her life when childbearing was an inevitable side effect of a happy marriage.
Childbirth was not safe for women, and likely to ensure her own comfort in the matter, Berenice would return back to St. Louis and stay for an extended time to give birth. In 1825, a third son named Louis Amadee was born there, and just a year later, she lost him to illness.
After little time to mourn the little baby’s death, Berenice was pregnant again with her fourth child. A cholera outbreak in 1827 caused further strife in the little community in western Missouri. Berenice knew the Indians well, and she assisted sick women and children. Those who perished were covered in shrouds sewn by Berenice – some of them even made from her wedding gown.
Fear of losing her own life was deeply clear when Berenice wrote to her father in January 1827, as she had recently watched as several women died.
She wrote: I’m worried about death on account of my little children. If God wants it this way, I recommend, dear papa, to you as well as my dear mother, my little Menard. I do not desire for him to go anywhere except to your house. Perhaps God will allow me myself to raise my children, but at last I take the precautions necessary so that this poor little children may be happy.
Berenice survived her fourth pregnancy despite her deep concerns and gave birth to a son named Louis Sylvestre, nicknamed Morgan. But the child would soon die of “summer illness” just two years later in St. Louis.
A son, her fifth, named Benjamin was born in 1828 in St. Louis.
Chouteau’s Town in the 1830s
Berenice returned to western Missouri to join her husband. In 1831, more French-speaking trappers, many married to Native American women, came to the area to live. They took up residence in the West Bottoms. The area was known as Chez les Canses (village of the Kanza) and was also called “Chouteau’s Town.”
Berenice’s husband, Francois, often was sick, and when she was pregnant with their sixth child in 1831, she opted to stay in Jackson County, Mo. so as to not leave him behind. She gave birth in Independence to another son named Frederic Donatien. Francois wrote to Berenice’s father of the news:
It is with great pleasure that I announce that my Berenice gave birth. . . to a plump son without accident, and I hope, within 8 or 10 days, she will be well. Menard is very pleased by the fact that his little brother resembles him, and he thinks he is very handsome.
A seventh boy named Benedict followed in 1833, and about six months later in September, Berenice was far from well. Francois wrote from their home at “River of Kansas,” greatly humbled and concerned about her grave condition, perhaps related to the gallbladder or liver:
I write to announce to you that I nearly lost my good Berenice. . . She suffered for five days the most unbearable pain. And I expected to see the end from one moment to the other. I lavished upon her all the care within my power and all that I could bring from elsewhere. And thanks to God, she is beginning to gather strength, but one would say she emerged from the tomb.
In November 1833, Francois again wrote Berenice’s father, Pierre Menard, excited about the arrival of a Catholic priest named Fr. Benedict Roux to their small, unorganized community. Francois reported, “We intend to build a small church for him. All the French families here are well disposed to supply, according to their ability. Berenice assures me she intends to put in a contribution.”
In April 1834, 40 acres of land was purchased by Fr. Roux, and the French community on the banks of the Missouri River rallied as a small log church was erected the following year. It was called St. Francis Regis, but it was coined “Chouteau’s Church” by the community. Most of the church was paid by the Chouteaus.
The location of this original structure is the current site of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at 12thand Broadway. Thus, Berenice is often called the “Mother of the Diocese.”
This monumental event for the French Catholic community was overshadowed by another loss of a child; their seventh child died in St. Louis, leaving her with four children: Gesseau, Menard, Benjamin and Frederic.
The family lived in the East Bottoms, farming the lowland area with the help of enslaved labor while Francois continued operation of the trading post. There, Berenice gave birth to a healthy baby girl they named Mary Brigette in 1835. The family recovered from anillness they called “bilious fever” that was ravaging the community, especially in Clay County. Francois wrote to his father-in-law:
Berenice had a beautiful daughter that she proposes to show you next Spring. She is well enough in consideration of her situation. The children are well and no longer have temperatures. Ben is almost completely recovered. One cannot fill him up. He robs to eat.
An illness continued to plague Francois, as he explained:
As for me, I suffer. little from time to time with chest pains but I am more weak than suffering. If I could treat myself for that, I think I could get myself on my feet again.
Three years later in 1838, Berenice proposed a visit to Kaskaskia to see her father in April, as she was recovering from the birth of her ninth child, a daughter named Therese.
Although the visit would come, it would not be for pleasure.
On April 18, 1838, Francois Chouteau, while gazing at the Missouri River near his farm, watching cattle swim across a channel to an island, passed away of a heart attack. He was 41 years old and left behind his 36-year-old wife and six children ranging from 17 years old to just three months old.
She loaded her children onto a keelboat with her beloved husband in a coffin, burying him next to her three children in St. Louis.
Francois’ death meant he missed the sale of 263 acres of land by seven months, when 12 men who all knew him well would pool their resources, form the Town Company, and essentially give birth to the idea of Kansas City.
Picking up the Pieces
Two years later in 1840, Berenice lost her two-year-old little girl, Therese. Her heart ached, but Berenice barreled through tragedy.
Berenice could’ve packed her bags and moved back to St. Louis or Kaskaskia, as a much easier life would have awaited her there. But her husband had witnessed the decline of the fur trade and began purchasing large tracts of land in Jackson County, including their large farm in the East Bottoms.
Berenice tried to manage the large farm, but tragedy struck again in June 1844 when a flood destroyed what Francois had left her. The fur trading warehouse, all their farm buildings and their family home were all destroyed. Because the land was underwater for so long, it wasn’t suitable for agricultural purposes, so in the 1850s, she sold the land to Joseph Guinotte. In all, she had 1,200 acres.
Berenice looked to higher ground and opted to build a home on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and the newly-established port called Westport Landing. At the elite location, coined Pearl Hill at 2nd on the west side of Grand Ave., Berenice built a large colonial frame house with wide halls and spacious rooms with “French windows opening on a porch that ran the length of the ‘L.’”
Well off financially for the time, Berenice had a team of matched gray horses and an imported carriage which took her where she wanted to go, and she bought in St. Louis the second piano ever brought to Kansas City. John McCoy recalled, “[Berenice was] possessed with ample fortune, [and] it was used with unstinted generosity for the poor and suffering and for her church.”
She was always gracious and at the service of others. With the assistance of Eleanor McGee (1793-1880), the women would ride horseback through the wilderness to homes where people lay gravely ill.
In 1849, the great cholera epidemic once again ravaged the community. Fr. James Schlafly, archivist for the Diocese in 1955, said, “Her Christian charity was ever manifest. . . During the epidemic Berenice Chouteau was both a spiritual mother and a physical nurse to the suffering. She persuaded the mothers of 75 dying babies to let her baptize their infants and sewed shrouds for the victims of cholera.”
A Lifelong Devotion to her Children
Berenice’s oldest son, Gesseau, passed away a bachelor in St. Louis in 1853, and her only daughter, Mary Brigette, eloped with a steamboat captain when her mother disapproved of the marriage. They would later patch their relationship.
Hostilities along the border led Berenice to leave Kansas City and relocate to Ste. Genevieve where her daughter, Brigette and her son, Frederic, were living. Her daughter passed away in 1864.
In about 1874, Berenice returned to Kansas City, a place she witnessed grow from its birth – a place that remained her heart’s home.
From Kansas City, Berenice supported her two youngest sons, Ben and Frederick, who never really worked and were plagued with illness. Both her sons married and had children, but neither established a comfortable life for their families. Their care caused her to sink into poverty, and she was forced to rely upon her half-brother Edmund who sent her money when she was in need.
Ben passed away destitute in Kaskaskia in 1876, and Frederic followed in 1881.
Her second oldest son, Pierre Menard “Mack” Chouteau was all Berenice had left of her nine children. He was, by far, the most successful of her offspring, making a living as a beloved steamboat captain on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. He married Mary Ann Polk in 1849 in Jackson County, and the couple had two girls – one of them named after Berenice. When Kansas City was chartered in 1853, Mack was treasurer of the town.
Berenice made a home with her son, Mack at 1410 E. 9th St. In her 80s, the newspapers would often come calling, but she would never allow an interview, “and it is a singular fact that she never had her photograph taken, although repeatedly urged by her relatives.”
She told her family she didn’t want her likeness duplicated unless she could be by the side of her deceased husband. Thus, a painting and photo were never made.
Age did catch up to Berenice Chouteau, and in her old age, she had no teeth left. When it was suggested she purchase some “store teeth,” Berenice balked at the idea and insisted her gums “were good enough” for her. Her niece reported, “And as she chewed beefsteak and radishes with her gums, there really wasn’t very much you could say.”
Life dealt a final blow to Berenice in 1885 when her son, Mack, passed away after being hit by a train car in the East Bottoms.
Death Becomes Her and Her Legacy Lives
Therese Berenice Menard Chouteau closed her eyes for the final time at her daughter-in-law’s home on November 20, 1888. She was 87 years old, outliving all of her nine children and her husband by 50 years.
Her body was carefully placed on a train, and she was buried next to her beloved husband and children in St. Louis. Curiously, an inscription noting her death was never etched on the large stone.
Regardless, her legacy is carefully etched in the pages of history, as she is unarguably the “Mother of Kansas City.” Talks of monuments carved in her unknown likeness surfaced in the 1930s but waned over time. Today, her husband is cast in bronze at the Francois Chouteau & Native American Heritage Monument on Chouteau Trafficway, but Berenice is absent.
Her legacy is important, as she came to the wilderness and opened pathways through the dense forest where houses and businesses now stand. Her legacy continues in the words penned in her honor, as “everything about her testifies to the force of her personality and character.”
She had the uncanny ability to adapt to her surroundings, unwavering in hardship, resilient in the deaths of her beloved family and unafraid of much of anything in her life.
We should be proud to call her the mother of our beloved Kansas City.
Recommended Reading: Cher Oncle, Cher Papa: The Letters of Francois and Berenice Chouteau