Mrs. Emma Bousquet (nee Thompson)

 

Emma Bousquet served as the secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Pella Public Library. She was unanimously elected to that position during the first meeting of the board on 27 July 1905.[1]

Emma Bousquet was born Emma Thompson on 30 January 1843.[2] She was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church in Readington, New Jersey in June of 1843.[3] She married Pierre Henri Bousquet,[4] and gave birth to a daughter in 1881.[5] Emma and Henri lived in Pella, where Henri worked as a lawyer and banker.[6]

Emma and Henri, whose home held the predecessor to the Carnegie-Viersen Library,[7] were early supporters of the Carnegie Library project. Emma served as the secretary of the committee from its founding in 1905 until 2 February 1908,[8] when Pierre was in the final days of his life.[9]

Further records of Emma’s life until her death are nonexistent. She died on 10 February 1910 in Pella.[10] She is buried next to Pierre in the Oak Wood Cemetery.[11]

-Russell Buchanan

[1] First Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Free Public Library, Pella, Iowa, 27 July 1905.

[2] Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

[3] The Archives of the Reformed Church in America; New Brunswick, New Jersey; Readington Church, Records, 1720-1870.

[4] Year: 1900; Census Place: Lake Prairie, Marion, Iowa; Page: 9; Enumeration District: 0049; FHL microfilm: 1240447.

[5] Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

[6] The Bench and Bar of Iowa, Illustrated with Steel and Copper Engravings, American Biographical Publishing Company, 1901, 474.

[7] City of Pella, “History of the Pella Public Library”, Pella Iowa – Official Website, Pella, IA., http://ia-pella.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=415, (accessed 14 March 2019).

[8] “Report of the Pella City Library Trustees of the Pella City Council”, 2 February 1908.

[9] Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.