With the new year comes time for our members, old and new, to send in their membership dues. The benefits of membership include receiving our electronic newsletter, typically three times a year, meeting extended family members and other interested individuals to collaborate on research, and attending our annual meeting weekends.

Dues are a modest $15.00 per year. Our Society is a non-profit pubilc charity which means your membership and any expenses to travel to and attend the annual meeting may be tax deductible, as advised by your tax advisor.

Dues help us to do preservation work, keep costs down for our annual meetings, and contribute to places and organizations that host us for gatherings.

Won’t you renew or join today? The membership form is on our webpage at:

http://www.fontainemaurysociety.com/membership.html

It has come to our attention that the Fontaine Maury Society is being targeted in an online fundraising scam. Some of you may have noticed a box on the page adjacent to our Facebook page. THIS IS NOT A LEGITIMATE FUND RAISING EFFORT BY THE FONTAINE MAURY SOCIETY. We do not solicit donations. Please do not donate to this website. The money will not come to the Fontaine Maury Society. We have reported this to various authorities.

If you click on the screen, it takes you to a payment page and asks for credit card information. Their disclaimer clearly states that the money will not go to FMS, rather it will go to a similar organization. Below is a copy of the image:

At our October 16, 2021, virtual annual meeting, members will discuss and vote on updates to our Society’s by-laws, which were last amended in 2008.

Our by-laws require that proposed amendments be made available to the membership 90 days in advance of our voting at the annual business meeting. Approval of these amendments requires a majority vote of those in attendance at the meeting.

To obtain a copy of the existing and proposed by-laws, please visit our Facebook page (link at top on toolbar) or contact Society President Mary Borjon at MLBorjon@hotmail.com.

Comments are requested by September 10, 2021, to Mary Borjon. Comments received will be considered by the Executive Committee.

Thus far this year we have met virtually twice on Zoom to socialize and get to know one another better.  The groups enjoyed the gatherings and agreed to convene about every four months, bringing us to our next planned virtual gathering on Sunday, August 29, beginning at 1:00 pm Pacific Time.

You need not have a Zoom account to join the session. We hope you will join us!  Participants can join or leave any time during the social gathering.

To participate, please contact our Society President, Mary Borjon, at MLBorjon@hotmail.com, to obtain log-in information for our gathering!

Please join us for our virtual annual business meeting and then hear our guest speaker on the topic, We Were There! The American Revolution. Both will be via the same Zoom meeting, please attend either/or, or ideally, both! For log-in information, please contact our Society President, Mary Borjon, at MLBorjon@hotmail.com

We will begin the annual business meeting on Saturday, October 16, 2021, at 10:00 am West Coast time (noon Central time; 1 pm East Coast time). At the conclusion of the business meeting there will be a short break. Our speaker will begin at 11:00 am West Coast time.

Part 1: Annual Meeting

Our annual business meeting is your opportunity to briefly hear from your officers on the state of the Society. We have added past business meeting minutes and current officers’ reports, including our fiscal report, under the “Files” tab on our Facebook page, so please review in advance of the meeting.

We will vote during our meeting on an updated version of our Society’s by-laws. Please see the separate announcement with the current and proposed by-laws.

The current by-laws were last amended in 2008. They require that proposed amendments be made available to the membership 90 days in advance of our voting at the annual business meeting. Approval of these amendments requires a majority vote of those in attendance at the meeting.

Part 2: Guest Speaker Steven D. Griffin:
“We Were There! The American Revolution”

This year’s annual meeting theme will explore and celebrate the contributions the Huguenots, as an identified network, made to the American Revolution.

So, locate your tricorn hats, brush up on your American history and prepare to greet your American Fontaine-Maury Patriots!

– Do you know how many of our Fontaine-Maury family members are confirmed as DAR Patriots?
– Do you know who among our family members participated in the Battle of Kings Mountain?
– Do you know which family members were at the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia?
– Do you know who is the sole female family member confirmed as a DAR Patriot?

Our guest speaker, Steven D. Griffin, is the author of “The Huguenot Diaspora and the American Revolution,” written for his 2016 Master’s Degree in Military Science with a focus in Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Please contact our Society President, Mary Borjon, at MLBorjon@hotmail.com, for log-in information to this Zoom meeting.

Author J.C. Hallman and artist Michelle Browder will talk about Hallman’s new book, “The Anarcha Quest”, which documents the founding of modern gynecology by controversial surgeon, Dr. J. Marion Sims (1813-1883), and the enslaved woman, Anarcha (b. ca. 1828, d. unknown), on whom he performed multiple surgical experiments.   She is known as “the Mother of Gynecology.”

Browder is one of the creators of a monument honoring Anarcha and her sister slaves on whom experiments were also made.

Our Maury family has connections to this story.  Hallman and Browder will provide a slide show and documents as they share the story of Anarcha, her sister slaves, the monument project, and Dr. Sims.

The event is scheduled for Sunday, February 21, 2021, at 2:00 pm Pacific Time on Zoom.

To register to attend, please contact the Society’s president at MLBorjon@hotmail.com

Please Join Us!

About the book:

https://www.jchallman.com/book/the-anarcha-quest/

About the More Up Campus Project:

https://www.anarchalucybetsey.org/

A press article about the More Up project regarding Anarcha:

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2020/12/08/enslaved-women-operated-j-marionsims-get-monument-montgomery/3814683001/

Based on the popularity of our virtual annual meeting held in October 2020, the Society will be hosting another virtual meeting on Sunday, January 31, 2021, at 1:00 pm Pacific Standard Time (2:00 pm Mountain Standard Time; 3:00 pm Central Standard Time; 4:00 pm Eastern Standard Time).

The meeting will be held on Zoom.  To register to attend, please contact the Society’s president at MLBorjon@hotmail.com

Please join us!

The Fontaine Maury Society’s annual in person 2020 meeting has been rescheduled to still take place in Louisville, Kentucky, with the new dates of October 15-16, 2021.    We will celebrate the pioneering family of Virginia born Aaron Fontaine (1753-1823), his two wives, 16 children, and 10 stepchildren!  We promise you FUN, FACTS, AND FONTAINES!

Our 2021 annual business meeting and gathering we will be at the Hilton Garden Inn Airport located at 2735 Crittenden Drive, Louisville, Kentucky, just six miles from historic downtown Louisville.

Reservations are made directly with the hotel by individual members.  You may reserve your room on line by following the link or you may call 502-637-2424 and identify yourself as a member of the Fontaine Maury Society to receive the reduced rate. Our code is FMS.

There is a deadline to make your reservations by September 16, 2021.  Any rooms not reserved will be released by the hotel at that time and the reduced rate may not be available.

Plan early, reserve early and ensure your access to the reduced rate.  By reserving a room within our FMS block of rooms, you help to ensure that the society meets it contract with the hotel.

Negotiated rates are:

• $124 for a standard king room or a double queen room
• $149 for a king suite
• 16.07% local taxes and fees also apply.

Rooms include breakfast for up to 2 persons per room.  There is a restaurant on site and others nearby, free parking on site and a free hotel airport shuttle.  Our negotiated room rates will extend one day before and one day after our gathering.

Please make your reservations early!!!

Due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the Society’s Executive Committee has decided to postpone the annual meeting weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, from October 16-18, 2020, until October 15-17, 2021, still in Louisville.

Anyone who has already made hotel reservations should contact the hotel (502-637-2424) to cancel; your reservations will not be automatically canceled because of the postponement of the meeting.

The Executive Committee is developing a plan to hold a virtual business meeting on Saturday, October 17, 2020.  This will still provide members and guests a great opportunity to participate and hopefully then participate in our in-person meeting in 2021.

We will announce further details on this planned virtual business meeting when we have them.

The Executive Committee wishes everyone well and hopes you remain safe and healthy during this difficult time.