Seers of Germaine

1848 - 1888 Victoria Bradford

Victoria Bradford became the first recipient of the gift of Germaine. Victoria was born in 1848, only two years after little Germaine died. When she was three years old, Victoria told her father that he should not go to market that day. She said, “If you go, Daddy, the pigs will die.” Unfortunately, her father did not heed his daughter’s warning. A terrible landslide buried the herd of pigs he was taking to market and his own life was saved only by chance itself.

The story rapidly spread throughout our little community. It was reported in the newspaper. Germaine Van Bibber’s mother went to visit the little Victoria and declared that she was strongly reminded of Germaine in the child’s presence and felt there was some kind of connection between Victoria and Germaine. “I would not say,” Mrs Van Bibber stated, “that Victoria is Germaine. That would be sacriligious. A blasphemy. I would say that my beloved daughter seems to be speaking to her. Almost as if she were a saint and little Victoria, still so young, innocent and pure, receives her words as if from heaven.”

As Victoria Bradford continued to speak as an oracle for her family and then for the community, it became clear to the women that something extraordinary was indeed taking place. In the interest of Victoria’s soul, the women created a society dedicated to guiding the child and cleaving her soul to God. They regarded themselves as true daughters of their community and also as mothers of Victoria. Together, they were sisters.

Thus began the society, the sorority, if you will, that is today known as The Daughters of Germaine. It is dedicated to nurturing each seer of Germaine, and to guiding the community in its journey along the path little Germaine Van Bibber so eloquently described on her deathbed as mortality shook her tender limbs and the vision of heaven descended upon her.

Victoria Bradford married late and bore her only child at the age of 40 and died only one month later, never having fully recovered from the difficult delivery.

1887 - 1900 Rebecca Charlebois

Rebecca Charlebois, born in 1887 appears to have received the gift of Germaine at the age of seven, rather later in life than Victoria. She held her post as oracle for only six years. Death came for young Rebecca at the tender age of 13 just as the 20th century was born. Her father had split from the Catholic Church and become a fervent Adventist who believed that the end of the world was just at hand. He had come to believe that the entire family was doomed to the fiery pits of Hell because Rebecca was in league with Satan. Later, he said that he loved Rebecca and he was only trying to save her soul and those of his other nine children, only three of whom survived the massacre at Tamarack Creek.

Rebecca’s predictions came as Germaine’s had, in vision form. She would appear to exhibit a fever, her face would flush and she would lie down and begin to speak. She told of a dark time ahead for the town of Germaine. She spoke of bad seed and floods, and famine. Occasionally, Rebecca also predicted happier events, the births of healthy babies, who would win the blue ribbon for the best pickled beets at the Wilbur County Fair, but all in all, folks maintained Rebecca’s visions were morbid and unpleasant.

1899 - 1926 Charlotte Marie Hedrick

Charlotte Marie Hedrick became Miss Germaine in 1904. She was five years old. Two years later, she predicted that fire would destroy much of an island city after an earthquake. In 1908, she said that a man would die when the bird he was flying in fell to the ground. She correctly predicted many other events throughout her relatively short life. Charlotte died at the age of 27. She, her husband George Argus Bradford and two year old child, George Bradford Jr, died in a tragic Christmas Day fire at their house in 1926.

1927 - 1949 Mavis Childers

Mavis Childers, the fourth recipient of the gift of Germaine, was born in 1927 one year after the death of her predecessor. Mavis did not show a gift for anything for a very long time. Many townspeople thought her simple. She was dreamy, half in this world and half out–always stumbling about and mumbling to herself. Then quite suddenly, when she was six years old, Mavis began to show signs of the gift. She observed that the schoolhouse was going to catch fire on Easter Sunday, that a big wind was going to blow through town and take the roof off of the Methodist Church, and that a runaway truck was going to run over Arlen Houffenstrasse as he crossed the street between the tavern and the hardware store and he would die three days later.

There was no denying, Mavis had the gift. Immediately, the Daughters of Germaine announced to the town there was a new Miss Germaine. Mavis enjoyed her newfound respect for the remainder of her short life. She died at the age of 22 after a particularly long night of prognostication. It is said that Mavis was very tired, but insisted upon driving herself home. She took a wrong turn and drove out onto the frozen lake. The ice held until she was over the deep water. It was summer before anyone knew what happened to her. It was as dry a summer as the winter had been cold. The lake waters dropped more than anyone could remember and revealed the roof of the Childer’s family car. Mavis Childers sat up straight behind the wheel as if she were about to drive back out of the water. Everyone who saw it thought it some kind of miracle, but then decided it couldn’t be because miracles have happy endings and this was certainly anything but a happy ending.

1948 - 1966 Rochelle LaFontaine

Rochelle LaFontaine was born in 1948 as the consequence of an affair between her mother, Faith Applegate, and a traveling musician named Charles Sevigney LaFontaine who was last seen the evening prior to Rochelle’s birth. Rochelle always said that she had a friend, a woman, who told her things and she was just repeating them. It is said that Rochelle was never wrong. If she said something was going to happen it did. From the gender of babies to the winner of the annual Fall Fowl Festival, Rochelle was always on target. She even predicted that a group of musicians from Liverpool would make teenage girls faint and she predicted the assassination of JFK, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. She was the only black person in more than one hundred miles. No daughter of Germaine has been declared to have the gift since Rochelle died, possibly of suicide, when the car she was driving was involved in a head-on crash with a cattle truck on her high school graduation day.