LETTER: Ethic history lost when stone houses erased by data center

To Ozaukee Press:

My great-great-grandfather Francois Antoine studied in Paris to become a stonemason. There he met my great-great-grandmother, Catherine Genin, who was studying midwifery.

     They returned to Halanzy, in the country of Belgium, married, and had seven children. An economic downturn there caused them to emigrate to the Town of Belgium in Wisconsin.

     As a master stonemason, Francois is credited for building many of the stone houses between Port Washington and Belgium. The remaining houses are a monument to immigrant families who endured so much in order to live here.

     The proposed data center may destroy those that remain. I’m sad to lose that part of my family history. Our county and state may also lose an important part of its ethnic past.

Lesley Ammons

Cedarburg