Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy

On April the 25th 1802, on the sixth day of the month “FLOREAL” in the Year X of the French Revolution, a fourth child was born in the family of Corneel Joseph Scheppers (1768-1841) and Johana Maria Theresia Estrix (1764-1815)

Victor Scheppers' birth

Cradle of Victor Scheppers

After Jeanne Françoise Corélie (1797-1813), Corneille Jean-Joseph (1798-1828) and Catherine Lucie Cornélie (1799-1817), it was Victor Jean-Baptiste Corneille, the youngest, who increased the prosperous brewer family.

The house Saint Christopher, where the family lived in the “Saint-Catherine” street that was later on turned into “The Antwerp street”, was demolished later and converted into the house we still know nowadays as nr. 21.

The house where V. Scheppers was born, changed, but the cradle itself was, as it is understood, kept in the family and one of the descendants of Joseph, Gaetan Scheppers de Bergstein, a four year older brother of Victor, granted it to the congregation.

The prosperous families Scheppers and Estrix

The families Scheppers and Estrix belonged to the most prosperous families of “Mechelen”. An uncle on the mother’s side, Jean-François-Xavier Estrix, who was raised to the peerage in 1818, died as the mayor of Mechelen..

Brewers and magistrates formed the Scheppers family. Father and grandfather Scheppers, both brewers, had their hands full with the management of their goods and they also moved in the political society. 

Scheppers family tree

The grandfather, Jules-Pierre-Joseph, (1730-1801) opened his house for secret masses, under the French Government, as well as sixty other families.

The grandmother, Jeanne-Marie-Thérèse Poullet, (1726-1809) came from a prosperous family that distinguished itself in the Belgian social and political life.

The father, Corneel Joseph, was alderman of Mechelen during the Dutch Government and he was also the only one of the college who could keep his function after the Belgian Revolution. For a while he occupied the post of province councilor and he also was continual deputy of the province of Antwerp.

Source: SCHEPPERS, OUR SCHOOL by An Hermans, printed in 2002