Jardin du Souvenir

The First World War saw the total destruction of a village whose location is now marked only by a sign saying "ICI FUT SANCY" ("Here was SANCY"). The village was placed in a red zone and seemed doomed to disappear. - This was without counting the determination of Paul Busquet, who set out in 1918 to find the resting place of his son Lucien, who had died of his wounds on November 5, 1914 after being taken in by the Germans in the hospital church. He met the mayor of Sancy, Alexandre Cadot-Maître, who was living among the rubble. Paul Busquet, office manager at the French State Railways, decided to do everything in his power to help rebuild the village: in November 1919, he launched a subscription in Le Cheminot de l?Etat, a newspaper belonging to the CGT railway workers? federation, which was then relayed by a sheet specially dedicated to this operation; finally, in 1920, Busquet founded L? uvre de Sancy, whose honorary president was Louis Olivier, president of the UNC (Union nationale des cheminots). - With the support of the American Committee for Devastated Areas, reconstruction was organized: clearing of ruins, water supply, construction of a large town hall and school, houses and a church (thanks to the Union catholique des personnels des chemins de fer). Special gestures were made at Christmas and on special occasions. - A first ceremony took place in 1922, but the big event came in 1925, with the inauguration of the Jardin du Souvenir, where steles in honor of Lucien Busquet and several soldiers representing heroism, notably railwaymen, were grouped together (there was also that of Quentin Roosevelt, aviator and son of American President Theodore, who died in 1918). the ceremony was attended by 400 railwaymen "mounted" from the Celles station. - In 1929, a decision by the municipal council renamed the commune "Sancy-les-Cheminots", in gratitude to those who had made the village's rebirth possible.

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