Iwan SOLAR ²

  General Notes:

Reconnnu pas sa mère Marie Wehrlin 19 Oct 1915 (mention marginale sur l'extrait de naissance).
"Hotelier, actuellement Soldat à la 15ème section d'État-Major" à son mariage (1915), résident Pension Solar à Nice.
Déclarant à l'acte de décés de sa Grand-mère Emma Werlin en 1920, agé de 32 ans, domicilié à Nice. Entrepreneur de transport.

From Maurice Solar:
But I can clarify a few things about my great-grand-father Camille. Camille was indeed a musician. He was for a while director of the "Echo de Nice", a choir founded in 1880 (see 6^th entry on attached reference). As the eldest male in the family, I inherited a trophy that the Echo won at an international competition in Turin in 1902 (see pictures). Family lore also has him as director of the private orchestra of Baron Paul Grigorievitch von Derwies (or von der Wiese) who was a talented pianist in his own right and a major investor in Russian railways. You can find lots of references to him on Wikipedia. There's even a school and a street named after him in Nice.

Anyway, that brings us to what happened to the Pension Solar. As you know, a lot of the Russian court spent their winters in Nice (nothing new about rich Russians seeking warmer climates!). Well known are the Lycée Impérial and the Eglise Russe. Camille Solar was affiliated with that group via the Baron. I guess the good times finished with the October revolution and people had to make ends meet. I think that's when the family house became a Pension. Camille lived until 1947 (I was told) to the age of 96. The pension passed in the control of his son Yvan sometime before that. But Yvan died during the war (of cancer - I'm trying to get an exact date) and the pension passed on to my father Jean Camille (1916-2005). My elder sister Nicole (1943-1966) was born in that house. My father had the choice of keeping the house (I've got a painting of it) and looking after all the hangers-on or selling it and distributing the proceeds. So he sold it but it wasn't a good time for such things… However once of the clauses of the sale was that whatever was built on the property must keep the name Solar. So there is still a condominium on Avenue des Beaumettes called "Le Solar" or so my cousins tell me. The sale must have taken place between 1943 and 1945 because I was born in a small apartment looking down on the Eglise Russe. And my grand-mother Claire Emmenegger lived in that very same building until her death in 1984 also at the age of 96. ⁴

Iwan married Claire EMMENEGGER, daughter of Nicolas EMMENEGGER and Martine CHRISTEN, on 26 Oct 1915 in Nice, Alpes Maritimes, France.¹ (Claire EMMENEGGER was born on 1 Jun 1888 in Ennetbürgen, Nidwalden, Switzerland ⁴ and died in 1984 in Nice, Alpes Maritimes, France ⁴.)