Jean-Pierre Toussaint, founding member of our association, author of numerous publications and creator of this website, died on February 12, 2023.


This text was read during the Sunday mass of March 19, 2023 in the Saint-Honest church of d'Yerres. We thank the priest Michel Cerles, for his kindness.

We would like to add to our prayer intentions the memory of Jean-Pierre Toussaint, who left us on February 12. His burial took place on February 20 in Nantes, his native region, in the church of Saint-Félix. Our intentions also go out to Suzanne Butler and Monique Patron, who passed away last June.

This tribute is paid to her, within the framework of this mass, because Jean-Pierre, a Yerrois for more than 40 years, had grown up in the Catholic religion, at the Saint-François de Sales college in Nantes, and Jean-Pierre and Annie had based their lives on these deep religious feelings. Annie is here to keep the strength of these convictions warm in her heart, and we share them with her and all the bereaved family with friendship.

If we express ourselves, in the name of the Local History Society, it is because Jean-Pierre was one of the founders: as such, we thank the parish priest and the parish of Yerres for having accepted this tribute in the context of the Sunday mass.

We must now salute his multiple actions with the so numerous associations in Yerres. Jean-Pierre, in the framework of his professional career, had notably created INFO-CENTRE, a module intended for the initiation to computer science of the executives of a big bank. Retired in 2002, he naturally offered his skills to the associations of Yerres: The potager [vegetable garden] Caillebotte, with his former president Claude Bureau, to whom our thoughts also go, the CYAM (Club Yerrois d'Arts Martiaux [Yerres Martial Arts Club]), the Yerres-Brunoy bridge club. He also set up the first Web site of the Yerres Historical Society.

But I would like to personally underline the invaluable and incomparable help he brought in the development of the "Caillebotte" project, since 2010. In collaboration with Monique Patron, who left us last June, and whom we associate with this tribute, Jean-Pierre made all the public benefit from his knowledge, first as a tour guide, as a training officer, and as a researcher in historical documentation: Caillebotte had no more secrets for him, and some of his publications were noticed. During the Caillebotte exhibition in 2014, of international dimension, he instituted and animated in Yerres a network of guest houses.

In all these fields, he always showed his taste for teaching, in a word, for transmission, this idea which is so dear to our hearts. All this on a voluntary basis, it goes without saying. In our small group of local history, formed in 2013, Jean-Pierre has held his part by the production of several articles.

We must especially remember his great modesty and his unfailing friendship - let's hope that he will forgive us these few words, which will not be enough to console us for his departure… I also want to evoke his enthusiasm! I believe that he kept this positive spirit until the end of the road… an example!

            Gilles Baumont
            (in the name of the Société d’Histoire d’Yerres)