Léonie Jonckheere married 29-year-old hairdresser Léonard Spilliaert on 4 May 1880.1
They had seven children together: Léon was the oldest, born in 1881, followed by Maurice (1883-?), Marie-Henriette (1884-1891), Raymond (1892-1893), Fernand (1887-?), Madeleine (1890-?) and Rachel (1894-?). In 1919, Spilliaert described his mother, whom he visited in Ostend, as ‘greatly changed, aged considerably, extremely sad,’ and he adds, ‘It makes me sad too’.2 Léonie suffered from melancholy and was a stern, pious woman. Every month she was visited by a devout sister, to whom she faithfully donated a sum of money for the construction of a convent.3 In that respect, she was pretty much the opposite of her flamboyant, more liberal-minded husband.
During the First World War, Léonie fled to England with Spilliaert’s sister Rachel, while her sons and husband remained in Ostend. Constant Permeke, who also fled to England, wrote to Spilliaert in November 1918, − after the war has subsided - that ‘Mrs Spilliaert and Rachel’ were also there somewhere, although he was not entirely sure.4 Léonie Spilliaert was widowed in 1928 and died in 1937. After her death, the children converted the house at 2 Kapellestraat and rented it out as a shop warehouse and summer apartment.
