Mon amour, la france

If I tried to look back and pinpoint where my love of France began, I couldn’t say for sure. It’s always been a place that’s close to my heart because of my family history, but it could also be a curiosity of a mysterious place, or just the enjoyment of a beautiful language. I think its probably a combination of all three. Of course, its just too complicated to pinpoint, but I’ll just start at the beginning.

When I was probably seven, I learned that my father’s parents were originally from Alsace-Lorraine in France. My grandfather was a Lutheran pastor. He was an orphan from that area. I know he went to seminary in Wisconsin, where he met my grandmother, and they moved back to France before World War 2. There, my uncles, Jean (John), Richard (Dick), and Frederick (Fred) were born. They lived in that area throughout WW2, and entertained both Allied and Nazi soldiers during that time. After the war, they moved back to Wisconsin, “American-fied” their names, and about 7-9 years later, my dad was born.

When I was 8, we took a trip to France and I saw Paris for the first time. I do not remember very much. My favorite artist is Monet, so of course we visited the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay. I do remember having a panic attach in the Musee d’Orsay because the floor is half-glass half-concrete. I had never seen a floor like that and I could not get over the thought of falling through the floor, or the floor collapsing, or the glass breaking… anyway, I never saw the true treasures of Monet’s work because I couldn’t stop hyperventilating and crying… That’s all I remember of Paris.

We also went to Alsace-Lorraine, and we saw the town where my grandfather grew up. We also saw the parsonage where he used to live and where he preached as a pastor. In fact, we met several people in the town who knew and remembered my grandfather! I couldn’t believe that we had a connection like that all the way from the US to this tiny town in France…

Over the next several years, I asked questions about my grandparents. I found out that my grandfather spoke 4 languages: French, German, Alsacian, and English. He could preach and live in all 4 languages. During one of my last visits to see him, I found his German Bible. I thought it was so great that, not only could he speak/read another language, but he still used it even though he was in an English-only speaking community. I vowed to myself that I wanted to learn at least 1 of his native languages.

My French/German grandmother died when I was 9. We flew back to the States (from Saudi Arabia, where we were living) for her funeral and support my grandfather. Three months later he died in his sleep and we didn’t make a trip back to the states to his funeral. Instead, we waited until the next summer, and then went to his home to retrieve what memoriabelia and “things” we wanted to keep. Unfortunately, my dad’s 3 brothers had already had a chance to comb through everything. My sister and I got a lot of dress-up clothes from my grandma. I did, however, get 3 very precious things from my grandparents: A watch:I got to keep my grandmother’s engraved wind-up watch. It’s beautiful, antique, and probably one of the most precious things I own. A book:An antique children’s book from the 1940’s called “Bibliche en Alsace.” I took it because I could see that it was probably something they owned from France and I wanted to know what it was about. A fan: I have no idea where this fan is from. It is paper, which makes me think that it was from a restaurant or night club from France, so was it really that important or special? For some reason, my grandmother kept it, so I decided to keep it.

The fan and book are on display in my living room, on the same shelf as a framed wedding invitation and the bottle of French champagne from our wedding night. It’s my favorite shelf/display in the entire house. The most important, certainly.

And my grandmother’s watch? I wore it at my wedding. It was my “something old.”

…. to be continued, time for a random trip to Starbucks!