Rising from the Roots--Marie-Madeline Pfister
By: Noah Pfister
FAS230, Fall 2011
Over the course of this semester our study of
Franco-American women has brought a certain woman in my
life to mind. This woman is my Grandmother on my father’s
side and she has been a motivating influence behind my
choice of studies in my secondary education. She has always
been the foundation of my connection to my French heritage
and when I read the prompt for this interview assignment I
was sure she would make the perfect candidate. I conducted
the interview in two sessions which were divided by
distinct periods in her life. The first hour that we
arranged focused on her early life as a youth in France up
to her arrival to the United States. The second portion of
the interview was about life since then here in America.
She currently resides in Colorado and so the interview was
done over two days via telephone. The opportunity to hear
her recount so many of the stories she shared with me in my
childhood in this setting was invaluable me. Through a
series of documented questions and answers her life was
depicted in detail before my mind’s eye in a fashion that
seemed to bring the past to life. I hope my writing can do
her narrative adequate justice.
Marie-Madeline Pfister’s life began just after her parents
returned to France from a trip to Indonesia. She grew up in
a family of six; two older brothers Gerard and Jacques, and
a sister seven years younger, Sabine. Her Father was a
real-estate agent whom worked out of an office at their
home which was in the suburbs about thirty minutes outside
of Paris by train. She described it as being almost rural
on the edge of the country-side in a town called Chatou,
along the Seine River. This agricultural center was a safe
and beautiful part of France and she had cousins whom lived
close by. The downtown area was filled with small specialty
shops and every Wednesday and Saturday the market was open
for business.
She and her siblings all attended gender specific private
catholic schools, which were only a short walk from their
home. She spoke of how her older brothers would walk her
and her sister to their school first and how they would all
walk home for lunch every day. All the children were also
part of a French equivalent to the boy scouts in the
States, this membership helped to grow her appreciation for
two of her foremost passions; reading and nature. Religion
and Family were both held to be important values and on
Sundays her grandparents and cousins would get together
with her and her family after Church service. She also had
a Great Grandfather, a retired doctor who lived in Normandy
by the Sea. She and her siblings would spend summers there
with him during their childhood. She emphasized how these
vacations to the Oceanside are among the fondest memories
she has. Spending her time reading along the water’s edge
or strolling with her brothers through the forests that
surrounded her Great Grandfather’s house.
She grew up in happy home and felt privileged to have a
romantic father whom loved and respected her mother. The
family enjoyed listening to the news or classical music on
the radio all together gathered around it in their living
room. No one sat down to dinner before her mother did and
it was always the children’s duty to do the clean up.
Though traditional and simple her youth remained beautiful
and peaceful until one Man bent on destruction changed
everything.
Adolf Hitler came to power in a disheartened and
disgruntled Germany that set its sights on France shortly
into its conquest for world dominance. Marie would be among
the victims that lived in France under Nazi occupation.
Only nine years old when French defeat was imminent and the
Nazi’s began to march on Paris. This news was enough to
have she her mother and the rest of the children to her
great grandfather’s in Normandy. Here she awaited the
arrival of Hitler’s armies, a moment that would scar her
memory forever. Life was transformed for Marie on that day
when they came marching to town. She remembers as she
watched with her brothers from the front porch; first came
the French soldiers, fleeing in retreat in a disorganized
panic looking battered and beaten. Fresh on their heels
came Nazi’s marching in perfect unison, a flawless military
machine exclaiming the chant ‘Hiel Hitler!’.
Marie-Madeline’s life became completely transformed very
swiftly into a mode of survival. Within only days of taking
the town in Normandy the Nazi’s commandeered her Great
Grandfather’s, estate running their tanks through his gated
stone arch and used the cover of surrounding trees to cover
their vehicles. After that her Mother took her and her
brothers and sister back to Paris to their home. Tough
times were upon them as resources were scarce in wartime
they were given minimal rations to ensure the Nazi army was
properly supplied. Cold and hunger seemed to dictate every
day. Her mother would weigh them out their rations each day
and the tiny portion would be all they would get each day.
She would also heat up bricks and put them in the
children’s beds to get them warm before it was time to
sleep. They only had single wood stove and not given hardly
anything to burn.
She confessed she still is ashamed of one day when she
sneaked a piece of bread from her grandfather’s portion.
Her grandparents had moved in with them as well as they
needed looking after as well in such tough times. Her
grandfather had become ill and she was often the one whom
sat with him at his bedside after she returned from school.
She and her siblings continued to attend school when they
returned to Chatou. It was there she learned of many of the
atrocities committed by the Nazi’s that her parents had
tried to hide from her. A Jewish man who’d been the local
tailor had thrown himself in front of a train to escape a
trip to the concentration camps. Another family who had
helped some Jews escape had been taken away and not heard
from since. The courage and bravery to push onward in the
face of such immense obstacles made her a survivor.
Her hopes and dreams were answered when the Allied Powers
began their campaign to defeat Hitler and his Nazi Army.
The bombing raids were a sign that help was on the way and
that her country might soon be freed from this scourge that
had tormented her family and community for years. Both at
home and at school the sirens would sound to warn of an
incoming raid and everyone would take to the nearest
basement or bomb-shelter. Once she remembered seeing an
American pilot shot down and praying he escaped capture by
the enemy. At one point some young boys in the community
had tried to assist in the revolt but were arrested and
executed. When the war was finally over American troops
came by train baring candy for the children. A treat which
she had not tasted in over 4 years and chewing gum
something she had never seen before. Neither her
grandfather nor her great grandfather lived to see the end
of the war and she knew they would have felt such great joy
if they had seen that day come at last. She spoke of how
they rounded up the French girls who had bedded the German
soldiers and shaved their heads driving them through town
to expose and humiliate them. Marie felt pity for these
young women despite their considerably unwise choices.
A teenager by the end of the war, Marie Madeline was soon
headed off to university at the Sorbonne in Paris. Her
senior year abroad in England in 1951 would be the
beginning of a life away from her family and France. She
met a girl there who told her of her voyages to the United
States and her tales sure enough enticed Marie to seek out
this same Full Bright scholarship. After applying at the
American Embassy she was accepted and off on her way to New
York and Skidmore College. She took a boat dubbed the Queen
Mary across the Atlantic over the course of five days.
Teaching two French classes at the college she explored her
natural gift to bestow her knowledge upon others. In
exchange for teaching these two courses she was granted the
rest of her time to study whatever she liked. She focused
her education in literature and history having developed a
fascination with them over the years. There were other
exchange students at Skidmore with her; two Swedes, an
Argentinean, and a German girl who was the daughter of the
Nazi general that defied Hitler’s orders to demolish the
city of Paris upon Germany’s defeat. While the pain of her
suffering was still vivid Marie could not help but feel
appreciative that this girl’s father had saved the
beautiful city she loved so much from destruction. The two
things that surprised the young French girl about American
Life the most? Ice cream and hot shower daily, growing up
both of these were rare luxuries.
It was in this year at New York that Marie would meet the
man whom she is still married to today. Ron Pfister was
Harvard graduate studying medicine at Princeton when she
was set up on double date with him through her friend whose
fiancé was a friend his. Marie and her friend ventured to
Princeton to meet their dates the stands of the football
stadium for a game. The sport she knew as football looked
nothing like this and so Ron had a lot of explaining to do
that day. After the game she proceeded to beat him in
ping-pong and scolded him for pasting political stickers on
car bumpers. They continued to see one another for the
duration of Marie visit. When her student visa was on the
verge of expiring, Ron knew he had to act fast. He asked
her to marry him and she returned home to tell her family
and reapply for citizenship as an American’s wife. Though
her parents were a bit traditional and saw American as wild
gunslingers and thus did not approve at first until she
convinced them of his prestigious standing as a doctor
after many hard years of disciplined studying. After a
month with her family in France, Marie went back to the
U.S. where she and Ron were wed in Massachusetts.
Following their marriage she worked as a receptionist in
the hospital Ron was doing his internship at. They then
moved out to Colorado together where Ron would do his
residency while she raised what would end up being four
children, two girls and two boys. For nine years they saved
money for a trip for the family back to France. She had to
depend upon letters to contact her family in France, which
for a considerable time were a weekly affair. The phone was
expensive to call overseas and the quality of the
connection was always poor. When they finally had enough
she spent two months in France with her three children at
that time and Ron joined them for the second month. She
knew that she had to make this trip and she foundout she
was right when only months later her elder brother Jacques
died in an automobile accident in Africa. Upon her return
she felt homesick and caught herself in tears at times,
though she was careful to hide it from her family.
With time she readjusted and realized she had many travels
ahead and that her family would also come to visit her. She
and Ron agreed on most parental issues though they had some
differences. An example being she tended to allow them to
listen to their choice of music but when Ron came home they
knew to shut it off if it was not classical. Though
sometimes they were strict with simple things like dinning
manners, their children thanked them for it later.
Marie-Madeline has taken many more trips back to France
including one just this past summer to maintain a
relationship with her native culture and her family. It is
through these opportunities that she feels that she has
been blessed with good fortune. The rough times she
witnessed as a child helped her to become very appreciative
of the life she has be privileged to too lead. Technology’s
rapid development over the years has had a vast impact on
the methods of communication that make it easier to keep in
contact with her French family. While in Colorado though
she also connects locally with other French speakers
through two organizations she is involved in. Both of these
assemblies are made up of French speakers though one is a
smaller local language group and the other Club Sevigne, is
older, larger and based out of Denver. Through being an
active participant in the French community in her area she
continues to maintain close personal ties to the culture
she was raised in.
Hey yall
my name is Noah pfister and I am a senior majoring in
International affairs at the university here in in Orono. I
transfered here from Lynchburg College in Virginia after
completeing my first two years there. Ichose this major
because of my love for travel i discovered as a kid visting
cultures and countries different from my own. My
Grandmother is entirely french and came to the United
States just after world war II as a young girl. I have been
to France three times and studied the language for as long
as I can remember. I am lookinjg forward to examining
womens role in the transitory period into what we call the
modern world and how the part they played affected their
exerpience in life. It is a subject I know little about so
I am excited to see what surprises the semester will
bring.