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.