Living in the Footsteps of War

In Rennes, I live in the Quartier Patton – so named for the American general whose army marched down its principal boulevard in 1944. Agnès points out the houses that are lovely along that boulevard are those spared by the devastation of battle; the others were rebuilt in the immediate post-war period with minimal architectural beauty, an unimaginable luxury.


On the bluff overlooking the Val André there is a concrete bunker set into the hillside beside the national walking trail. The Breton coast is pock marked with them, ridiculously expensive to remove, so a silent reminder of what to some must be a recent past. Indeed, every village has a central monument, usually a towering statue of a soldier or a saint, with a long list of the parishioners who died in the Great War. Beneath is added a shorter list of the dead from 1939-45.




In the little parish church of Saint Pois, Agnès and I puzzled over the plaque on the church wall that listed victims of the war of 1939, a list of mostly women. Saint Pois is just inland of Avranches and south of Saint Lô, a heavily battled terrain in early June 1944. We wonder if these non-combatants died in the bombing of the region, in the field by field fighting to gain a foothold in occupied Europe, or as resistants or reprisals. I almost find the courage to stop an elderly woman after Mass to ask the story behind the list, but for once, decide to research quietly. Today I read in the history of the 4th Infantry Division, “The battle for St. Pois dragged on for five days before the division overcame the stubborn enemy opposition. The surrender of St. Pois coincided with a major German counterattack westward toward Avranches in an effort to split the advancing Americans. The 4th, still near St. Pois, reinforced and stabilized the center of the American line. The enemy offensive, though initially overwhelming, eventually deteriorated.”



On our way home from Saint Pois, Agnès’ friend Marie directs her through twisting country roads to a small village, outside of which we find the Brittany American cemetery, one of many sprinkled across this land.


The wounds of war may heal, but a land is marked and scarred by the ravages of battle. For those whose homeland has not born the burden of such agony, it is sobering to walk in a world that remembers the whine of warplanes and the thunder of tanks, the scream of machine guns, and of men. My Papa’s generation carries the scars of a youth marred by the blood of friends spilled in the fields and orchards of home. It is an urgent obligation of each generation to clearly impart the truth of that reality to the next, and to remember that there are new graves dug every hour of every day as war continues to harvest the youth of a new generation in lands far from home, lands whose homes even now are burning.

Family Ties

Since my 1969 summer in the home of Mathurin and Antoinette Lessart, I have felt a part of the family. Their generous and warm reception has created bonds that have endured almost 40 years. Visiting Brittany has always meant coming home to family. As an unexpected bonus to this year’s visit, Yann LeHellaye, Marylise’s oldest son, was home for a short visit. He divides his time between doctoral work in England and his passion, working as a biologist with the chimps of Africa.

Benjamin is the youngest of the three boys, a growing 15 year old. He served as host to several friends for a “barbecue” in the living room, complete with fire in the huge fireplace. Welcome to Bretagne in July!



Marylise treated me to a lovely meal at noon, well, quite a bit after noon since it took me twice as long as expected to arrive! - and Yann and Marcel joined us for dinner in the evening, complete with a chocolate cake courtesy of Benjamin and friends. I didn’t see Stephane this visit, but will settle for two out of three. Papa seems to be doing well, slowing down and wearing a pacemaker, but still driving me to the store to do errands in his little Twingo, still happy to have Neptune the Newfoundland and the cat for company.

The summer has been filled with opportunities for renewing family ties and fostering new friendships. Spending the weekend in Germany with Peter and Babsi Gunther, Fredde, Hanni, Christian, Tine and family, was like coming home in another language. Babsi took me along to an end of the school year girl gathering where her friends took me quickly in.


My overnight stop in Paris en route from Germany to the Val André gave me a taste of time with my Parisian daughter, Cornelia, who lived with us during the school year of 1994-1995. Her tiny studio apartment had just enough room for me to feel cozy, and for her to be glad that when I spend the last week in July in Paris, it will be in the youth hostel nearby with the Villanova student group! I will have plenty of free time that week to visit with her, as much as her summer schedule permits.


My new friends in Lyon, Frédérique the Lotr fan, and English teacher Yvette Jeandet-Compagnat and her husband Olivier, join the Ginioux and Lessart families as homes that I will look forward to visiting again.




Jean-Baptiste and Léa Ginioux discover the camera option in my new laptop and snap their own portrait. What wonderful young people! Such a blessing to have friends that are both so far and so near, so quick to pick up where we left off even years later. It is a marvel of human nature that we can forge ties that endure.

Finistère June 25-26, 2007

Road Trip Finistere. Jean at the wheel and Mary-Claire reading the map steer the new Citoyen toward the end of the earth, the arm of western France pointing toward America. Slipping from shocked to bemused, I settle into the back seat with Chi-Chi, the elderly boxer originally named for an Egyptian goddess. Jean shortened her name when he adopted her, out of respect for a foreign culture.

Our first stop is near the farm of the Barbadienne family at La Bouille, Maman’s grave in the little country cemetery that I visited last with Marylise. We are here at her request, and I sit by the stone marked Antoinette Barbadienne Lessart and talk to her about Yann and Stephane and Benjamin, about Marcel and Marylise, about Christine’s family, and mine. Jean and Mary-Claire as always are quietly by.

On our way to Sizun, we pass the Cimitière des Bateaux de Guerre at Landévennec– another cemetery, this one filled with the hulls of discarded war ships. What a stunning site, nestled in the sand and rock and woodlands of the Brittany coast. The connection is inescapable, Maman who lived through the horrors of that war only to die young, a collateral damage perhaps of their destruction.


Sizun has an unusually sumptuous church. I learn the Breton de Tal ar Groz, at the foot of the cross, and Mamm-goz, Grandma and Tad-coz, Grandpa. This church honors Saint Suliau with a reliquary bust, unlike the usual box or church or cross shape. In the adjoining museum bookstore, I score a treasure trove of books, the Saints and Chapels of Brittany, Breton Coifs and Costumes, Beliefs and Superstitions. Mary-Claire buys recipe books – and ends up giving me the one inadvertently bought in Italian to send to Katie. I am smitten with the mermaid gargoyles in this coastal community.







After lunch we visit the Chapel of Our Lady of Rocamadour 1610-1683 and the Tour Vauban at Camaret. The little harbor is a gem.

We stop at the Pointe des Espagnols to look across the bay to Brest with its long history, the 14th and 16th century battles with the English, and then the Bridge of Recouvrance, and the Chateau de Brest, which is now the National Marine Museum. We explore the perimeter of the Arsenal of Brest, a military base with warships at dock and World War II German submarine covers of massive concrete. In 1944 Brest was in ruins.

Just outside St. Mathieu are two ancient crosses, which in fact are prehistoric menhirs with crosses imposed on top, the marriage of Celtic beliefs and the new Christian faith that was grafted to it. “Croix bénies, Croix sacrées, Mettez mon coeur en bonne pensée, Et que mon âme soit sauvée.” (Blessed Crosses, Sacred Crosses, Put in my heart good thoughts, That my soul might be saved.)

At Saint Mathew’s Point is the 17th century Abbey of Saint Maur, originally a 6th century monastery with the ancient stone tower light, the modern lighthouse – and the military lighthouse built in its shadow.



There is an imposing monument on the cliffs behind the abbey to honor sailors lost at sea.






We make a short stop at Brélès with its pretty little church and a well that Mary-Claire wants to take home with her.


At Le Conquet we circle the little church with its unusual 15th century statue of Christ in chains, patron of slaves, and note the statues of saints, decapitated during the Revolution.






At Portsall we stop to contemplate the monumental reminder of man’s stewardship of the earth: the anchor of the Amoco Cadiz, the tanker that dumped 19 tons of crude oil in the bay in 1978. In spite of the catastrophic consequences, another such ecological disaster happened recently, the sinking of the Erica 7 years ago in a storm off the coast of Brittany, leaving this region whose economy depends on fishing and tourism in a black quagmire.


Merci, Jean and Marie-Claire, for such a splendid tour, an unexpected family vacation. Your company is a cure for the woes of solitude. Brittany is a source of endless delight. You are certainly one of the highlights.

Bretagne, the Val-Andre: June 20-29, 2007

My new little Honda FiFi will soon have a proper Sylvia bumper sticker – it reads, “Coeur de Breizh” which means Bretonne at Heart. Indeed, there is everything of a homecoming when the rolling farmlands of Brittany replace the Parisian landscape out the window of the TGV.

I managed the rental car exit of the city of Rennes and found my way to the Val André apartment, utterly enraptured the moment the sea came into view. I think it feels like arriving at Salisbury, where I visited my maternal grandparents so many summers in my childhood. The salt air, the wind, the clouds born of the maritime clime all take me to a place of family and roots and I feel home. Home has been a tenuous concept for me more than once in my life, but especially this year, so the feeling is one I cherish.

The ten days in my idyllic home by the sea fall into a routine of morning walk up the promenade de la digue to the boulangerie where I secure my daily bread – a demie-baguette, I discover for the single – and a butter croissant. This bread, for the uninitiated, is baked that morning on the premises and still warm when it hits my breakfast table on the balcony overlooking the sea beside my freshly brewed café. This dear ones, is breaking the fast. Bring in the homemade raspberry jam from Marie-Claire, and you have one happy camper. I walk the trail up the bluff mid-morning to sit on the bench high above the sea, or back to the post office or to the Friday market for fresh fruits and veggies, olives, honey, all local.



Christine and Marylise's cousins, Marie-Claire and Jean invited me to lunch Saturday, which turned into an afternoon drive along the cost to the port of Dahouet and an hour and a half hike along the coastal path, followed by supper. I stopped at the florist in the Val André on my way to take along a bouquet as a hostess gift, enjoying the interchange with the florist and watching her wrap the bouquet for a gift. In a stroke of delightful luck, their son Jean-Jacques and his wife Nathalie and their 6 year old Briac are up from Rennes for the weekend. I first knew Jean-Jacques as an infant in arms when I spent the IU Honors summer with the Lessart family in 1969.

Sunday after Mass at the Pléneuf church, I joined the Lefebvre family again for Sunday dinner, taking a bottle of burgundy red wine for Jean-Jacques and cider for Jean since it was their feast day, the St. Jean June 24, cherries for Nathalie, chocolates for Marie-Claire, caramels for Briac. We drove to the beach of St. Pabu hoping to get some char-sailing action for the boys – this is a 3 wheeler with a sail on the beach at low tide – but the rain and cold had shut the place down. It is interesting to note that as Brittany is blessed with much wind, the Bretons have invented diverse ways to turn it into electricity, and into fun. There are kite-surfers, sailboarders, char-sailers, windsurfers – endless variations of wind, water, and speed.



We drove the cost to the Cap Frehel as a sad alternative to sport, and ended the day with a Sunday supper of crêpes. Only crepes. One with butter and sugar, one with raspberry jam, one with powdered chocolate and butter, one with lemon marmalade. Sugar coma.



Monday morning when I am deciding whether to seek fresh bread or be happy with the remains of yesterday, the doorbell rings. No one knows who I am or that I live here, so it was a mystified and slightly apprehensive Sylvia who answered. A beaming Marie-Claire greets me with, “How long will it take you to pack an overnight bag?” I protest that she and Jean should already be on the road on their vacation; Jean is picking raspberries and wants me to come with them to Brest. My protests are overcome and we are on the way on the J & M-C vacation special. Drive first, look at a map and decide where to go later.

Lorraine, Land of Joan of Arc: June 11-15, 2007

My pilgrimage to the home lands of Joan of Arc fulfilled more than thirty years of longing. I have a vivid memory of the house of Jacques and Isabelle d’Arc and the remnants of a small bronze figurine that I bought there for my Grandpa Steele. I have no recollection of the circumstances, whether with the group of IU Honors students in 1969 or with Christine hitchhiking to St. Dizier in 1972.

When Grandpa Steele died years later, she moved to my desk at school where she quietly inspired me. One day she was once again brutally mistreated. I found her head on my desk and her body in the top drawer, victim of a vicious student vandal who quite correctly thought this a means to utterly devastate me.

The desire to once again place Joan whole before me as I work increased my desire to revisit her home. So did the annual study of her time in history by means of the CBS mini-series of her life. Unfortunately, la Lorraine is far from the usual track of student tours. This summer’s grant with my month of June wanderings gave me at last the perfect opportunity to revisit the home of the Maid of Lorraine.

As my first school year at Clay Middle School drew to a close, I pondered how to end the year with youngsters eager for vacation and mentally finished with school work. I realized with delight that the feast day of Joan of Arc fell on the last days of school, May 30. I chose two short segments of the film, the battle of Orleans and the trial and victorious death of France’s patron saint. The students enjoyed fresh fruit and petits gateaux français and trying on my chainmail shirt and cap, then watched the film. I reminded them that this was a true story, that Joan’s words were carefully transcribed, that I was soon going to visit her home, and the reality of history and our connection to it showed in their faces.

The ironic juxtaposition of my pilgrimage to the home of humble villagers and my lodging as a bed and breakfast guest in the 18th century Château d’Autigny-la-Tour struck me more than once. My suite of rooms with the spacious dining room and elegant stone staircase made of me a Duchesse, a Comtesse of noble proportions.



Walking through the d’Arc home, carefully preserved first by her family then by the state, then worshipping in an evening Mass in the parish church of St. Rémy, following the winding path into the hills and climbing the woodland trail to the hermitage of Notre Dame de Bermont where Joan sought solitude and prayer, I immersed myself in the land that taught young Jeanne to listen.



That lesson is the heart of her inspiration for me, I think. By nature, and by my father’s example, I have learned to be ready to jump into action at the first sign of need. My fault has been to remember to be attentive, to the voices of nature, of family, of friends, colleagues, students, and to the heavenly voices that so quietly offer guidance and inspiration.

My three days in Lorraine encompassed visits to the wonderful town of Neufchâteau, to the Roman arena and mosaic ruins at Grand, to the church of St. Elophe, and to the site of the former village of Greux, as well as hours of contemplation and repose in the extensive garden and woodland of the Château.

The moments of solitude on a bench deep in the whispering woods before the chapel of Notre Dame de Bermont felt as profoundly spiritual as the Mass sitting before St. Margaret’s solemn gaze, as the child Joan sat so many hundreds of years ago, listening to the voices of heaven. May we all listen to those voices and act confidently as our hearts are led.