Michéle Cooke
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CENTER FOR ORAL AND PUBLIC HISTORY
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON
NARRATOR: MICHELE COOKE
INTERVIEWER: Jennifer Keil
DATE: November 15, 2012
LOCATION: Irvine, California
PROJECT: Hitler’s Europe to the Golden State
JK: This is Jennifer Keil. I’m conducting an interview with Ms. Michéle Cooke in Irvine, California. It’s November 15th, 2012 at 2:00pm. This is a Cal. State Fullerton oral history project entitled, From Hitler’s Europe to the Golden State. My first question would be where were you born?
MC: What?
JK: Where were you born?
MC: I was born in France. My mother’s family were from, where I would call probably land and squire. They had a large house, quite a bit of land, but they were short in money. My father, on the other hand, was from a family of commerce and industry. Financially, they were better off than my mother. It doesn’t matter. I was born soon after my mother married. Sadly, when I was five, I lost my mother. She had tuberculosis that she got from her sister and she died. As a child, that was my first experience with growing up. Maybe not always getting all together. My father and her mother argued before the funeral. My grandmother wanted the children of her daughter to be in black and my father very much against it. He said, “My children will be in white” and he won. I had a picture of myself and my little brother. I had a little brother who was three, or was going to be three. We had the little while coat. It was January, so we had a little white fur coat and my little brother had a little white beret. Anyway, we were in white. Soon after my mother died, my father remarried. He went down to the Rivera and met a young American woman who was vacationing with her parents. He married her, but she didn’t want to raise two children. So my father gave us to our mother’s mother, my grandmother to be raised with the understanding that would not be homeschooled. Because they lived in the country and my mother and her sister were homeschooled. So by the time of age, about seven, I was put in a boarding school. I went to a Catholic boarding school. The Lady of the Sacré Coeur and I was there for almost ten years. Not quite. I don’t have bad memories. The nuns were very kind and there were some lonely moments. I remember crying, but it was not a bad time. When I was 1937, I was fifteen when my grandmother died. We were home with her and in the middle of the night, it was vacation, I heard her call “Michéle come in. I am dying.” So I woke up and woke up my brother. [I] went to her and find [sic] her in bed, you know couldn’t breathe. So we told Maria, her maid, who was there to come. She said, “You kids get dressed and you go down to your uncle who was about 500 yards away. Tell him to come. So we got out of the house, it was in November. It was windy, cold. We didn’t have electric or flashlights in 1937. We had the little light, the oil lamp. It just didn’t project. We were afraid. So we came back and said, “We cannot do it. We’re afraid.” She says, “Well you stay there and I go.” We stayed there and my grandmother died before anybody came in. After that, we went back to Paris where my father was then living. I was back in school and my brother [was also in school]. When I mean school, we both weren’t in the same school, I was in a girl’s school and he was in a boy’s school. Now we arrived to 1939. In 1939, the Germans declared war to France and invaded Poland. France declared war twenty-four hours later against Germany. My father who lived in Paris with such a knowledge of the government sent his wife. By the way, we never called her mother. She didn’t want us to call her mother. We always called her Vie, which was her name. We settled down in the South of France with their two daughters. They had two daughters. One little girl who was two and a half and her sister was five years older was seven. He kept Phillip, Phillip is my brother, and I in France but in Paris. By then the school didn’t want to boarder. We were a day school. That was a very, very strange period. That time between Germany. We declared war to Germany and Germany invaded about six months. It was a very strange time. We were not in war, but we were in war. We were given in France a gas mask. It was put in a can, like a long coffee can with a stripe. We were to have a gas make all the time. We went to school with our gas masks. We slept with the gas mask next to us. We all had a gas mask. Of course they had some kind of curfew in France. The car could walk, but with a dim light. It was a strange feeling walking in Paris. Still the people had that feeling of “who knows what may happen to me” so they were very much ready to go out and to play because they didn’t know how long they were going to be. It was a very strange time. We are coming in June ’40. The Germans invaded France about in May. We were in June ’40, we were having lunch in Paris. My father said to Philip and I, “You just stay here. I have to go out and you fix a suitcase with enough clothes that you can live with it for about ten days, but the suitcase had to be small enough that you can carry even if I ask you to run because we are leaving. We are fleeing. The Germans will be here and I got to go. I’ll come and get you.” So we stayed and waited. About eleven o’clock the doorbell rang and there’s a policeman. He says, “Your father is dying. He’s in the hospital.” So Philip and I went there. He could not recognize and he died the next morning about eight o’clock.
JK: Goodness.
MC: By then the policeman who had stayed with us all night, Philip and I, gave me everything my father had in his pocket. He had his wallet, cigarette case, and he handed me his briefcase. He said, “You guard that briefcase because it may be secret. So guard your briefcase with your life.” He took us home to the apartment. In the apartment we had the butler and a cook. The butler was George and Marta was a cook. We asked George, “We got to flee. We know we have to flee. Would you come? Would you take us?” George said, “No, I promised your father I would stay here and guard the apartment.” Marta, who was his wife says, “I’m staying with my husband.” So George said to Philip, my brother who was about fifteen, “you know how to drive. I taught you last Sunday. You played with it. You can do it.” So Philip and I took the car and of course it was not automatic.
JK: Right. (laughter)
MC: It was come and go. Thank goodness we didn’t go very far. We met two French officers who were also fleeing. When they saw us alone in the car they asked if we could take them. Philip said, “Yes if you drive.” Philip and I sat in the back of the car and those two men drove. We just spent the whole afternoon crying. Philip and I were so shocked. There was losing our father and the fact that Germans were coming. We had not cried so we just spent the whole afternoon, I remember in the back crying. We know [sic] where we were going. We were going to Vie. We had been there at Christmas. She was down in the south of France very near Toulouse by the Pyrénées. We knew where were going. We had to tell her because there was no communication. She didn’t know that her husband, our father, was dead. So we went there. To go back to the briefcase, one of the men, the officer was a young lawyer. When he saw me with the briefcase he asked me what I was doing. I tell [sic] him that’s my father’s briefcase. He said, “You give it to me and I’ll take care of it.” I was very glad to do that. By the way, that man became Vie’s lawyer. As my brother went up in life and got in charge of the business, he was our business lawyer. I have known him all my life.
JK: Wow.
[00:11:05]
MC: He’s gone now. The Germans took Paris. Hitler walked up the Champs-Élysées and went back in Germany. They were very well organized. In a matter of two weeks, they knew exactly how they’d divide France- in Free France and occupied France. They knew every road, every town, and every little village. They started a temporary government, Vichy with Pétain.
JK: Right.
MC: They told the population to go back to their homes and their work and no harm would come to them. So we went back to Paris. My brother never got along with Vie. He decided he wanted to go back to the northern part of France, not very far from the Channel where my grandmother, my father’s mother, lived. She had become our legal guardian because we were both under age. So he went back with them. I decided to stay in Paris because I wanted to finish my high school. I was in my last year of high school. I stayed there in Paris. I finished school, passed my Baccalaureate, and was accepted into Sorbonne.
JK: Wonderful.
MC: I went there in ’42. I graduated in ’41. I went there in September and two months later, in November, the students revolted. There was some killing in the streets. I got a note from my grandmother to leave Paris, to come back to where she was because I would be far more safety [sic]. Well, that was not true because where she lived, she had a house kinda in the city. The bottom part of the house was taken by the German Colonel who was also a surgeon and he used that as his consultation room. We lived on the first floor. In the attic, unknown to her, there were some Americans who were hidden there.
JK: Wow.
MC: I’ll tell you about that later. Anyway, let’s go back to the time when the Germans were in Paris when I was in high school. That was a very difficult time for young women. When I was in school, the first thing that they tell us, “Don’t ever look at German soldier in the face. Don’t ever answer any question even if you follow, pretend not.” We used to walk in the street low key and make sure there was no German behind us. There was a curfew in Paris. In winter it was from six o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning. In summer, it was a little later because it’s light later. You had to be out of the street by six o’clock because otherwise you were taken by the German [sic]. Often, not often, we had several people who came and rang the doorbell in our apartment five minutes off six saying, “I am a friend of so-and-so. I don’t have time to go home.” So we would take them in and sleep on the floor. The one thing during the occupation, is that we had coupon. Forty percent of production was taken by the Germans, so we were left with sixty percent of production. We had coupon for food, anything that was important didn’t come. We didn’t have any coffee, we didn’t have any sugar, we didn’t have any tea. There was no coco, chocolate. All those things are imported when not there because there was no shipped [sic] going through. We coupon for everything, we had coupon for clothes. We were allowed so many yard [sic] of clothing a year. You could either buy them and have them made or you could buy them in the store already made. We were (had) coupon for shoes. I was not working so I was allowed one pair of shoes every eighteen months. People who were working probably would have more. And of course we had no gasoline. There was no car in Paris. We all bicycled, which was kinda fun really. (laughter) The subway, the metro was the seats reserved for the Germans because you see they didn’t have much gasoline either. So they didn’t travel by car very much. They either went by foot or they took the metro. I must say to their credit, that I had seen some young German officers give their seat to a pregnant woman or to an elderly person who might be disabled. You know, they are human beings. I saw that and must give credit for that.
JK: Did you travel on the metro at time then to have witnessed these things?
MC: Oh yes, in Paris it was either bicycle or metro.
JK: So you continued using that.
MC: Yeah. It was either bicycle or metro. You know it was kinda fun. (laughter) It was very interesting when you go out for lunch in some of the big restaurants, sometimes you had a valet to park your bicycle. (laughter) But even when you went you go to a restaurant, you had to give them (a) coupon because they didn’t have any more food than we did. Each meal was worth so much coupon in meat, so much coupon in bread, so much coupon in whatever it is, we had to give them coupon.
JK: How did you adjust with cooking with such limited resources?
MC: What?
JK: How did you adjust to cooking meals with having limited resources because that’s quite a challenge.
MC: Well, I don’t know. I didn’t cook. We had a cook.
JK: Oh, that’s right.
MC: Just the same, you do adjust. I do remember, speaking about cooking, one night I was hungry and I got up around eleven or twelve to go in the kitchen and open the refrigerator. There was one rutaburger, that was going to be your breakfast. They used to cook rutaburger, make it mashed like mashed potatoes and give it to us for breakfast. Sometimes, it was good. You buy chicken and you ate (fed), Vie, two daughters, nanny, myself, seven people with a small chicken.
JK: Wow.
MC: I always ended up with the neck and the bottom part of it. You know, you have to do what you have to do. It was especially difficult for some of the young people. I was thinking about my half-sister without things like milk. Growing up when you’re three or four with no milk, there was no butter. Butter was very rare. Butter was one of the things we missed the most. I remember my hand peeling because there was not enough
JK: ointment?
MC: Fat in my body.
JK: Oh, wow.
MC: So my hand used to just be almost raw because the lack of fat in the body.
JK: Right.
MC: The food were very, really difficult.
JK: In French culture, I’ve learned the importance of beauty and to care for one’s face.
MC: That’s right. Vitamin E.
JK: During such a challenging time, how did you maintain these beauty regimes? It seems like such a deep seeded part as a woman to do these things.
MC: You just do the best you can.
JK: Substitute somethings?
MC: I remember, for example, a thing like stocking. We have silk stocking. There was not nylons. If you had a run, there was some woman in the cleaning company who would fix the run.
JK: Mend it, right.
MC: You had stockings, not even in the winter because we didn’t have stockings. I don’t know. You just adjust and make the best you can.
JK: Sure. I’m curious, I’ve heard with the Vichy government that they promoted the ideal woman through propaganda, a woman’s place in the home. I’ve been reading about this. I’m curious if you received material.
[00:21:25]
MC: That’s a very difficult question, that Vichy. Pétain was the head.
JK: Right.
MC: I still believe that he was a very good citizen. He had to do what the German(s) told him. I mean, He protected us by doing what the German(s) told him. The German(s) told him to arrest somebody or to do something, he had to do it. He had no choice. Maybe, if he had not do it [sic], they would have taken off on the population. It’s a very difficult thing. One you are under the occupation, what to give and what to take. They threatened you. I don’t know. I’m not going to fault Pétain for what he did. I know what he did was not always what I would have liked to, but I don’t know if he had any choice.
JK: With women in the war, what was their role?
MC: What?
JK: With women as participants in the war, what did they do? Did they just reinforce their roles as a homemaker? Did you see that take place?
MC: Most of them tried to survive. We are in the 40s and the women were not so accustomed to work out of the home then they are now.
JK: Right.
MC: The women stayed home and they tried to survive. They tried to do the best with what they had. I can not say anything else.
JK: Sure.
MC: They tried to survive. Which other question do you have?
JK: I’m curious, in 1944 in June Normandy was liberated. Since you were somewhat near that region, perhaps during that time, do you remember that happening?
MC: No, no. I was in the Northern part of the Channel. We were very, very occupied. The Germans thought that if the Allies tried to invade, they would invade at that narrow part of the Channel. We had full of Germans. Even right now, I could take you to bunkers that we have around the beach. We had in the little town where I lived, there was some bunker there because they were sure that the Allies would end there and the Allied made it be so. They bombard us to give us the feeling that they would come near. They bombard the train. They bombard my grandmother’s farm house. The barn was bombard. That’s something else. There was lots of resistance. My grandmother, back to my grandmother when I was there, was very how would I say tight with me. She would not let me out of the property without a guard or somebody with me. She didn’t want me to bicycle or walk in town by myself because of the Germans.
JK: With the escort, was it a male usually or sometimes was it a female who would go with you?
MC: What?
JK: When you went into the city bicycling, was the escort male usually or female who would accompany you?
MC: It was usually a male.
JK: A male, oh ok.
MC: Most of them were gardener [sic] that came in.
JK: Ok.
MC: So one day, my uncle had a friend and asked me if I would take somebody from my little town to the next little town bicycling. He says, “You don’t ask anything. You don’t talk to him. You just have him following and I’ll tell you a contact. About eleven o’clock, that’s when he came in. He looked like a gardener. We bicycled. My contact was a woman who was getting out of church and she had a fresh baguette. She was munching on a piece of baguette. He knew the contact and saw the women. I left to go and I went. It turned out afterwards, I did not know, that it had been an American that were passing because that gentleman friend of my uncle was a member of what we call the Coeur de la Rivière. Which means the course of the river. Who was passing American or whoever it was from village to village hoping they would go back to France. I probably passed four or five, six something. Those American, they were most of the time, parachute to see and go from England to Germany. They could not go over Belgium because Belgium was neutral. So they went through the northern part of France. Naturally, the German(s) tried to get them. There was always, often, some man who would parachute, if their plane has been hit, they would parachute. If they were, in any case in perfect good health, they some of those people that I mentioned in the resistance would try to catch them and hide them. If they were wounded, we can not touch them because we could not take care of them. We let the Germans take prisoners. Now those American, that they had “cooket” and they had shinny boots. In France, in 1940, no one had a “cooket”. So they had to be cut and hidden in people’s home for several months sometimes. Until their hair grew back, until they could have some kind of beer or something and they could be left in the society, looking more or less French. The boots had to be scrubbed and sometime it took two or three months. They were hidden among the people in the town there. Naturally, they took a chance.
JK: Right.
MC: That’s where they were. Some of them may have been something else. I don’t know what they were up to. At the time, I didn’t even know who I was taking. I learned it afterwards because the less I knew the best off you were. I was going to tell you something. Oh yes, we had in our little town and we had them in Paris, suddenly we had the horse and buggy. In Paris, the taxi became a horse and buggy.
JK: Wow. Fascinating
MC: Because there was no car. (laughter) In the little town where I was, some of the farmers just suddenly came in town in horse and buggy. They would sometime loan the horse and buggy to people in the town because we didn’t have any car. I remember my grandmother having renting, don’t know what she did on Sunday, a horse and buggy to go out to the sea shore when she wanted to go. Because there was no car, how could she go?
JK: Right.
MC: She wasn’t going to bicycle for twenty or forty miles, so she rented a horse and buggy.
JK: How did you feel about the reversal of technology, almost?
MC: About what?
JK: About the reversal of transportation, you had a vehicle as a child and then you returned back to the buggy. It’s this odd thing to do as a society.
MC: I don’t know. That was the best you can do at the time (laughter).
JK: Right.
MC: I don’t know. There became some very fancy horse and buggy too in Paris, especially.
JK: Really.
MC: I don’t know where they got them, but there was very fancy horse and buggy. It was quite unusual to see. Have you been to Paris?
JK: I haven’t yet.
MC: To see the Champs-Élysées, which is the main center of Paris, some horse dunk in the middle of the street. That’s what it was.
JK: That’s right.
MC: It’s fun to laugh about now, but I don’t know at the time.
[00:31:17]
JK: So you interacted with the Americans. Did you get to interact with these two Americans that stayed in your grandmother’s home?
MC: No. When the American landed in Normandy, overnight the German(s) was gone [sic] in our little town. Overnight they were just gone. My little town was free by British. The British came in and took Normandy and all that. The American(s) went straight on to Paris. The British and the American, they were two different army [sic]. The British went up on the coast Channel, but the American(s) went straight on to Paris in 1945. I wanted to go back to the university. My dear Vie, when she became a widow she was still a young woman. She was in her thirty [sic] and she had only one desire which was to meet an American man and hoping to come back in this country. Her apartment was always full of American(s). They came for lunch, dinner. She had contact with the American Embassy. One day, for dinner, there was a young American came in and I fell in love (laughter).
JK: Wow!
MC: It was love at first sight.
JK: Really.
MC: It really, he was a member of what we call the Visitors Bureau. Visitors Bureau is part of the Army who has escort for VIP who come. He had frozen feet during the war. He was left behind the line as dead, in the winter and he got frozen feet. He was not fit for combat anymore. So they sent him to Paris and he was a member of the Visitors Bureau, which served as an escort for VIPs who came in. I had a very interesting experience with him. One of them was Senator Connelly. Senator Connelly that was the father of the one that you know, who was in the Senate and came with his wife. My husband was his escort, but at the time we were not married. One day for me he says, “Senator Connelly is with his wife and they want to go to the opera tonight. I want you to come with me so there will be woman. So we got to go.” So we went to the opera, we had the President’s Lounge, and Mrs. Connelly had a full mink coat which she left at the vestiaire. Senator Connelly had his tan cowboy hat and he kept his tan cowboy hat during the whole opera in the President’s Lounge. I was so mortified. I had never seen, a French, we had never seen a cowboy hat. You know a ten gallon hat. To know that you don’t take it off (laughter) in the opera. I was just terribly mortified. Another time, General Lee was a general in Paris at the time. General Lee, after I was in Paris for maybe a year or so, took off with a woman. Although he had his own apartment or his own house, I don’t remember what, he went and lived with that woman. Very nice woman, by the way. One day my husband or fiancé found me and he said, “Mrs. Lee came unannounced. Will you please take her out for lunch when I have a chance to find General Lee and bring him back. He’s in his apartment so I can show her where he lives. I took Mrs. Lee and we had lunch. I don’t know if she ever knew, but that’s what it was.
JK: What were your impressions of the Americans in your own country coming to visit?
MC: Well I must admit if you’re talking about somebody like Senator Connelly, I thought he was a little rude. Mrs. Connelly was alright, but Senator Connelly I think was a little rude to me as a French woman. At the time, my brother still very recently, in French when you meet a woman not only do you shake hand with a woman, but you kiss her hand. Senator Connelly was rude. Senator Connelly didn’t even shake hand [sic]. That’s something when every country has a custom. The custom in French is to shake hand. We do shake hand with everybody. If I meet you ten times a day, I’ll shake hands with you ten times a day. Senator Connelly didn’t and the American did not. American don’t shake hand. Something else too that I thought very annoying is the American way of whistling. I’ve never been whistled at when I walked in Paris and suddenly I hear this American behind me whistle at me. I thought that was very rude. We are accustomed to be pinched (laughter), but not accustomed to being whistled. I thought that was very rude. You know, everybody has different customs. Those young men, they had never been outside of their country. Now that I’m hear I can see why they didn’t know the custom of the European. So you can not blame them for they didn’t know.
JK: Would you share with me more about you’re American husband? You said you married in 1946.
MC: If what?
JK: Would you share with me more about your husband, maybe your courtship that led into marriage in 1946 and a journey to America.
MC: I reinvented myself because that’s what you do. When we were married in ’46 and we were lucky because of his connection, we were able to go down and honeymoon on the Riviera because he had taken the American Consul’s wife (the Rivera from the hospital in Paris down home because I don’t know why.) We were lucky. So we went down to the Riviera and we stayed in Paris, March April, four months before we came back in this country. He came in an American convoy because still under the Army. I was not, so I could not come back with him. I followed him two or three weeks later on ship. There was no plane at the time. I must say that was one of the hardest things I did was to stand on that ship and to see my country move away from me. Not knowing if I would ever come back. Not knowing where I was going. I knew I was going as far as possible in California. That was as far as I could go. I didn’t know anything about my in-laws. I didn’t know anything about the American life. It really was very difficult thing.
JK: Certainly.
MC: Now, you can go in twelve hours between Los Angeles and Paris.
JK: Right.
MC: At the time it was by ship. It took about four or five days to arrive in New York. Then you had to go from New York to California. We were lucky were able to go by plane, but not on the one trip. My husband was there and met me at the ship. That was a great comfort to me. We stayed in New York for maybe about a week, visited New York. (laughter) I remember I met a French woman who had also married an American and she was living in New York. We met them in in New York. They took us out to dinner at an American steakhouse. We were served a steak. What was her name? Her name was Jacqueline I think. We were served steak that could have served at least four people. She and I look at the steak and cried thinking that, “How could they possibly give us something like that when there are starving people in France.”
JK: Were you overwhelmed with the abundance here? Your experiences were so different.
MC: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely overwhelmed by the whole thing. I found New York claustrophobic. I had claustrophobic. I think New York compared to Paris: New York has small street, tall building; Paris we have large street, the Champs-Élysées. They are lined with trees. There’s no trees in New York unless you go to the high park. It’s dirty. It was very dirty at the time. Maybe it’s not now, but we found it very dirty. People were so coming-going, never have time. In Paris, you have time, maybe not now as much as you used to, but you have time to wander the streets slowly. To sit at the café and have cup of coffee. In New York, you don’t have to do anything. It’s always come and go. It was overwhelming.
JK: Certainly.
MC: Absolutely overwhelming.
JK: I’m curious what your perceptions of the United States were before you came and then afterwards? It’s certainly a different experience.
MC: It’s difficult to tell you what my perceptions of the United States. First because my father’s wife was an American, so she had brought with us some of the customs which was not always French. The food, she wanted to have pumpkin pie. What in the heck, pumpkin pie. (laughter) So she had the cook get the pumpkin. She had a few things like that to just shock me. I mean you don’t have pumpkin pie. Every time that time of the year come(s) I think about think about pumpkin pie. I still don’t like pumpkin pie. I don’t know. Most of the thing my impression of United States when I came to California before, I was in love. I think when you’re young and in love anything that my husband did. Anytime that we went out together with some of his friends, I saw everything from the eyes of woman in love. You look at things entirely different. What was difficult was when I came to California.
JK: What were your perceptions of the state before hand?
MC: What?
JK: Before coming to California, do you recall how you felt about the state and how felt about it after coming?
MC: We didn’t know much about the United States at the time except that everyone was rich. The only think I felt prepared when I came in the United States is that I always felt that United States was ahead in mechanic(s). They were ahead in technic. They were ahead in many things like that, but I found out that the American was so far behind socially and I still think so.
JK: Could you expand on that, what you mean by socially?
MC: Look at what happened in Perturis. It’s nobody’s business. It’s his private life. It’s not against the law. He can do whatever he wants to. Look at what Nixon did. It’s nobody’s business.
JK: Right. We have voyeurism.
MC: You charge people here socially, I don’t know. We’re far more tolerant than you are. I don’t know.
JK: I’m very curious when you moved to California, you established a new home with your husband. What was that like? What did you prioritize? How did you decorate?
MC: I had to reinvent myself in many things. I was lucky because not speaking English because you see during the war we could not learn to speak English in school. Even if you had taken English, you could not learn to speak English. You had to go back to learn German. Some when I came in, my husband had been in France maybe for about a year and he had the little notion of French. So spoke French or maybe we didn’t speak at all. (laugh) I really didn’t speak English when I came in. I didn’t know how I was going to be accepted by my in-laws, especially my mother-in-law. When my husband had written to her that he had met a French woman that was going to get married, naturally she was not very happy. She wrote him tell her son that idea of an American girl waiting for you here. If after six months you still in love with that woman, we’ll have her come and you can get married here. He showed me the letter and talked about it. I said, “not-uh, I’m not going to California unless I am married. So I didn’t quite know how I was going to be accepted. She did accept me very well. In fact, she became a very nice mother to me. I was lucky enough that because my husband had to finish UCLA, we lived them. They had a house, old, big enough that we could live with them. I learned a little bit the way of American. The first thing that shocked me was the food because in France I’m accustomed to have for breakfast as a child a cup of hot cocoa. As I growing up (sic) with a cup of tea because I happened to like tea and just a piece of warm bread. Here you have bacon, sausage, absolutely something that we don’t have for breakfast. I guess another things was the simple things like the marketing. We have in France, I was accustomed to primer shop, butcher shop, a grocery shop, a bakery shop. Here is everything in one store and you can touch. In France you wouldn’t dare touch an orange. You asked the woman or the sales person to touch it and give it to you, but you wouldn’t dare touch it. Here everybody goes to the market and they feel it. That’s was very surprising. Something else, there of course the way of eating is different. You eat, especially at the time, you had that way of cutting with your knife and then change. (You) put your fork from the left in the right. It’s very awkward. That was something.
[00:50:40]
JK: Did you adjust to these things then? Did you embrace the new way of life or were you resilient and embrace your French customs here?
MC: No, adjust to things. I was very anxious to please. I had no choice. I could not go back. I had nothing to go back to. So I had to adjust or die. So I just simply adjusted. Some things were easier than others. Right now, I still eat with my knife on the right and my fork on the left. I still don’t change that. Another thing, I see it here too and it bothers me, over there I was raised with servants. I was told as a little girl that servant have to be treated politely. You say please and thank you. You just don’t order a servant. I see some people even here who have a way of talking to the staff. That bothers me. I’ve seen that in well to do American who just treat their chauffeur not very politely. Just a different way at looking at a thing. What kind of question do you have?
JK: What kind of electronic devices such as cooking materials like refrigerators or washers, stoves, and electric irons did you have in Europe?
MC: Most things were done by hand. You beat your rug by hand. You talking about ’46 and there was not even here, the Robot Coupe, Cuisinart, the things that they have now. We just didn’t have that in France. The iron was not an electric iron. The iron was one of those big, heavy iron thing that you put on the stove. An iron was not an electric iron.
JK: It’s fascinating, a lot longer to do those.
MC: Well, yes it does. We had more help. I think it was true in this country, probably in the 30s too.
JK: When you arrived in America, did your family have the servant class assisting you with those household?
MC: What?
JK: Did you husband’s family have the assistance of servants when you arrived here in California?
MC: Did they have a cleaning lady?
JK: Right, to assist with those chores.
MC: Yes.
JK: So somewhat similar to your upbringing with having a servant.
MC: No, because they certainly didn’t have the help or the servant that I was accustomed to. They just didn’t have it. I don’t know if it’s a question of California. I don’t think California would have known and heard, don’t have the help that maybe they had in the South. I don’t know that because I don’t live in the South, but what I’ve read they may have had more domestic help in the South than they did in California. Certainly my in-laws had a cleaning lady, but they had no live in servant.
JK: So they’d come only once in a while to assist.
MC: You know a couple times a week or three times.
JK: What labor saving devices were available in the 40s in America? Do you recall?
MC: (laughter) The people, I must admit over there, I don’t remember if we had toilet paper. I do remember that we used some newspaper. There was this George or somebody who used to take the daily paper and cut it very nicely in small piece and put it in the bathroom. Maybe it was the war. That’s what we used. I can not remember. Well my grandmother we had some of those too, it seems to me. I think o the whole Americans are very wasteful comparatively to what I’ve lived. Even right now, if I go and visit my brother and his wife at the seashore sometimes we had paper napkin for breakfast. Well, we kept it, the paper napkin for maybe one or two days. Maybe we fold it back. We didn’t need to keep it. We are just not as wasteful. The American are very wasteful comparatively to what we have in France.
JK: Sure. Did the home that you moved into in California, did it come preinstalled with the oven and dishwasher? Or were the put in later?
MC: No, dishwasher didn’t come in until my first house. My first house didn’t have a dishwasher. I didn’t have a dishwasher until about the 50s. It was done by hand.
JK: The same with the refrigerator or washing machine? Did you acquire those in the 50s?
MC: I think I had a washing machine early. Although I think for my first job, I had what we call a diaper service because I don’t know. I did have a washing machine in my first house, but I had a diaper service.
JK: This is your first home in Bakersfield?
MC: No my first home was in the San Fernando Valley, first in Van Nuys and then Encino. That’s where I lived.
JK: Do you think getting these new technologies like the washer and dryer made the workload go down like lessen the workload?
MC: Did I do what?
JK: When you purchased these new appliances in the 50s, like refrigerators and washers and dryers and dishwashers, did it make your life easier?
MC: You bet. (laughter) They sure did. Especially the dishwasher. Definitely.
JK: Did you use your time differently? So when you took less time to wash the dishes, where else would you invest your time, maybe to do another chore or relax and read a book or cook perhaps? I know you enjoy that.
MC: Did I use my time differently?
JK: When new technology came.
MC: When I came in this country, certainly you can not compare my time in this country, for example for the time of Vie in France because she had domestic (help) and I didn’t have it. So my time in this county, when I was a young woman, was like every other woman my age was busy with children and housekeeping. Certainly my generation when I was young, none of the friends that I knew with husbands were working. There was only one of them who was working, she was working for the Harper’s Bazaar and we all thought poor Nancy. Her husband can not keep her. It wasn’t until the 60s or 70s, I would say, that the woman started working.
JK: Right. Do you remember receiving advertisements for the new appliances? I have a book here about women’s advertisement in the 50s and 60s promising happiness if you purchase this particular toaster, using the title “Love, honor, and crisper toast” for marriage. When you got married, you get start a home and furnish it with all these new things. I’m curious if these things are familiar to you like the vacuum cleaner.
MC: I was greatly helped by my mother in law. She’s the one who helped me. I knew what I wanted basically, but she was the one who was able to get it for me because it took me at least a good couple of years before I could really get my way around speaking enough. Another thing was that I didn’t drive when I first came here. I got my driver’s license maybe two years after I came here because in France I didn’t drive. I don’t think I could not have done it if it was not for her. I didn’t know where to go. She lived in Hollywood when Hollywood was a nice city. I was kinda afraid a little bit. Nobody spoke my language. I didn’t speak their English. I don’t think I could have do it without her.
[01:02:02]
JK: Did she instruct you and help you with every little thing in becoming the American woman?
MC: Yes, I went to the market with her. I went to buy clothes with her so I would know what to do. I was really was with her for probably about two years. I was constantly with her and she was constantly with me when I needed something. I don’t know how a woman would do it, a young woman, not knowing the language if she didn’t have somebody to take her [and] to help her. My husband was absolutely useless when it come (sic) to domesticity. (laughter)
JK: Did he try at all?
MC: No he didn’t try. That was a husband of those times. That was a woman’s stuff. He left that to his mother and his wife.
JK: Do you think American homes and filling it with the products from the grocery store and having an American television set made you feel part of our culture and assimilate? By learning to embrace in the clothing and different aspects like that, is there a connection between our consumerism?
MC: When I came in, my husband had been at UCLA and he was a fraternity guy. He had several friend(s). I know what discrimination is. Some of those people were very jealous. For example we were going to some friend and I was asked to bring a cake. I brought a cake, I think was a lemon cake that I made or bought, and I was told by the hostess “I can see you’re not American (or) you would have brought us a chocolate cake.” I had lots of those little things like that. I understand it now, but at the time I thought that maybe the American was not as kind as they should be. They were jealous. I can’t find any other reason. Some of those women who were young during my husband’s school were jealous that he brought a French woman from France. I did feel quite a bit, not quite a bit, several occasions where I was discriminated on. Strange because I didn’t eat the way they did. I didn’t dress the way they did. I brought some clothes from France that were maybe not as casual as the American (sic) wear. So I felt sometimes a little strange.
JK: How did you react to those remarks?
MC: Nothing, I just followed them and let them be. What can I say, I’m not going to fight with American woman.
JK: Certainly.
MC: They are woman that I was going to live with and had to get along with. I just let them be. Sometime I would complain to my husband and he said, “Well that’s what it is.”
JK: Do you self-identity as being a homemaker? You said you stayed home to take care of your children and run the home. Do you use that as a definition of yourself of being a homemaker?
MC: No I define myself as being a wife. That’s what I am, that’s what I was. I was a homemaker during a certain period of my time and during anther period for seventeen years I told you I was with that friend of mine in the cookware store and I gave some cooking lessons. That gave me the feeling that I could do something, but during all those two different periods, I always felt more or less that I was a wife. If there was any choice, my husband would have been first. That’s the way I felt.
JK: Could you share with me more about your cookware store and the show. This is quite a fascinating opportunity that most women don’t pursue. You learned in (cooking) with a passion and then it changed into something you instruct women how to do?
MC: To start with, my aunt owned the school of Cordon Bleu in France. When she knew that I was going to get married she told me you come here and I want to teach you how to at least boil an egg. I had no idea. I was with my grandmother and never in the kitchen. I went there for 6 months and learned the basics of cooking and I kinda liked it. It was kinda fun. During home and raising kids I did the best. I had four sons. You know, cook like every woman does the best you can. But after my children were gone I got interested more in cooking for my husband and I. When that friend of mine started that cookware (store) and first she asked me if I’d be interested to go with her. We talked it over with my husband and I said well the things that I’d like to do is to give some cooking lessons. Cooking lessons, we (are) talking about the late 70s. Cooking lessons were becoming very popular in the late 70s. And I lived in Bakersfield. There was going to be, Williams-Sonoma was supposed to come in Bakersfield in a new shopping center. Because the shopping center was late, and Williams-Sonoma could not open a store for Christmas, they gave it up. So my friend started that cookware (store) and of course Williams-Sonoma gave lessons, so I thought why don’t I do the same. So we started putting cooking school kitchen in the back of the store and we built the stove, oven and then it started. And because I guess it was at the time, cooking lessons became very popular and I did well. I did mostly French cuisine. Then I branched out a little bit. A Chinese woman there would give Chinese lessons. The Mexican guy gave some Mexican lessons, but personally I just gave French cooking. It worked very well and I enjoyed it. In fact I have a picture of mine there.
JK: Goodness, that’s wonderful.
[01:10:26]
MC: Then one day one of the NBC stations in Bakersfield asked me if I wanted to have a little cooking spot, it was not a long time. I said yes I would be interested. Called it “Cooking with an Accent” and I just gave a few of those. They came to the store and photographed in the store when I was giving cooking lessons. It was kinda fun.
JK: Sounds like a neat opportunity.
MC: It was an opportunity. It gave me the feeling by the time of 70s women were starting to evolve a little bit. They weren’t complete housewives that they were. It gave me a chance to get out. By then, most of my sons were gone. I think the last one, I think he may have already graduated and gone to college, something like that. So I was alone at home and needed something to do and that’s something that appealed to me with a good friend. That was fun.
JK: Since that was done at the store, did you promote the cookware objects that you used to prepare. Maybe the mix bowls or the particular tools.
MC: Definitely. Definitely.
JK: How did that work?
MC: It was a very good way. We get 10 percent of every (purchase). During the cooking lesson, if you bought some utensil maybe you got 10 percent off. It definitely brought lots of people to the store and of course I tried to use all the things that we had in the store. They had a new something for the Cuisinart, I would use it. A new frying pan, I would use it. I always used something new there. That was at the store and it was fun for me. It helped me do the two things I liked best to do. I like people and I like cooking, so I could do both things at the same time.
JK: Did you like the new gadgets that they brought like the Cuisinart?
MC: Some I do, some I don’t. Some are good. I think some of them seem to take more time than if I do it by hand.
JK: Sure and to clean afterwards doesn’t help as much.
MC: Yes. I can get the zest of a lemon with a fork than take a machine, a zester and wash it and put it away.”
JK: Did you purchase some of the objects for your own home that you found useful?
MC: Some I did that I thought were useful I did. Some I didn’t.
JK: Was there an advantage to seeing all the latest gadgets at the store and be ahead of your time?
MC: It was fun seeing them, but you know you can get gadget crazy. I don’t need to have a drawer full of zester, openers and that. I just needed a good knife and a good kitchen fork and I can do many things with that without having all those gadgets. I used it in my cooking lessons because I want to sell them, but to say that I brought them home and use it all, no I cannot say I did. I do enjoy Cuisinart. I wouldn’t do without it.
JK: Is that your favorite brand?
MC: It was at the time. Now I have I have Robot Coupe which is the same company. Either one of them are fine.
JK: You found that they were the best products and you kinda stayed faithful to it?
MC: I stick to what I’ve become accustomed. I don’t like blender for example. I like my Cuisinart better than I do blender because I know how to use the Cuisinart and I know how it works. I work on it regulated. Maybe if I became accustomed to blenders I would like it, but I don’t. Never had a blender, just didn’t care for it. It all depends.
JK: Do you have a particular favorite French dish that was your favorite to prepare?
JK: I’m going to tell you the most popular one was the sauce. Sauces were very popular and another one was the soufflé. You can use one soufflé. You can use roulade, which is rolled soufflé. You can use cold soufflé. That was another very popular one. I had a sarie. One was about meat. One was about fish. One was about eggs. Simple, American don’t know how to cook a decent hard boiled egg (laughter). It’s stupid. One was about dessert. I liked dessert, too, but the most popular was certainly the sauces and the soufflé. I mean the sauce is what really makes a dish. Those were my popular ones.
JK: How did you acquire all these recipes? Were they family traditions?
MC: Some came from my family. Some came from the Cordon Bleu. They had to be changed because in America you cook by volume, we cook by weight. For example they tell you half a pound or a quarter pound. Here you say cup or half a cup. Here is by volume, over there is by weight. So they had to be changed. Most of them had to be adjusted. I would try them at home and see how it works, made the adjustments, and used that.
JK: That’s quite a different approach. It seems like it would take some time to adjust all those recipes.
MC: I think things have changed. I think in the 50s and 60s, they used an awful lot of cans. I remember that I had some recipes that I cut out of the Los Angeles Times and they always seemed to have a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup or a can of Campbell’s something. I think right now you do less of that than you did at the time. Certainly people have traveled more and have learned. Definitely the American are far more educated when it comes to food then they were in the 50s and 60s. You went in a restaurant in the 50s and 60s the only thing you could have was steak or ground beef or roast beef. Now you can go to a restaurant and have some very nice things. People have travelled and learned more. The one thing I enjoy in the cooking here is that the French woman is still very snobbish. The French woman cook only French cuisines. It’s the best in the world and won’t do anything but French cuisine. The American woman enjoy all kind of cuisine. The American woman will try French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Mexican cuisines, and is very willing to try many things. I think that was very interesting.
Track 2
JK: Have you embraced the international cuisine
MC: Some of it I do, some I don’t. It’s very interesting, the hotter the climate, the hotter the cuisine. They have more spice, India for example is a hot country. There is far more spicy. The same thing is true in maybe here and Mexico. They cuisine is far more spicy the hotter. I think it might be hiding what might not be fresh. Certainly in Europe, the beginning of the stew because they had no refrigeration. Sometimes the food or the meat might be dubiously fresh, so by making it a stew you make it eatable. You could not eat it otherwise. Does your mother like cooking? Do your own cooking?
JK: I do, especially baking.
MC: Baking?
JK: Uh-huh, I’m exploring more and more of it. I’m intrigued with the courses that you used to conduct because I think that’s a wonderful place for young women to learn, to use all the skills, embrace the tools, and explore new recipes. It’s a nice venue. It’s not to prevalent in this particular time.
MC: Yeah.
JK: So it’s a very interesting part of your life story. It’s not as common. I find it very intriguing.
MC: Well, that’s what it is.
JK: What kind of clubs or cultural groups you might have been a part of when you moved to Southern California? The question that all the students are asking is also (asking).
MC: You mean social classes, that’s what you’re talking about?
JK: Oh no, sorry what we’re curious as a class is if you were part of any clubs, cultural groups, or political organizations when you moved to California and if you had any of those connections in Europe if they were similar? I don’t know if you joined any social groups when you moved here.
MC: You see that’s something else, the difference between the European woman and the American woman. The American woman is much a joiner. For example, let’s see about church. Some people are sometime would question their motives to go to church because for some people church is a social ability. It’s the companionship that they get more than the spirituality. The American woman loves to join a club. We don’t have club(s) in France. I joined the Junior League here, never heard of Junior League in France. We have never heard of the Junior League, there are several leagues here. In Bakersfield for example, I belonged to the Volunteer League. American women just love that. They find a certain strata of society by the leagues that they belong to. If you belong to the Junior League, you’re at the top strata of the society. They strive to get there. Not just because they are what they are, because what they represent when they become a member of the Junior League or their Assistance League or whatever it is that they want to. I don’t know if it’s a feeling of inferiority. I think that maybe the French woman is more secure that the American woman. She’s certainly more secure in her marriage. Divorce are not that easy in France. We have divorce, but really they’re not quite as socially accepted as they are here. They do, I mean especially right now. They do want that they were in my generation, but still I see my brother and I see my nephews. I don’t see much divorce among the French.
JK: What do you think of Le PACS (pacte civil de solidarité)?
MC: About what?
JK: Le PACS, I heard of the social arrangement of marriage.
MC: What is that?
JK: It’s a social connection to a person, it’s not as formal as a marriage.
MC: I think the French pay more attention to culture and less to money. I think the American people are very much taken by money. If they knew someone that has money that’s right away something that they envy. I don’t think that we makes as much display of money, the French, than we do here. First we don’t have the amount of money that we have here. We certainly have people who are very well off who have their country home, yacht, villa, but do it less ostensibly than you do it here.
JK: I’ve heard that the home furnishing is quite different as well because of that (view on money). The style is quite different and the importance of home furnishing.
MC: It’s quite different between East and California. I have a sister-in-law who lives back East and I have gone to see her and her daughter. In fact we thought we were going to spend some time in Connecticut. The older the house, almost the more expensive, important it is. Some of the furniture that I’ve seen in those homes back East, if the fabric is torn, that’s alright as long it’s an old fabric. We don’t have that in California. California people like new things. Something that still shocked me (sic) was people demolished a house to build another one. I find that shocking. In Europe, and I don’t know and I suppose back East too, we pride ourselves in a house with older (conditions). We naturally modernize it. It will have the comfort of a new kitchen and the comfort of central heating, but we will keep the house. The style and thing of the house stays. We appreciate all things. I think it’s something special to California. I think California like(s) new things. California don’t want old stuff.
JK: It’s a different ideology of consumerism and possessions.
MC: Yeah, maybe.
JK: It’s slightly different. Like you are saying in domestic U.S. from the East coast to the West, there’s a difference.
MC: I mean talking about fashion, also I do think that the French woman is not as eccentric as the California woman. We like classic things and once in a while we’ll have something different. If you have a Chanel suit, you will keep it for twenty years. You just have a different blouse, different scarf. In France you also have to know about the little details. It’s important if you wear a scarf to make sure that you tie it the way it is in 2002. That you don’t tie it as you did in 2010 because 2002 has a different way of tying it. You must know that, but our scarf is the one you have had for twenty years, or your silk scarf for fifteen years. You just know that little different.
[00:10:48]
JK: Did you follow Vogue to know these fashion statement or trends? I’m curious about your readership of magazines that would guide a woman.
MC: I used to go in France twice a year for several years, so I knew what was going on. I had my sister-in-law and could keep up with it. Right now, the last few years, because of my age I have not gone to France. Although I do have a French magazine, France Today, that gives me a little bit of an idea. At my age it’s different than in was twenty years ago.
JK: That’s neat. In what ways have your experiences in Europe shaped your life here in California?
MC: It’s very different (sic) to say because when I came here I was a young woman. I was not a mother. I was not a housewife. If I had been a mother or a housewife in France and moved her as a mother and housewife I could have telling you the difference. I was not a mother over there. I was not a housewife. What I would have done in France and would have done here, I don’t know since I didn’t have the experience in both countries. I see it with my sister-in law. They are more family oriented in France then they are here. I think also the distance is very different. I see my nephews when they were in college, they were probably an hour or hour and a half from home. They would never think of anything else but coming home on Sunday. Even now my son, if they live in Paris when I was with my father, his mother and his brother lived about two and a half hours drive. Almost every Sunday we went and had dinner with his mother. We are far more family oriented. In other hand, we are not as generous with our neighbors as the Americans are. When I came in this country, I was very surprised the example of somebody died in the family, all the neighbors who came in and brought food. That’s something that would never happen over there. I think that Americans don’t know if it’s that pioneer feeling who gives the American more generosity than the French people, but the French people are more family oriented.
JK: In what ways do you think Southern California has been influenced by European migrants like yourself?
MC: Not very much. You don’t see enough. In fact I see a big difference between California and back East. In California you’re so far removed from the government that you’re almost a different country. Californian people, as I said, at one time we thought we were going to move to Connecticut and we rented a house over there. It’s an entirely different concept. They are more American than the Californian. I don’t think that the California is as American as some of the people back East. They don’t have the background. They don’t have the culture. I like California. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
JK: If you had settled in another part of the United States, how might your experiences have been different?
MC: You cannot compare. First it’s the climate that makes it different. Plus when you are back East, you are closer to the government. Things meant something to you. Here you never see if you have a foreign visitor. You don’t care about it… Back East, it’s right there (foreign visitors). It’s different.
JK: Certainly. How do you define yourself?
MC: What do you mean how do I define myself? (laughter)
JK: In any way you want to interpret you want to that. It’s a general question we’re asking. Whatever comes to your mind with that question.
MC: I call myself a French American. I am American. I got my citizenship on the 25 of February 1949. I’m an American when there’s an election. I care voting (sic), but I’m not going to forget my French culture. I’m very interested in what’s going on in America and France. I know the election. I know what Sarkozy or Laurent stood for. I have a friend I phone every Sunday morning. I phone my nephew. I see them. I’m still very interested in what’s going on in France. I’m both (of) the cultures. I have not given up my French culture and still I’m proud of the American and California culture. I’m going to say California because I lived most of my life in California.
JK: How would you like World War II to be remembered?
MC: What? How would I like to be remembered?
JK: That question as well. How would you like to be remembered?
MC: I’d like to be remembered as a caring, loving, and not so stupid wife and mother. I’m very proud of the fact that my children have been to France and my children will keep the French connection. I made sure that they do. My nephew comes and visits me. My sons when they have a chance go over there. They all have been over there. They are proud of their ancestor. They will, I know, keep the connection which is something that I’m very pleased about.
JK: How would you like World War II to be remembered?
MC: I don’t want to remember. I cannot see. I still get flashback(s). Sometimes I can talk about it, sometimes I can’t. The other day, I don’t know why there was (sic) two men at the dining room table. They were talking about it and suddenly like a wave I heard the bombing and I just can’t do it. It’s too much, I cannot do it.
JK: Certainly. Do you have any additional comments that you’d like to share?
MC: I think I shared pretty much with you.
JK: Yes, it’s quite a story. I’ve enjoyed hearing your journey to here. It’s remarkable.
MC: It’s quite a story. You have to reinvent yourself. I was thinking about reinventing myself. It’s something that I’ve never been able to reinvent myself is Halloween. I just don’t like it. When the children were growing up, of course I did that, but I think it’s a stupid day. I can not reinvent that. I do enjoy Thanksgiving, but Halloween there’s things I can reinvent myself and some I can’t.
JK: Right. Still true to yourself.
MC: It’s just born inside me. I still love to shake hands with everyone. I can not do without it. I love the kiss, on both sides. (laughter)
JK: Thank you for your time. This concludes our interview.
END OF INTERVIEW