Jean-Marie Martin

When we brought Valérie home, no one was available to come and help; Mary had to do it all herself and we adjusted the best we could.  Mary took the girls to LA that summer.  The few days they spent with her mom and particularly with her grandma were very special to her.  Caroline and Valérie, were introduced to their cousins Kim and Wendy.

In late fall, after the grape harvest was over, my parents sent us tickets so we could visit them in France.  In our excitement to go, we failed to add the girls to either of our passports, and LAX officials wouldn’t let us take off.  Finally, after we obtained their birth certificates, they were added to Mary’s passport.  Their pictures were especially cute, since Caroline had recently cut her sister’s bangs.  After a layover in Paris, we arrived in Bordeaux where my brother Bernard met us at the airport.  We stayed in Augey all three weeks we were in France.

Caroline, almost two, adapted well to the new environment, being quite social.  Valérie, seven months old, wanted to start walking already.  The night we arrived, we went to Bernard’s house for a visit.  Valerie pulled herself up behind a chair which tumbled onto her, resulting in a big bump on her forehead and two black eyes.  Later on in the week, we were concerned that Valérie had a persistent high fever.  Dr Dugers came over and prescribed warm milk for what we thought was strep throat.  Of course Mary was quite alarmed, not trusting a French country doctor, but Valérie was soon fine, having a simple sore throat.  We spent our days visiting many family friends, including Madame Pialoux, the pharmacist in Rauzan, and especially Marthe, the nice lady who had known my dad since he was a young boy.  When I was in elementary school in Rauzan, I always had lunch at her house, as did my brother Bernard before me.  I even spent the night at her house sometimes if my parents were out of town.

Melanie was born July 7, 1972.  That summer, Marie-Helene, my sister’s oldest daughter, spent a few weeks with us.  An energetic 20-year-old, she was Melanie’s godmother and a good help to Mary.  They bought some fabric and sewed a summer dress for Marie-Hélène, which she later wore to some family event back home in France.  My conservative family disapproved of the dress because it did not have much of a back!  Caroline and I also took her to Disneyland, and what a treat it was for all of us.

I started to feel secure in my job, having good rapport with the upper management.  I enjoyed the pressures, at times being responsible for three or four crews and their supervisors.  I started to be totally consumed by my work, coming home late afternoon, tired and thinking only about the next day.  I now realize that I was becoming dominated by “the Gallo culture” where we were expected to be tough, ruthless in dealing with vendors, and secretive.  I almost got fired because I was caught in a coffee shop one morning with a representative of an irrigation company I was working with.  We were having a simple cup of coffee!  But it violated the company’s intolerance of relationships with outside groups.

In late September, as harvest was winding down, I received a call from a Davis classmate who encouraged me to apply for a job working in developing vineyards in Napa Valley.  It could have not come at a better time, as I had just been assigned to work as a Pomologist at a large and very isolated apple ranch that the Gallo family was developing near the town of Snelling.  We were expecting to move into one of the prefab houses recently located there.  When I had taken Mary and the three girls there in our little car, I could sense how frightened and worried Mary was.  It seemed a bad omen that we lost the muffler of our car driving over the Merced River bridge, which was constructed from flat railroad cars without barriers or guardrails.

I interviewed for the Napa Valley position and got the job.  We found a house to rent in downtown Napa and were ready to start a new chapter.  Caroline and I drove the rental truck packed with our belongings, while Mary stayed behind with Valerie and Melanie to do the final clean up of the vineyard house.  After my friend Alex helped me unload the truck, I put Caroline in the child seat of a bicycle and we went to get something to eat.  Soon Mary arrived and the five of us settled happily in our new place.

Mary and I, newly married, also boarded a plane for Europe, via Copenhagen, to visit Augey for a few days.  Of course, Mary was expected to follow the French culture rules, so the first order of business was to go to Bordeaux to purchase a dress of “appropriate” length.  A lot of people in the village of Rauzan were curious about “l’Américaine.”  The Sunday Mass at the local church was well attended, as my mom told everyone she knew that we were going to be there!  We were treated to a formal lunch with my brothers and sister, my tante Suzy and tonton Roger (Tante or Tantine and Tonton, as aunts and uncles were called in my family at the time).  We all sat in our Sunday best for the two-hour lunch in the formal, marbled dining room of my family home.  We felt very welcome and everybody was very impressed by Mary’s fluency in French.  My dad served a 1928 Chateau Yquem, a world-renowned Sauternes, with dessert.  That sweet, 40-year-old wine was absolutely delicious, a real treat!  The bouquet and palate of this unique wine will always be with me.

We honeymooned in Rome for a few days, having a wonderful time visiting the Vatican, walking from plaza to plaza, admiring the fountains, as well as the sidewalk cafes and the young people rushing around on their Vespas.  We traveled back to Copenhagen to return to Davis.

Mary quickly got a job at the university library and I had a part-time research assistant job.  We easily settled in married life.  My major professor, Dr. Ryugo, soon became a friend and mentor.  Some French graduate students enjoyed coming over for dinner.  My tennis friend from Rauzan, Philipe, came for a visit one weekend.  We had a poorly-trained little dog, a chihuahua mix named ChouChou, who liked to run away.

Mary became pregnant in the spring.  We didn’t have much, but we had each other.  Before long, I obtained my permanent resident card, or green card, so there was little doubt we would stay in the U.S.  In the fall, we received the sad news of Mary’s dad passing.  It was without warning, and suddenly the pillar of her family was gone.  He was a man of few words but infinite wisdom, and he was surely missed, especially by Mary and her sister Sally.

I started my research project, observing and recording the response of a synthetic growth retardant, Alar, on the maturity of peaches and nectarines.  Lots of measurements needed to be taken on the developing fruit.  While I was on the ladder in the fruit trees,  Mary was recording the data, often in the blazing sunshine, and pregnant!  The research produced some good results.  After analyzing the data, it was time to write the thesis.  With Mary’s encouragements and editing , the thesis was ready to be turned in and approved, ending my studies.  Returning from a visit to LA, I saw a vineyard supervisor position advertised in a local Center Valley newspaper.  I applied, got an interview, and was offered a job at E & J Gallo in Livingston, near Modesto in the Central Valley of California.

On January 3, 1970, Caroline was born.  Maxine, Mary’s mother, arrived right away to help out.  I remember after a day or two, Mary and her mom left me with the baby to run some errands.  Of course, she started to cry and I totally panicked, not knowing what to do.  “Why did it take you so long to get back?”  I did not consider, I guess, that babies do cry sometimes.

We arranged with Father Coffee to have Caroline baptized right away before relocating to Livingston.  Her grandmother scolded Father for pouring too much water on her head; it was winter after all!  A few days later, the three of us moved to the Gallo ranch.  The job consisted of supervising a crew of about thirty men, encouraging quality and speed.  When the superintendent or ranch manager were visiting the crew, he would ask first,  “How many vines an hour are they doing?”  It was hard work, but it was all I could find, and we had a small, three-bedroom house rent free.  It was dusty and very hot from May to October, out in the middle of nowhere.

When Caroline was just a few months old, Mary traveled to LA and brought her dear grandmother, her dad’s mom, back for a visit, which made our isolation a little more bearable.  My mom came to visit in the fall for about two weeks.  She took Caroline for rides in her stroller around the vineyard.  Mary and my mom got along very well, speaking only French; Mary’s language skills improved immensely.  I realized only much later how much my mom cared for us, and I know now she wished we would go back to live in France.  But neither my father or my oldest brother, securely in charge of the family business, even suggested we come back.  They believed they had given me a college education and now I was on my own.  Mary became pregnant in the fall and Valerie was born April 14, 1971. We were stressed and life was hard.

My senior year in college turned out to be very enjoyable.  I developed strong friendships with a couple of classmates in my field.  I really liked my course work and I knew then it was my calling to work in orchards or vineyards.  For the first time, I was getting good grades and
contemplating graduate school.

Mary always dreamed of flying.  Her dad, Captain Robert Stewart, a retired pilot for American Airlines, encouraged her to be a flight attendant.  She moved to Dallas to train.  He flew there to attend her graduation and proudly pin the wings on her uniform.

Mary was assigned to JFK airport, so I flew to New York City to visit her at Christmas time.  We had a wonderful time, exploring the city, even going to upstate NY to spend a couple of days in a ski resort.  We knew then we would get married.

Back in Davis, I wrote to my parents telling them of our intentions.  My mom ordered a ring for Mary and my father arranged a work trip to New York to bring it to her.  Mary asked her mom to join her and the two of them met my dad for dinner at his hotel.  Later that evening, all
excited, Mary called to tell me how beautiful the ring was and how pleasant the evening had been.  I was engaged—and I was not even there!

From time to time, Mary would have a flight to SFO and we always had a wonderful time planning our future together.  After graduation, I was immediately admitted into a master’s program, and I secured a research lab position in the Pomology department for the summer.  Mary was planning the wedding with her mom in Los Angeles.  I had no idea what the preparations were about, but I was so excited!  The date was set:  September 7, at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Pacific Palisades.

My parents arrived a week early, by way of San Francisco.  I took them to farms where new harvest techniques were developed.  We watched the mechanical harvest of canning tomatoes with a substantial amount of waste, and the shaking of peach trees where the fruit destined to be canned collected into a big cone.  Finally, my mom declared, “I saw enough!”  Of course, they were raised in a culture where everything is done by hand and there is certainly no waste.  We left on Thursday and drove to LA in two days, taking the scenic route along the Pacific coast.  We arrived at Mary’s parents’ house a day before the wedding.  Shortly after meeting Mary, my mom took me aside and asked, “Does she have longer dresses?”  It was the time when “mini skirts” were in fashion but not in Rauzan, France!

My parents and I met everybody in front of the church.  Mary’s two brothers and three of my college friends went to the altar and soon Mary appeared with her dad, who had contracted polio but still managed to walk her down the aisle.  It was a beautiful ceremony, officiated by a priest friend of the bride.  The reception took place at her parents’ home, under the clear, Southern California blue sky.  Mary’s dad, a very gifted craftsman, managed to expand the dining room to the back patio.  Everything was perfect!  Even my father remarked, “I should have invited the French Consul of Los Angeles.”

The next day we took my parents to the airport to fly home.

It was winter, 1965.  Before I had to report to the army, I stayed at my brother’s house and had a job pruning plum trees.  It was cold, hard work, trying to keep up with the more experienced workers.  When the time finally came, I reported to the military camp in the town of Libourne, only 15 miles from my parents’ home.  As soon as I arrived, I was given a short haircut, a fatigue uniform, and a set of rules I had to follow.  France was at peace, so there was no chance I would be sent abroad.

After a few months, I received a month-long agricultural leave to help with the plum harvest back home.  I worked long hours, side by side with my two brothers; Michel, the oldest, was in charge.  I was given the responsibility of supervising a large harvest crew of young people.  I was feeling at home again.

Of course, I had to return to camp, though there was not much to do and I was bored most of the time.  Luckily for my sanity, I was receiving a letter almost daily from Mary in California, and I, likewise, was writing all the time.

Because of insubordination and leaving the base without permission one weekend, I was caught, punished, and placed in solitary confinement for three weeks.  It was definitely deserved.  I had to empty the trash cans into a dump truck, escorted by a guard carrying a rifle but no ammunition.  Were they afraid I was going to escape?

I finally finished my military service in July 1966.  I worked the plum harvest for a few weeks, then went back to California.  I immediately called Bob Thompson, the property owner in Yuba City for whom I had previously worked; he offered me a job right away.  I was glad to be free again, away from the constraints of the French way of life and especially the rigidity of my family customs regarding how to dress, when and what to eat, whom to associate with—all imposed on me with no negotiation on the rules.  So confining!

Mary was in her senior year at UC Davis, and it was good seeing her again.  I joined the campus soccer team.  With team members from South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, it was truly an international team.  Only the goalkeeper was American.  Mary watched our games against other universities, though soccer was, at that time, a sport mostly foreign to Americans.  (Who knew then that about ten years later all our family—six of us—would be playing soccer at the same time?)

I finally enjoyed being a student, and was getting good grades.  My interest in fruit trees and grapes, how they behave and grow, became my passion.  Mary graduated in spring 1967 and I went to my summer orchard job.

I spent the summer of 1954 getting ready to go to boarding school in Caudéran, a suburb of Bordeaux.  The school, named École Sainte Marie Grand Lebrun, was a Marianist order school.  I watched my mother delicately sewing my initials and my school identification number “616” on my clothing.  I also practiced conjugating Latin verbs to give myself a head start.

Finally, the important day arrived:  it was time to depart for Grand Lebrun.  I was anxious and excited to be in the school with Bernard, my brother five years older.  I vividly remember my mom helping me find my desk in the huge study.  Besides studying French, history, geography, and math, we were introduced to Latin and English.  Because it was a Roman Catholic school, we also had religion classes three times a week.  The strict discipline began at 6:30 in the morning and was not over until 9:30 at night.

I quickly got into trouble with the discipline and quality of my academic work.  Every Friday morning, the principal, a priest, came into the classroom to deliver the grades.  Students with disciplinary infractions spent Sunday afternoon between one and four o’clock in the study hall.  After two long months, I got to go home for a church holiday, Toussaint or All Saints Day.

Bernard was in a different section of the school and I hardly interacted with him. Very proficient in math and physics, he moved the next year to a more scientifically advanced school; my parents were pushing him to earn an engineering degree from a prestigious college. Bernard’s love of soccer prevented his academical success. He regularly played for the “Girondins,” Bordeaux’s main soccer, sometimes as a starter for the professional team, making sure my parents did not know about it.

In my final years in Bordeaux, not only did I play for the school soccer team on Thursdays, but also for a club team on Sundays. My parents were vaguely aware of it but did not care, and certainly did not offer any help in rides or giving me a new pair of cleats. It was total independence, but expectations were high to excel academically.

At that time, my maternal grandfather, Camille, came to live with us.  I have fond memories of him, observing nature, studying the ecology around us.  I, too, loved being in the country, exploring all the life around me—birds, animals, blooming flowers.  Fresh fruit abounded and I enjoyed eating the strawberries, cherries, peaches, pears, and apples from the orchard and the ripening grapes in the vineyard surrounding the house.

Those school years were a struggle for me.  I felt a lot of pressure to excel academically, but since I failed to adapt to the strict rules, I was always in trouble.  Athletics, on the other hand, were successful for me.  I was a strong soccer player, a leader on the field.  One year our team was named the best private high school team in the country.  I ran track, did high jump and long jump, and always participated and earned medals in the national tournament.

My parents, however, were interested only in my grades.  When I was a young teen, my father would ask, “What are you going to do when you grow up?”  “I don’t know,” I would say, which meant it was time for a lecture.  My dad’s stature made me feel small, and I was intimidated by his accomplishments in spite having only a local elementary school education.

One Saturday morning, as the daytime students were going home, I was called to the front of the school. My father was there and as I approached him to greet him the usual way, by a kiss on both cheeks, he slapped me as hard as he could on both sides of the head. He walked away saying, “You know what I mean.” He took the time to drive to Bordeaux to teach me a lesson. But I kept getting into trouble, and not going home on most weekends.

My dad had quite an extensive wine collection. On Saturday nights, specially if guests were part of the traditional Sunday lunch, we will go with my dad to the cellar to select the wines. My brothers and I listened to my dad talking about his impression about the different Chateaus but also other subjects. He had so much knowledge with an astonishing memory. Eventually my mom would come over, announcing it was time to go to bed. Rare times to enjoy being around my dad.

At the end of one school year, the day before the Brevet, a state-sponsored exam, I was out of control for some reason and jumped on the back of the staff member in charge of discipline, kicking him. Then I ran upstairs, grabbed a sheet off my bed, threw all my clothes in it, and tied it. I burst into the principal’s office, angrily swearing, and ran away from the school with my stuff.  I went to my aunt’s house and took the exam for the next two days. Luckily, my parents were traveling. My sister was contacted and she never told my parents. Surprisingly, I was allowed to go back to Grand Lebrun the next fall.

Our family never went on vacation.  During the summers home from school, I spent the mornings doing jobs around the house; in the afternoons, I played tennis.  Most days my friend Philippe and his brother Michel, sons of the pharmacists in Rauzan, came on their bikes and we played all afternoon.  When I was 12, my uncle Charles gave me a real leather soccer ball.  Philippe and I would practice our soccer skills, sometimes joined by my brother Bernard.  My dad was gone at work and my mom left us alone.

My mom promised me to buy a mobylette, a small scooter, if I passed my brevet, a national exam.  I succeeded, got my moped, and started to have a lot more freedom.  I was 16.  Two years later I succeeded in receiving the first part of the baccalauréat.  The following year I failed the second part.  So plans were drawn up for me to repeat my last year of high school in London, at the French high school, then go to the University of California in Davis to study pomology, or fruit growing.

Only years later did I realize that I did not belong in this family structure and I had to go. I am glad I left.

The summer of 1962 was not pleasant at all.  Having failed to pass the baccalauréat was humiliating, since everybody asks for the result.  I was very worried about going to England.  My first flight ever took me from Bordeaux to London.  An associate of my father picked me up at the airport to take me to my host family.  Though I had studied English at boarding school, I had little conversational English, so I kept to myself a lot, worrying my host family.

I wisely enrolled in a course to learn conversational English, where I met young people from all over the world, including Florence, a young woman from Paris, who quickly became my first girlfriend.  It was wonderful.  We went everywhere in London, visiting all the sights, having afternoon tea in museums.

I went home for Christmas, taking the ferry across the Channel and the train down to Bordeaux.  My brother Bernard was getting married in the Basque Country.  It was a very small, intimate wedding.  I was very happy for Bernard and I liked his new wife Annick very much.

Back in London, I enrolled in the French Lycée to prepare for the Baccalauréat exam in June.  Unfortunately, Florence went back to Paris in February, and I was alone again.  My parents came to England for Easter.  We flew to Edinburgh and spent three days there, my first and last vacation with my parents.  It went well.  We went to Mass early Easter Sunday in a small church. Very few people attended that service, and to the delight of my mother, I helped the priest with the mass.

I took the exam and passed easily.   On my way home, I stopped in Paris to see Florence, but she had reunited with her boyfriend, who just returned from the Algerian war, and my first love vanished.

The summer of 1963 was a time to get ready to leave for California.  I went to the American Consulate in Bordeaux several times to secure the necessary student visa.  It felt strange to me that nobody seemed to care that I was going away.  I know now my family felt relieved, and it was definitely a one-way ticket with no talk of when I was coming back.  As much as I would miss home, I was certainly ready to leave behind all the struggles of my teenage years.  Over the years I tried to understand the family dynamics at the time.  I questioned Rosy through letters, but her answers were vague, pretending that everything was normal, even though I suffered severe and scandalous abuses from her husband.  I now believe I was sent away to preserve the family honor.  When the time came in early September, my sister’s husband accompanied me to Paris airport to take a nonstop flight to San Francisco.  I was gone.

From SFO, I took a bus to downtown San Francisco, and spent the night in a small hotel off of Union Square.  The next Sunday, I had to find out where the city of Davis was and how to get there.  Someone advised me to take a Greyhound bus.  I finally arrived in Davis that evening, lugging my large suitcase.  Next to the bus depot was the police department and a nice policeman offered me a ride to the college campus.  He dropped me off in front of one of the dorms; I found a non-occupied room and went to sleep, totally exhausted.

That Monday, the start of orientation week, I was formally admitted into the University and assigned a room in the foreign students’ hall.  I met Dr. Crane, my advisor in the Pomology department.  Orientation week went really fast, and there I was the next Monday, taking Chem 1A with 200 other students.  I quickly realized how challenging it was to be a student in his non-native language.

Within a few weeks, I met Mary, a freshman student majoring in French.  I fell in love with her immediately.  In November, I received two  Thanksgiving invitations, one at noon at the home of Dr. Crane, my professor and advisor, and the other at six at my professor Dr. Amerine’s home.  I went to both of them.  Not knowing anything about the tradition, I was surprised the menu was the same in both homes.  That Christmas, Mary invited me to her parents’ beautiful home overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles.  I felt very welcome.  It was a wonderful Christmas, very warm and friendly, lots of laughter.  I could have never imagined being in such a beautiful state, in love.  What a dream!

In the spring of 1964, my father, on a tour of the U.S., arrived at UC Davis on a Friday night.  I was surprised he made the effort to visit, and I don’t remember that he was interested in my studies.  I don’t remember any substantial talks.  I never connected with him, man to man.  He left the following Sunday from the Sacramento airport.

When summer came, Mary went back to her parents’ home and I went to work on a ranch in Yuba City.  I had room and board, and worked in the orchards or hayfields without a day off all summer.  I made enough money to buy a small car when I returned to Davis, but Mary stayed in Los Angeles and attended a local college.

Depressed and homesick, and struggling in my course work, I decided to go back to France.  I drove down to LA to say goodbye to Mary, sold my car, and flew back home.  A few weeks later I found myself in a barrack doing my military service, very disappointed and feeling I had failed miserably.

I was the fourth child in the family, named Jean-Marie probably for my paternal grandparents, born in 1943 at home in the farm house, Troupagat, in the middle of the war. Both the village of Rauzan and Troupagat were in the German-occupied zone at that time. That day, Rosy was not in school, but sick at home. Hearing the noises of boiling water in the kitchen, she came down but was told to go back to bed. Dr.  Ribette came on his bicycle to assist. My dad had left to attend business in Bordeaux. Coming back in the afternoon, driving through Rauzan, he was told, “It’s a girl!” But he knew then, from the teasing voice, that it was another boy. My brother Bernard, five years older, declared that he was never going to fight with me. My mom recalled she had to break up quite a few fights between Michel and Bernard, six years apart.

Just before the war broke out, my parents had bought a small chateau, Augey. A neighbor offered his life savings and my mom’s dad gave the other half. During the war, my great grandmother Mamie and her daughter, my grand aunt André, lived there. Tanté, as we called her, had helped in raising my dad, and he was very devoted to her. They stayed with us at Augey, and my Mamie died there in 1954 at the age of ninety-eight. I am told that when I was two years of age, when we all moved from Troupagat to Augey, three miles away, it was done with a horse-drawn cart. I arrived at the new home on the last trip, sitting on the furniture on the cart.

I was dressed as a girl until the age of seven, complete with the Joan of Arc-style hair cut. Evidently, it was pretty common at the time since my parents wanted a girl. Toddler pictures of both my uncles, Charles and Roger, show they also were dressed as girls. As strange as this practice seems now, it didn’t seem to have a detrimental effect on them or on me, though I do remember being teased, especially by Michel.

I was home-schooled the first two normal school years. To discipline me, my mother needed to take me away to the other side of the house; spankings took place away from my great grandmother, Mamie, who always tried to defend me.

After the war ended, we had two German prisoners of war working the vineyard. Ernest returned home to his family in Germany as soon as he was allowed, but George stayed with us for several years, not having any family at home. On days when my mom could not drive me to school in Rauzan, George would take me, seated on the crossbar of his bike. Most times, by pedaling hard he could make it to the top of a long hill. Some days, we had to walk to the top and I sensed how disappointed he was.  I spent a lot of time with him while he worked around the grounds and in the huge vegetable garden. Years later when he came back to visit, my mom said he asked for me right away but I was already in California. I still tear up thinking of him, a very kind man.

These were carefree years for me. We children learned to garden by helping our mom sowing seeds, planting vegetable seedlings, picking strawberries, and waiting for the tomatoes to get ripe. I have fond memories of buying seeds or transplants at the weekly village market.

In the summer, when plums “Prune d’Ente were ripe, it was time to make large quantities of jam. My mom and a kitchen helper got the fruit ready in a very large copper kettle. It was placed on top of a wood fire outside. Then it was Bernard’s and my duty to make sure it did not burn on the bottom. We took turns stirring with a big wooden paddle. My mom would come over from time to time. “It’s not ready yet.” It seems this was always done on a very hot day and took forever. I was recalling this story with Bernard’s daughter Muriel and she said, “I have the kettle!” It was truly confiture de prunes a’ l’ancienne. I promised myself to make a small batch this year!

In the meantime, my dad’s professional career took off, as he spearheaded initiatives to increase food production around the world. He was part of the Marshall Plan team, working with General Eisenhower to help restore the European economies ravaged by six years of war. With increasing responsibilities on the national and international agricultural stage, however, my father became very distant at home. He left on Mondays for his offices in Paris and was with us only on Sundays. My mom managed it all by herself: housekeepers, gardeners, older family members, and four children.

From time to time, my mom accompanied my dad on some of his trips abroad.  I often stayed at Mr. and Mrs. Sabathe, my parents’ close friends, whom I knew well. The four of them often got together on Sunday afternoons to play bridge. I spent many hours observing and learning the game and eventually I was allowed to play a few hands. They lived in a chateau, Le Couros, built in the fourteen century, complete with towers and caves to explore. Because there was no school on Thursdays, Wednesday evenings, after dinner, the three of us played cards.  It was such a treat, feeling treated almost like an adult.  On cold winter nights, they warmed my bed with an old fashioned bed warmer, a copper container filled with hot ashes from the downstairs fire place.  I loved it there!

When I was old enough I was able to go to a three-week overnight camp sponsored by the local parishes.  It was several hours away by bus in the foothills of the Pyrénées, located within walking distance of the Catholic Shrine of Lourdes where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to a local teenager, Bernadette.  I had a great time away from home as we explored the surrounding hills and built rock dams across wild creeks rushing down the mountains.  We occasionally walked to the sanctuary of Lourdes; as soon as I walked through its gates—and I have visited several times through the years—a feeling of peace came over me, as I was inspired by the pilgrims coming from all over the world. My mom took me there in the early fifties to pray for Marie-Helene, who had health issues as a little girl.  What a special memory to have had my mom all to myself! Another time, she took me to Rocamadour, a picturesque city in the Massif Central. I had to plan the road trip, studying the Michelin Guide. We stopped often so I could fish in the rivers we crossed. Unfortunately we had no camera to take pictures but I still remember the little boy fishing or amazed at discovering Rocamadour built on the cliff of the mountain.

During his boarding school days, my dear brother Bernard came home only for the big holidays. He was a very good student and a great athlete, holding the national long jump record as a young boy. He quickly became the best soccer player in Grand Lebrun, our boarding school. We really wanted to have a soccer ball but we knew my mom wouldn’t buy one for us. Bernard and I searched through the house for loose change and found a small bill in one of our dad’s suits, enough to buy a standard-sized rubber ball. My idol, Bernard taught me to play soccer and tennis. We explored the woods together looking for porcini mushrooms in the summer and chestnuts in the fall.

The elementary school in Rauzan was located immediately behind the Marie, or City Hall. Being the son of the mayor, I felt a lot of pressure to excel academically. In truth, I was not a very motivated pupil, more interested in roaming the fields than in studying. In the French education system at the time, the students’ ranking was announced each week. On Saturday night when my father returned from Paris, he would ask before anything else, “Are you first?” Often I had to reply, “No it’s Marianne or Marie-Claire.” Then I was lectured on the importance of being first.

In 1950, when my sister got married, I was the ring bearer leading the procession into the 15th century church. My brother Bernard, with his beautiful soprano voice, sang the Ave María. There was not a dry eye in the church.

My father, Pierre Marie Jean Andre Martin, was born in 1903 in Sainte Terre, a small town along the Dordogne River in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France, the first-born child of Ulisse and Marie Suzanne Martin. My dad was only three and Mon oncle Charles was one when their mother died of tuberculosis. In the early nineteen twenties, my dad and his brother Charles moved a few miles away to Rauzan with their father to manage the family vineyard. Pierre and Charles received a sixth-grade education, equivalent to completing elementary school in the French system. At age fourteen, the sons started working with their dad in the vineyard.

My grandfather was part of the village council. Before their Wednesday evening meetings after supper, he would shave and get ready. But at some time before time to leave for the meeting, he would say, “They can do it without me,” and never attended the meetings.

My mom, Marie Marguerite Antoinette Holstein, was born in 1908 in Moulon, a commune in the Entre-Deux-Mers region not very far from Rauzan. She was the first child of Camille and Marie Madeleine Charlotte. My mom and her brother Roger lived in the country family home with their dad. Their mom died while they were young.  I once asked my mom, “How did you spend your time in the summer when you were a little girl?” And she responded, “Once I rubbed an apricot pit on a stone wall until I had a hole and used it as a whistle.” I think about her every time I eat an apricot.

My parents met through family friends and, after a short courtship, were married in January of 1929. They honeymooned on the Mediterranean traveling by train to Nice.  My mom moved into my dad’s family home, Troupagat, a typical country home just outside Rauzan. My dad was still tending the vineyard, pruning in the winter, suckering and edging in the summer, and holding the plow pulled by a horse.

Marthe Pellet, a family friend living nearby, told often how my dad as a young man, could be heard from far away yelling at his horse not walking straight the vineyard row. Much later when I was a young boy, and usually on Sunday afternoons, I accompanied my father to a farm where he heard a draft horse was for sale. He would place his thumb on the back of the horse’s mouth to open it to verify its age:  the longer the teeth, the older the horse. Then it had to bravely pull a cart to estimate its strength. My dad was wearing his usual double-breasted suit with a white shirt, the only clothes he wore after he stopped working manually in the vineyards.

In 1930, my sister Rosy, was born, followed by our mischievous brother Michel in 1931. The story is told that Michel loved to visit the farm next door, sometimes switching eggs from a hen to the nest of a mother duck, and vice versa. After the eggs hatched, chaos ensued when the hen tried to prevent her ducklings from going into the nearby pond, and the mother duck encouraged the chickies to get in and swim. Of course, the neighbor would come over to tell my mom, “You have to keep an eye on your son!”

Soon after my brother Bernard was born in 1938, Germany and France were at war. Rauzan was in the German-occupied zone, and my parents had to give room and board to two officers. Though they wanted to be friendly and eat their meals at the long kitchen table with the family, the rules were very strict. My mom remembered how sad they were, leaving the kitchen with their tray to eat by themselves in their room. They also wanted to listen to the news on the radio but were not allowed to do so. One of the officers, upon coming back from a leave in Germany, brought a toy gun to give Michel.  It was not appreciated by my parents.

By the time Rosy and Michel were about eleven and ten, they were sent to boarding school in Bordeaux. This was during World War II and they recall having to walk alone in the dark to La Croix de Jugazan, a bus stop along the country road, to return to their school. The school was cold, and there always seemed to be a lack of food. My mom recalled that Michel was often spotted by the back fence trying to escape. Rosy, always very curious, got in trouble by sneaking into the school basement laundry room to see how the nuns managed to get their head coverings starched.

In the mid 1930s, my dad was elected the mayor of this little town, a position he held until he died in 1974. During the same time, financial crisis in the wine industry and the expansion of the family vineyard prompted him to create the first Cooperative Winery. The idea, revolutionary at the time, was that the growers would bring their grapes to the coop to be processed and as the wine was sold, they received dividends proportional to the amount of grapes they brought in. I remember as a kid watching the long lines of carts pulled by horses or oxen winding through the village. My dad stood in front of the winery greeting the growers and directing the traffic, always in his suit and white shirt. It became the largest cooperative in France and my father remained its President until his death. To this day his large portrait is predominantly displayed on the wall of the board room.

In 1938, Bernard was born. I heard my mom recalling that as a toddler my brother played with newly hatched chickies sitting in his playpen. Simple life on the farm.

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