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Hearing From Richard
| Article
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18810 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
3,239 Words |
| Author
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Renee Domogauer
Renee Domogauer lives in College Park, Maryland. |
I found the letter in a battered tin cigar box in my father's attic after he died. They had been written, some to him, others to his mother, during World War II. They came from towns in Belgium and France.
One letter, dated May 1, 1945, included a photo of a little girl at her piano, and a pressed lily of the valley. The young writer had described the custom of sending this flower on May Day to "people they like for luck and happiness." In another photo my uniformed father and a small girl lean against an ancient stairway. I knew vaguely that the letters represented some nostalgic bit of my father's history, but I could not read them--they were written in French. By the time he died in 1978, the letters had been in his possession for nearly thirty-five years.
In the fall of 1989, I enrolled in a French language class, to fulfill a lifelong desire to learn French. My father's family was New England French-Canadian and spoke French fluently, but none of the second generation was taught it. So, in my mid-forties, an insane age for learning a foreign language, I began to study French. The timing was perfect. My dear friends Jan and Larry have recently announced that they were moving to Belgium. Larry would be working with SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) in the town of Mons. By the time I visited them, I'd be speaking like a native--wouldn't I?
Midway into the second semester, I knew I'd be much better at reading French than speaking it. Once again I tried to decipher the letters in the attic. The mystery began to unravel. They had been written by people my father, Richard, had befriended during his stay in the small Belgain town of Wanze. The letters to my grandmother describe him as a dear, wonderful man who had been extremely kind during a time of great suffering.
"Cher Madame Vigeant. ... We wish for a quick end to the war so that your big boy can be returned safely to you," says one. The letters describe the toll the war was taking on their lives. The cold, the hunger, the fear. At least one letter inquires about my father's well being; they hadn't heard from him in some time, it says. I continued to be amazed that these warm and touching letters had been written forty-five years earlier.
On To Belgium
I decided to visit Jan and Larry in Belgium and to take my father's letters with me. With them in hand, I would
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