Remembering Madame Claudine Kurtz

Madame Claudine Kurtz – A jamais dans nos coeurs (Forever in our hearts)

By Carrie Brown Wick ‘76

“Life is no pique-nique!” Madame Kurtz would frequently tease in her charming French accent as she announced a surprise test to her class. In her cozy third-floor classroom, Mme Claudine Kurtz taught French at SEM from 1969 through 1994. The quintessential SEM teacher, Mme Kurtz combined the love of her subject matter with generous devotion to her students.

Claudine challenged her students with sophisticated French novels, plays and poetry. Class discussions of reading assignments were wideranging, with spirited digressions into French history, politics, philosophy, art, and cuisine, peppered with personal stories and a great deal of laughter. Yet she also set high standards and expected excellence. Pop quizzes and dictées were routine. (“Prenez une feuillle et ecrivez après moi …”) A student who shirked the homework and offered a lame excuse would hear “Next case!” Tyrannically tough but infinitely caring, Claudine brought out the best in her students. Many warm and detailed recollections of alumnae from Mme Kurtz’s 25 years at SEM attest to her lasting influence.

“Our 1992-93 French 5 class (which I now realize was well beyond the French AP) ploughed through Sartre’s Les Jeux Sont Faits, Zola’s ThérèseRaquin and Mauriac’s Thérèse Desqueyroux and we were pretty spent with about a quarter to spare,” recalls Allison Mitchell ’93. “Claudine went to Paris over spring break and combed the bookshops to bring us back ‘trash’ to read. The last book we read was L’Impure — a ridiculous romance novel by Guy des Cars about forbidden love set on Molokai when it was still a leper colony! We had the greatest time reading this schlocky French novel all together. Of course, it had an existential crisis — because it was Claudine — but it was as far from a canonical text as you could get.”

Assignments in Claudine’s classes spanned French literary classics to racy contemporary paperbacks, and her teaching style combined no-nonsense tutelage with a mischievous sense of humor. She entertained us with stories about her family (“Never marry a philosopher!”), especially the antics of her son Jonny, and her faux pas as a non-native English speaker navigating daily life in Buffalo. “My fondest memory is Madame telling us the story of going to a department store to shop for bed linens,” recounts Marie Schmukal ’91. “She asked the sales person for help finding sheets, but with her accent, it didn’t sound like sheets, no matter how many times or how emphatically she said it.” This anecdote also was enjoyed by ’70s alumnae who recalled that after this experience, when shopping for sheets Claudine said she would just ask for pillowcases, instead of uttering what came across as a four-letter word in English.

Says Mona Fetouh ’90, “When I think of Madame Kurtz I think of one phrase: `Don’t get overexcited!’ I can hear her saying it now with her voice and tone. Other memories are about reading books like Thérèse Raquin — and being impressed at what she was able to draw out of us with understanding higher-level literature. I also remember her little attic

The 1975 Seminaria dedication to Claudine Kurtz.

“EVEN A VERY SHORT INTERACTION WITH AN INSPIRING, DYNAMIC AND KIND TEACHER CAN TRULY SHAPE THE TRAJECTORY OF A STUDENT’S LIFE.”

classroom and the stories about her family.”

“Madame Claudine Kurtz was, to invoke that cliché, a force of nature,” declares Gwen Baggs Ito ’81. “I remember dynamic French lessons high up in her third-floor classroom. I loved when she would tell us to get out a sheet of paper so we could do a dictée. I loved listening to her voice and then trying to transform the sounds I was hearing into accurately spelled French words on a blank page. I remember reading French literature in her class, including Zola’s tragic tale of Thérèse Raquin.”

“I was only a student of Claudine’s for a very short time during my freshman year at Sem in 1993, but she clearly had a big impact on me,” remarks Noel Wiedl Gaussens ’97. “She introduced me to JeanPaul Sartre and made French philosophy come to life for me. I went on to major in French in college, and have called France home since 2002. Even a very short interaction with an inspiring, dynamic and kind teacher can truly shape the trajectory of a student’s life. I’m so grateful!” Adds Isabella Bannerman ’78, “Besides enlightening her students to writers like Molière, Balzac, Zola and Camus, Claudine Kurtz was known for the fragrance Y by Yves Saint Laurent, which when paired with her sweaters, scarves and her hair in a chignon, made for a completely French presence in the classroom.”

Linda Moden Andrews ’82 agrees that Claudine was “elegant, cosmopolitan, and so very French!” Linda adds, “She showed `film strips’ of Monsieur et Madame Thibaut with a script which we repeated and repeated, as a group and individually, until we had it memorized. My sisters and some of our classmates still recite phrases we learned. Mme Kurtz used everyday situations to teach. Waiting for us to settle down to start class, she noticed that a classmate was preoccupied. Mme Kurtz said loudly, `limer les ongles’ and I will always remember the French translation for `to file the nails.’”

The entire SEM community, even those who didn’t take French, benefitted from Claudine’s ardor and energy. Claudine was the faculty advisor to the class of ’75, which dedicated its Seminaria to her. Jane Hopkins Carey ’75 was the yearbook’s Literary Editor that year. “I remember that the vote to honor her was unanimous in the class, even among non-French students,” says Jane. For many years Claudine was the faculty advisor to the French Club. She organized the club’s perennially popular Café Français at the school’s holiday bazaar. A talented chef, Claudine taught SEM girls to expertly flip crêpes. Linda Moden Andrews recalls that “She enchanted us as freshmen when she and her students transformed the old cafeteria into a café during the holiday bazaar. Madame turned out crêpe after crêpe all day.” Sue Bradley ’73 still has the original mimeographed crêpe recipe safely tucked away in her kitchen (see photo).

Nearly every year Claudine led a spring trip to the Carnaval de Québec or to France, on which any student was welcome. “I was languishing in Spanish class while my friends were reveling in Claudine’s French class,” recounts Lauren Anthone ’76. “Luckily, I was granted special status and was able to join some Elmwood Avenue restaurant outings with Claudine and the Francophiles. I remember an awesome Québec trip and the one or two phrases my friends managed to teach me, such as `je voudrais un autre.’” Susan Kraus Harris ’76 shares many of Lauren’s memories (in addition to reading Sartre and Camus), including class lunches at Bullfeathers on Elmwood, and the trip to Québec during Carnaval. “We gained so much from our experiences with her, academic and non!” says Susan.

Trips with Claudine to France were eye-opening and transformative. For many SEM girls, the experience crystallized a lasting love of France. The language and culture that Claudine conveyed in the classroom suddenly sprang to life for students on these trips. The girls were immersed in an intimate experience of French life. Visits to France would include a visit with Claudine’s parents at their home in Paris.

“The spring 1981 trip to Normandy and Paris, France was one of the highlights of my senior year, if not my

Mimeograph of Claudine Kurtz’s crêpe recipe, provided by Sue Bradley ’73.

kurtz continued from page 13 whole high school experience,” asserts Gwen Baggs Ito. “With the exception of Canada, it was my first time setting foot in a foreign country. I still remember my father telling me that the tight family budget necessitated a choice: I could either take driver’s ed or go on the SEM trip to France. I told him I would happily walk the rest of my life.” Gwen continues, “I forget the reason why — the airline must have misplaced our luggage or something — but when we arrived at our first stop in Normandy, we didn’t have our toothbrushes. As we all got settled in our rooms for the night, Mme Kurtz told us to stop complaining and improvise by using our fingers to brush our teeth. Even then, I knew she exuded the perfect balance between elegance and toughness. During the three-week exchange, I enjoyed getting to know my French sister, Natalie, and doing some sightseeing with my SEM sisters in and around Paris. I also had the pleasure of visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery with Madame. After pointing out Frédéric Chopin’s grave, she indulged my teenage curiosity by helping me locate that of another musician, Jim Morrison.” Linda Moden Andrews also was “lucky enough to travel to France with Mme Kurtz and several other students in my junior year.” Says Linda, “I know that exchange students from other US schools were impressed (and somewhat envious) that our French teacher was `truly French.’”

Claudine gave her charges much independence and responsibility — in short, she treated them like adults. Jane Hopkins Carey describes a SEM trip to Paris. “Madame took us the first day on the Métro, multiple changes and stops, showing us the underground map in French, and then after being above ground about an hour from where we started, she said `au revoir my little chicks, see you back at the hotel,’ and she left us. We were furious and scared. Sarah Hershey ’74 at least remembered the name of the hotel we were staying in and somehow we found our way back on the Métro. From that day on we knew our way around Paris and went everywhere both chaperoned and unchaperoned. I’m guessing no high school teacher would do that today (and Madame probably shouldn’t have done it in 1974)!”

Decades after the adventures and examens finales, memories of Claudine remain top of mind and her admonitions still ring in the ears of her former students. Experiences with Claudine inspired the choice of college majors and career paths of many alumnae, whether directly as teachers of French or other disciplines, or indirectly in other careers and walks of life. Though she is no longer with us, Claudine continues to touch the way so many of us think, read, write and view the world. A tribute to Mme Claudine Kurtz in appreciation of her life, teaching career and enduring influence is being organized by alumnae for the benefit of future SEM students. Though they can’t know her personally, future SEM girls can benefit from past students’ affection for and admiration of this one-of-a kind teacher, and share in Claudine’s love of le français and la France.