How I Came to AUP: Paris Via the Army

In the early ’60s, Frederick E. Low ’67 was a rebellious teenager with a love of French language, music and culture. His dream was to leave Long Island, New York, and move across the Atlantic. “The army said, ‘be all that you can be,’ and I took that to mean they would help me get to France,” says Low. After basic training, he passed a French proficiency test and put in a request to the Pentagon for reassignment. His call was answered; in 1963, he was stationed in La Chapelle-St. Mesmin, a French commune near Orléans, working as a typist and translator. When his three-year enlistment ended, he asked for a local discharge and moved straight to Paris with his fiancée, Renate.

The couple settled into what Low calls a “fixer-upper” on rue d’Aboukir. He found a job at the American Library in Paris and applied to what was then the American College in Paris. “I was interviewed by Lloyd DeLamater, ACP’s founder and President,” says Low. “It was not often that a 21-year-old, ex-military student applied!” He and Renate were married on September 18, 1965 – two days before he started classes. His ACP highlights included glimpsing his literary hero, Jean-Paul Sartre, two rows in front of him at the cinema.

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Great journeys, like this cultural excursion to Mont Saint-Michel in the ‘60s, have long been part of the AUP experience