BACK IN THE DAY
The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay... Peter Austin-Small ’48 remembers his French class with Madame Marie Louise Carman on the day that Paris fell to the Germans.
The year was 1940. The day was June 14, a month to the day before Bastille Day. The door to our classroom opened. Our French teacher, Madame Carman, walked in. It was obvious that she had been crying. Her eyes were red. She was doing her best to contain her emotions. We were kids. We did not understand. And then we did. “I just learned that my city, my Paris, has fallen to the Germans.” She sobbed briefly and quietly, shook her head as if dusting herself off from some unknown fall, straightened her modest, but impeccable dress and stood tall and firm in front of us, for all of her perhaps five feet two inches in height. “Class, we have work to do.” We all liked Madame Carman. She was a nice person, and she treated each of us ten-year-olds, as not just the kids we were, but as real people, her students. Her round Gallic face was set off with dark flattish curls, soft brown eyes and an always-pleasant smile. There was nothing ostentatious about her. No pretenses. And she was always kind and helpful. We liked to do our best for her. That day we were uniformly distressed by her words. We all knew she loved her country, loved Paris and had lots of 64 | n f f
Peter Austin-Small with clasmates in 1942
family and friends over there. We were all at least somewhat aware about what was happening in Europe, and especially in France. I am sure that on that one day we worked harder for her than we would ever work for any one teacher again. We had no idea how she maintained her presence learning what she must have learned just before she entered our classroom. If there is any one class on any given day that I can recall almost as it actually was, it was French class in the Fourth Grade at Friends Seminary on June 14, 1940. I do not know what the pacifist Quakers running or teaching at Friends Seminary or sitting in their classrooms
Madame Madame Louise Carman
thought about the fall of Paris, but I do know what everyone in the School thought about Madame Carman that day and for at least as long as she remained a teacher in the School. Two years later, my last year at Friends Seminary, the then Senior Class dedicated their yearbook to her with the words, “To Madame Carman, in appreciation of her generous help and unparalleled kindness…” When those words appeared, I do not think there was a dry eye among students, faculty and all the others who were involved at Friends that day. Everyone just knew and felt good about why that dedication was there.