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Letters to a President By WENDY DAVIS, Reporter Relief Program, but to me the shoes were like a million wdavis@intranix.com Franks because they were leather and I had been wearJane Fransaer was proud to be an American. ing wooden shoes nearly all my life. I wanted to much She had a particular awe in the United States starting to wear those shoes on that wonderful day when I was when she was growing up in Belgium, and the pride in awarded my diploma for shorthand writing (125 words her new country swelled when she noticed she received a minute) but I had no brown sox [sic] and we were recognition of her thanks to the States when she was a very poor. child. “My mother, a widow with two girls, was in poor “She was a perfect, happy American citizen,” said her health during the war. So I looked in the bag of rags daughter, Denise Corke. my mother kept and found an old pair of wool sox with Corke was a war bride who came to America herself knees and feet full of holes. Mother took her yellow cotin December of 1948. She said her mother followed her ton bedspread that she had crocheted when my father over in the 1950s after Corke had her second child. “I was living (he died in a streetcar accident when I was was grateful to 5) and she knit have her. knees and feet “Everybody to the woolen knew her sox, but that as because she on a Saturday took care of night and everybody’s Mother had children.” no time to dye Fransear’s them. So on given name Sunday I was as a child was so proud with Adolphine my nice shoes Jeanne Allard. and my mothShe grew up er made me a during World dress too from War I, as the things that explained by were in my Corke. package from Photos contributed the Relief. At that time the United “She told me, Food was sent in white flour sacks from the United States to States, under Belgium as relief during World War I. Ladies in Belgium emthat surely President I would be broidered the sacks they received. Woodrow Wilthe prettiest. son, was giving aid to Belgium through the American When I was in school I had to wait for my diploma and Relief Program. I was standing on a balcony, when suddenly I saw boys Within that program, Fransear received a pair of and girls looking up and laughing. I remembered my shoes. yellow knees they saw because my dress came just even This receipt was documented from a letter Fransear with the brown of the sox. I was ashamed for a while wrote to Wilson, which she later found in a Herbert and then I went for my diploma and ran home crying. I Hoover Library Museum in West Branch, Iowa. She fell in my mother’s arms but she said to me, ‘Don’t cry, wrote a letter to Hoover, also, explaining her story as he dear. I am sure nobody had nicer shoes than you and was writing his own book, An American Epic, which you are so pretty’. tells about the American relief work during World War “I never forgot it and when all the Brussels pupils had I. to make up a letter to thank the President Wilson for The letter explains her story: all that American did for Belgium, it was my letter that “Dear Sir, I read in the American Weekly that you was chosen to be sent to America. I was the one who are writing a book called An American Epic and treats wrote it. I was then in the school no. 20 Rue du Canal, of American relief work in Belgium and France. I was Brussels, and my name was Adolphine Jeanne Allard. I in Belgium in the first world war and oh! how I have wrote that letter with all my heart. prayed the Lord for you and America. At that time I “Dear Sir, and now after so many years I am here in was only 12 years old and I had been given a nice pair the United States living with my daughter and I became of tan shoes with many other things from the American an American citizen on Feb. 25, 1959, and am proud
Belgian Jane Fransaer, the mother of Denise Corke of Watseka, who later became an American citizen, wrote a letter to two United State presidents — Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson. One of the letters was once found in the Herbert Hoover Library Musuem. of it and thankful to the Lord. With a coincidence that the speech the judge made to me were the words that ex President Woodrow Wilson said to the immigrants in his time, too. “I hope with all my heart that this letter will reach you and I hope to be able to read your book, An American Epic. “Respectfully yours, Jane Frannaer” Corke had a letter her mother received from Hoover. It read: “It is seldom that I receive such a letter of appreciation and such a gracious statement. I am glad you are in America. “With every good wish, Yours faithfully, Herbert Hoover” Corke said she’s contacted the Hoover libraries and has been unable to find where her mother’s letter is now.