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Alumni Spotlight Part I - The Early Years at the LycéeGabrielle Griswold '44Nous avons lancé un appel dans notre dernier numéro pour des histoires sur les premières années du Lycée Français. Ci-dessous, quelques récits envoyés par vos anciens camarades de classe. I was born in New York City in 1926, and educated in the U.S. and France prior to attending the Lycée from 1938 through 1941-42 (Promotion de 1944). I entered into 6ème, skipped 4ème and half-way through Seconde, my family, to my regret, moved from NYC to Long Island, and I had to leave the Lycée. I attended college at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., prior to moving to Paris and London where, during the late 1940s through 1955, I worked for the U.S. State Department for both the Marshall Plan and N.A.T.O., first as secretary to Ambassador Averell Harriman's special assistant, later as secretary to two American ambassadors to N.A.T.O. (The Hon. John C. Hughes and The Hon. George W. Perkins). At the end of 1955, I married an American attorney I'd met in Paris and returned to the U.S. to live in the Boston area for about 20 years while raising my two daughters. I divorced my husband in 1975 and moved to the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1976, where I am still a full-time staff writer for an award-winning local weekly newspaper. THE FIRST BAL MASQUÉ During my Lycée years, one of my personal achievements was to conceive and organize, together with my best friend, Eleanor Cramer, the very first of the Lycée balls. This came about because I loved the Lycée's beautiful ballroom and felt it deserved an occasion worthy of its décor. Up to that point, it was seldom used, except for carols at Christmastime, at Distribution des Prix (before that event was moved to the French Institute), a play (in which I acted a part, called, I believe, "Les Deux Mendiants") and weekly dancing lessons. In my imagination, I always saw the ballroom a-swirl with color, alive with music and gaiety, full of animation and dancing couples. So I suggested to my friend Eleanor that we organize a masked costume ball and she instantly agreed. Thereafter, she and I together organized the entire thing: obtained the consent of M. Brodin and M. de Fontnouvelle, issued the invitations, collected the money from all the invitees who had responded (Can you imagine it? We asked each one for only 25 cents???), planned the music, shopped for the decorations and refreshments -- and spent glorious hours deciding what costumes we would wear and speculating about what everyone else might wear. The first Lycée ball was held on Friday evening, 14 March 1941, and it was a triumph. Everyone turned out in gorgeous costume and had a marvelous time. Eleanor and I were ecstatic. That was 61 years ago, but I have never forgotten it. In fact, in one of my albums, I still have one of the invitations we sent out to Lycée students, and I still have photographs my father took of me in my 18th-century costume. My other memories of the Lycée are still vivid and very dear to me today. It was the best school I ever attended, far in advance of American schools of the time -- and, hopefully, even more so today, inasmuch as contemporary American schools seem to have deteriorated quite incredibly (which I sincerely pray is not the case with the Lycée). The texts, the teachers we had then were marvelous, scholarly, informative, and the learning was of a high order. Things I learned then laid a basis of knowledge and culture that have proved their value throughout my life since, and much of that remains with me still. CLASSMATES REMEMBERED I started at the Lycée in 1938 when the school was only three years old, and I can remember quite clearly who most of my classmates were: Pauline Frassati, Greta Unger, Pierre Grelet, Charles Haines, Ethan Davis, Gerard Tanqueray, Georges Gonod, Francois Lee, Claire Nicholas, Jacques Changeux, Francois Pardo, Jacques Regard, Natasha Dorfman, Pierre Monsarrat and Marcel Lavignette. A year later, we were joined by Christiane Donat, Liliane Copans, and Bonita Boomer. After I skipped 4eme, my classmates were Eleanor Cramer, Gloria Alvarez, Elizabeth Bertol, Esther Huisman, Maurice Raviol, Jacques Regard, Ludmilla Alexeiff, Marcel Monory, Michel Guggenheim, Jean Alvarez de Toledo, Jean-Pierre Petolas, Raoul Grenade among others. I remember alumni from other grades. There were: Helene de Breteuil, Consuelo Eames, Fanchon de Garon-Dombasle (a relative of M. de Fontnouvelle), Joy Kuypers, Hilda Beer, Jean Bussard, Joyce Culbertson, Marie-Claude Boulin and her sister Anne, George and Tommy Mount (a few grades behind), Lauro Venturi, Jean Casadesus, Gloria Iden, Nicholas Vogel, Maurice Raviol, Francois and Antoine Chapman, Juliette and Lucienne Breffort, Charles and Marie-Rose Wormser, Jean Arabo ’46, Ethan Davis (and his younger brothers, Curtis and Malcolm), Anne-Marie Schwob, Jacqueline Dutacq, David Leach, and Rene de Chambrun. I know that Christiane Donat and her older sister, Odile, returned to France at some point during my first Lycée year. I had been friends with both of them. We corresponded for a time after they left, then lost track, and God knows whether they even survived World War II. I have often wondered about them. My brother, Arthur Robbins Griswold Jr. was two years younger than I, and he also attended the Lycée during the same years I did (1938 to 1941 or '42). He died some years ago. FACULTY & STAFF I also remember some faculty and staff from my vintage years. Mme. Mount (French and Latin), Miss Gladys Peacock (English -- who returned to England for the war), Madame Begue (French), Monsieur Lavallee (English), M. Deschamps (Math - who, I believe, also returned to France for the war), Mme.Correa (Math), Mme. Day-Mondain (Greek), M. Gallet (Drawing), Mr. Chown (English) and my mother, also named Gabrielle Krazewska Griswold (English). There were also a Mme. Durieux, a Miss Giauque, a Miss Geymet, a M. Reynolds, a Miss Glass, and M. Soulas (whom I was the only student to like, who left for the war and with whom I corresponded for a time before losing track of him altogether) M. Pierre Brodin was directeur des études; M. de Fontnouvelle was one of the Lycée's founders. He and M. Brodin had offices across from each other on opposite sides of the marble entrance hall). The Misses Helen and Elizabeth Horsey (sisters) were school secretaries, fonts of knowledge about everything that concerned the school. Helen, in later years, remained a friend to both my mother and myself. Am sadder than I can say that the 3 East 95th Street building is being sold, but so glad I came down when I did, two springs ago, to see it again. If it were possible to do so one last time before that building is lost to the Lycée forever, I would come down this spring as well. Although I believe most of my contemporaries have long since passed away, I would love to hear from anyone who remembers me from those Lycée days. How glad I should be to hear from him or her. God bless you, Gabrielle Griswold '44 gabriele@ncia.net |
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