Back Home

My wintry trip to western Europe was fruitful from a research standpoint. I visited many places listed in my grandfather's WWI diary, getting the lay of the land and solving some mysteries. I also made useful contacts along the way.

I got back to New York last Wednesday, and was surprised to see that Gotham was just as snowy as Germany. It's been a long and hard winter for many people.

One of the best decisions I made on this trip was to stay at B&Bs (chambres d'hote). Besides being an inexpensive alternative to hotels, it was a wonderful way to get to know some French families. All the rooms I had were comfortably furnished and cost less than $50 per night including breakfast. The breakfasts often included products made right on the spot: jams, jellies, fruit juice and yogurt. I recommend the experience highly if you're going to France and want to stay outside the cities. There's a French Web site that helps you find rooms and farm products for sale.

Here's a shout-out to the individual chambres d'hote where I stayed:

Outside Remiremont in the Moselle valley Bernadette and Jean-Marc Desmougin welcomed me warmly to Les Mitreuches. They were very helpful with my search and generous with their farm products.

Just down the road in the town of Vecoux I spent a night with Monique and Gerard DuPré and had a great home-cooked meal. Their chalet has one room to rent with a very comfortable bed. M. DuPré is a local historian and most interested in the project. He gave me some books about the local history and has already emailed material pertaining to my grandfather's stay in the region.

Then, in tiny Maxey sur Vaise (pop. 330), Danielle Noisette and her family made me feel most welcome. I had a private apartment off a side entrance to their 18th-century house. Danielle took pity on me and invited to dine with her family one evening due to the remoteness of the area. It was a real treat; again, practically everything came out of their farm. In addition to running her B&B, Danielle also rents entire vacation properties.

In Germany I stayed for two nights at „Die Scheune” mit Gästehaus „St. Hubertus”, or "The Barn" with "St. Hubertus" Guesthouse, near Bad Kreuznach. This solid stone house (and barn) was once a mill. The setting is probably really lovely in the summer with its many trees and a private garden. They host social events in the barn during the warm months. However, the courtyard was filled with increasing amounts of snow while I was there. In contrast to the inclement weather, I was greeted warmly by owner Klaus Moehring. He provides a delicious breakfast in one's room.

Castles on the Rhine

The last two nights I've been in a Gästehaus near the city of Bad Kreuznach. The inn was an old mill with thick stone walls and, boy, was it cold inside! Must be great in summer, but I had to wear several layers to bed. It was okay since I was only there to sleep. I chose the location because it was convenient to several places Grant mentioned in his diary.

Monday I recreated a trip Grant made down the Rhine to Speyer with a stop in Worms on the return trip. Both cities have marvelous Romanesque cathedrals. The trouble often with traveling on Mondays is that many museums are closed. I would have like to have visited the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer, but it was „geschlossen." They had enticing posters all over town for an exhibit called "Witches: Myths and Truth" with a photo of a big green toad.

In the afternoon I intended to explore Mainz and find the exact location of the barracks where Grant and his outfit lived for several weeks. But once again I ran up against carnival! Roadblocks at every turn! So I parked the car and took a tram into the city. I followed the costumed throngs into the old part of Mainz and found a parade in full swing. I gave up trying to find the tourist office. Everything was closed anyway. So I decided to join the party for a while. I had a beer and snapped some photos of the crowd. I had to be careful where I walked because the pavement was littered with bottles of all kinds and other refuse. The crowd had clearly been enjoying themselves for hours.

This morning I drove up the west side of the Rhine from Bad Kreuznach to Koblenz, again recreating one of Grant's jaunts. Even though it was hazy, the castles that adorn both sides of the river were very visible. What also stood out were the incredible (nearly vertical) vineyards. Someday I would like to come here at harvest time and see how they do it. It must be hard to pick the grapes without tumbling down the mountainside.

I remember making this same journey past the Lorelei Cliff (only in the opposite direction) with my parents in the spring of 1984. My dad drove, of course, I navigated from the front seat, and my poor mother, who had a cold, lay down in the rear seat, rallying every once and a while to gaze at a castle before sinking back down again.

Once I hit Koblenz, the sun came out and I had bright sunshine the rest of the day. It's ironic that on my last day in Europe I had the best weather in three and a half weeks! Since it had snowed heavily for the past few days I had a beautiful drive through the forested mountains east of the Rhine to Limburg an der Lahn. The snow clung to every tree branch. The sunlight on the snow was blinding at times. In picturesque Limburg I wanted to talk to someone on in the tourism office, but it was closed for carnival. Grant evacuated a prisoner of war camp and I wanted to find its exact location. I had similar intentions later in the afternoon in Gießen, but gave up. These questions will have to wait.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon I arrived in a small town northeast of Gießen. It was an emotional experience for me because it happened to be the hometown of two brothers who live in my building in New York. Their family lived and worked in this small town for many years. And then the Nazis came to power. During World War II the family was deported to Theresienstadt (where they lost the grandmother) and thence to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There the parents were murdered in the gas chamber, but these two young brothers survived. Eventually they emigrated to America, settled down in New York and raised their own families. I feel lucky to know them.

Au Revoir, France… Hallo, Deutschland!

Let me begin with a side note: One the real pleasures of this voyage is seeing so many birds of prey—hawks, ospreys, kites or kestrels. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know exactly which species I’m seeing. There have been so many large birds sitting on fence posts right beside the road, close enough to touch, or on a low tree branch or wire over the road. Sometimes a movement will catch the corner of my eye and it’s a hawk taking to wing and landing in a nearby field atop some prey. Each time I think of trying to photograph these beautiful birds I then think that by the time I stop the car and get set up they will have flown away.

Saturday I bade farewell to France and wound my way into Germany. Why Germany? I’m glad you asked. After the First World War came to a halt on November 11, 1918, my Grandfather Grant’s ambulance unit was sent into Germany with the occupying French army. Throughout the winter of 1918-19 Grant and his comrades ferried patients here and there, and evacuated prisoner of war camps, including the dreaded camp at Gießen.

Part of me was sorry to be leaving France because it meant I’d be losing my felicity in a foreign language. Although German was the first foreign language, it does not roll off my tongue as easily as does French. I’ll never be able to make myself understood as well in German as in French. I can't hold in depth political or social discussions in German. I can order a meal and ask for directions, sort of.

I lingered over some sites in the Argonne Forest before heading towards Germany and I’m sorry to say that I badly misjudged the distance between Verdun and Saarbrücken, my stop for the night. It was nearly eight o’clock by the time I’d finally found my hotel in that unfamiliar town. I was completely lost when I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. The clerk enlisted the advice of a taxi driver who was standing nearby. He said (auf Deutsch) that it was far to complicated to tell me how to reach my hotel and that it would be better to hire a taxi driver to lead me to the hotel. I thanked him for his advice and went to one of the nicer hotels downtown. The desk clerk spoke English and was very helpful. He gave me a map and showed me how to get there. I wasn't far off.

As I drove around downtown Saarbrücken I saw a couple on their way to a costume party. "That's nice," I thought to myself. Then I saw another couple. "They must be going to the same party," I thought. Then I saw another couple and another. Pretty soon everyone I saw was in costume. Teutonic maidens, cowboys, witches, etc.

Then I remembered: my visit to Germany was coinciding with that annual bacchanalia known as carnival. While people are sambaing in practically nothing in the streets of Brazil, Germans, young and old, are dressing up in wigs and costumes and partying in the snowy streets and beer gardens. I can't tell you how many cars I've seen in the last two days being driving by people wearing bright wigs. I feel kind of left out without a costume. I thought about putting down the earflaps on my hat while amongst the revelers in Mainz this afternoon, but thought I was funny enough looking with my overshoes on. But am I sure glad I brought them. Whether in Belgium, France or Germany, it has snowed most of the days I've been over here and I've been living in the overshoes. Pretty they are not, but practical.

Verdun

It's been snowing in Verdun since I arrived on Wednesday. It's made the city very pretty, but the sidewalks are slick--I've nearly landed on my derrière a few times. There's not the same snow removal effort that exists in New York or Minnesota. Still, for having snowed for three days there's not much on the ground. I can still see the green grass poking up.

I realize by covering the same ground as my grandfather I'm traveling much faster than he could have done in 1917. I traveled between cities in a few hours--a journey that took him two or three days in an ambulance convoy. The French transportation infrastructure has changed so much in the last one hundred years. That sounds like a simple statement, but I don't think many of us stop to think about the speed and modes of transportation available to our grandparents a century ago and those that we use now. The world has changed so much.

I've had success in Verdun finding the locations of Grant's bases. I met with a librarian at the Verdun Memorial and she showed me "top secret" maps of the Verdun battlefield from 1916. The topographical map showed the locations of the various forts that had fallen into German hands. Carefully marked also was the system of trenches, the French in red and the German in blue, (red state/blue state?) that spread out in a very complicated maze. Each trench had its own name, sometimes named after the hometown of the soldiers fighting there, sometimes after famous people on one side or the other. The cartographers of the day were certainly kept busy by the continually shifting front lines.

After studying the maps I ventured off into the snowy woods to try to find a particular aide post Grant mentions frequently in his diary. But, alas, all I found were thousands of shell impact craters covered with trees and snow. I did walk a ways into an old trench that is still maintained and tried to imagine what it had been like to fight there. The snow and -4 C temperatures helped a bit, but I don't think one can really comprehend what happened there.

I have to say it was a shock to check into a tiny hotel room after having stayed in private homes for six nights! It's pretty sleepy at night, but I've managed to find a few good restaurants. And a fun bar called Le Lapin Qui Fume (the Smoking Rabbit). But they do seem to roll up the sidewalks not long after the sun goes down.

Then came the odor of mustard gas

Beaumont

I've read war described as long periods of boredom broken up with moments of absolute terror. Tuesday I spent time in places where my grandfather and his comrades experienced that kind of terror. In the spring of 1918 they were scattered at aid stations across several square miles near a protrusion in the Western Front called the St. Mihiel Salient. I visited villages called Mandres-aux-Quatre-Tours, Rambucourt, Ansauville and Beaumont. Today they are sleepy farming villages. The loudest sounds are made by trucks rumbling through. Back in 1918 it was artillery fire from 77 mm German guns and gas shells exploding nearby. Grant survived a couple of run-ins with chemical warfare, but wound up in the hospital for several days... and he may have had lung problems for the rest of his life.

Rambucourt

April 19, 1918: "Our last trip down from Mandres took us through the fumes of a fruit gas shell which broke ahead of us right in the middle of the road. We were making pretty good time so it didn’t get us badly except in mind. My orderly, McDonald, a very plucky boy, got sick to his stomach and when we got in to the hospital we were ordered to stay in for the night. Boatman took my car and Mac and I went to bed pretty sick to our stomachs with eyes smarting and blood-shot... I found my car at Ménil-la-Tour all whole and we went back to Vignot with the Lieut. There we were met by a Captain who sentenced us to the hospital. Sunday and Monday were spent between sheets in the 104th Field Hospital where we received gas treatment and liquid diet. We were glad of the rest, but the liquid diet almost killed us because we hadn’t eaten very much on the two preceding days. Our day hospital sergeant was an ex-movie actor who was drafted. His assistant was a mechanic in Chicago. The night Sergeant was a bar tender in New York before being drafted so one can imagine what kind of care we had when the doctors were not around. They did the best they knew how."

Ansauville

Route Inondée

Some general observations, nothing profound:

• Many French people burn wood for heat. I noticed this in the Vosges Mountains and also along the banks of the Meuse, where I am presently. The air is redolent with the smell of a wood fire and there are chimneys everywhere smoking lazily.
• I am amazed by the presence of moss in a lot of places. Moss on the trees, of course, but also on stone walls, concrete telephone polls, etc. The colors are vibrant: bright green, tumeric yellow and mushroom brown.
• As is usually the case when I'm in Europe, I am struck by the ancient and the old being smack up agains the modern. In the city of Toul yesterday I saw a medieval tower against which had been built a building in the 18th-century against which in turn had been a built a building in an art deco style of the 1930s. Most of the farm buildings I've seen have to be at least 2o0 years old or more.
• The Meuse and many other rivers/creeks have overflowed their banks due to melted snow and rain. This is normal, I guess, for this time of year, but it's a little disconcerting to me. Many smaller country roads are closed because of flooding.
  

On Saturday the weather cleared up considerably. There were patches of blue amongst the clouds and I could see the mountaintops. The temperatures were higher than they had been; the thermometer in my car didn’t keep warning me about the dangers of ice!

I decided to take advantage of the clearer skies to visit the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial on a bluff overlooking the Moselle River. There is a family connection buried here--a cousin by the name of Edward A. Everett. Known as Ted, he was my mother’s first cousin and her favorite, according to her. Tenderhearted, artistic and fun to be around, he was killed on October 2, 1944, just a few days after the Americans liberated Remiremont and Epinal from the Germans. He couldn't have been more than twenty-two. He survived marching up the boot of Italy and invading the south of France, but died somewhere near the Moselle. Naturally, I never knew him, but grew up around his sister and brother who live on still.

When I pulled up to the visitors’ building at the cemetery, it was obvious I was the only visitor. There was a bright-eyed American named Shane in the office who offered to show me to Ted’s grave. Shane had been in the US Air Force but now works for the American Battle Monuments Commission. As we walked we talked about my grandfather project, about Ted Everett, the cemetery and World War II. Shane had thoughtfully brought along a bucket of sand and a wet sponge. He explained that by rubbing sand into the inscription on the grave marker the lettering stands out much more than the bare marble. I was grateful for the extra attention this young man gave me.

Due to a miscommunication (my fault) I had to spend Saturday night at another chamber d’hote, but the cultivatrice Bernadette Desmougin helped me by finding me a room with a colleague down the road. This new host provided a great meal Saturday evening for a reasonable fee. All the food for the meal was either grown in their own garden, preserved by them in some way or purchased locally. This is very hard to do in New York City.

Sunday I left the Vosges and made my way in the northwesterly direction to the department of the Meuse. I stopped in several towns where Grant had been in 1917-18: Neufchâteau, Gondrecourt-le-Château and Vaucouleurs. I'm in Joan of Arc country town; strange that Grant doesn't mention her in his journal. I'm staying just up the road from the place where Joan claimed to have received a message from God to save France from the English. There's a basilica on the spot. One may also visit her birthplace.

I'm spending three nights in an 18th-century bourgeois house in a tiny town called Maxey-sur-Vaise. The family that runs the chambre d'hote welcomed me warmly; they don't get too many visitors in February. I have a little apartment all to myself with a separate entrance. Yesterday evening they invited me to dine with them and it was fun. We discussed the region, history and politics while eating, what else, quiche lorraine!

Today I am off to see several places where Grant found himself in the spring and summer of 1918.

Snow at Higher Elevations

Yesterday, after several days spent with friends in Belgium and the Paris region, I struck out for Lorraine to find more traces of my grandfather Grant. I abandoned my original plan of a meandering trip along old highways though Champagne and other regions for the fastest automobile option which was taking the A5 autoroute most of the way. My goal was the city of Remiremont, nestled in the Vosges Mountains and the Moselle River valley. It was 270 miles away and I wanted to get there before it was really dark. The autoroutes are anything but cheap (it cost $27 to make the trip), but one may fly along at 130 km/h (78 mph) or slightly faster if no one is watching. Flying even faster still were the TGVs that passed me as if I were standing still at 130 km per.

The weather yesterday was some of the best I've seen since arriving in France the week before. A lazy sun succeeded in breaking out from clouds. For a change there was no snow or rain. I can't tell you how many hawks and ospreys I saw sitting on fence posts or landing on some carrion, but it was a least a dozen. I enjoyed watching the rolling countryside as I drew away from Paris and entered Champagne. The roadsign said simply: "You are in Champagne," and I thought how fun it would have been to taste some. But soon I was in other regions at higher elevations and there was snow on the ground. The closer I got to Remiremont the more snow there was. There are several feet on the ground in most places around here and even on the rooftops.

I am staying on a farm outside of Remiremont in a sort of bed-and-breakfast. The two farmers who run this place are husband and wife, and seem to be a good team. It made me realize we have no distinct word in English for a woman farmer. "Farmer and his wife" seem to go together but are sexist really. In any event, I welcomed warmly Mr and Mrs D. who thought for some reason that I would be German. They were a bit amazed when they discovered a French-speaking American. Madame seemed very interested in my project as most people who stay here this time of year are going skiing in the Vosges. She offered me a bowl of hot homemade soup to go with the baguette and cheese I'd bought along the way. Soon I was joined by three scruffy carpenters who are staying here while they build a hay barn. They and the farmer drank Pernod and water while we talked a bit.

I spent most of today driving around the area in the rain. It was hard to do much else. I spent time in Remiremont tracking down the location of an old French army barracks and hospital where Grant and his buddies spent Bastille Day, 1917. Their ambulance unit was camped out in Rupt-sur-Moselle (the soggy, snowy town in the photo), about 7 miles south of here, and on July 14, with the war on hiatus for the day, they walked all the way to Remiremont to check out the festivities. By chance they were mistaken for American officers and were invited into the Marion barracks to enjoy a concert for the wounded soldiers. Grant said it felt strange to be saluted by French majors, captains and lieutenants when he and his comrades were lowly volunteer ambulance men.

Afterward I drove over snowy mountain passes to an ancient spa town called Luxeuil-les-Bains. Because it was above freezing and raining there was a mist rising from the cold snow that blanked the region. The tops of the mountains were shrouded. Grant passed through Luxeuil but didn't stay long. The Romans called it Luxovium and created baths with the warm mineral water. In 590, St. Columban founded the Abbey of Luxeuil, and I found a modern statue of the Irishman outside the ancient basilica. I asked about the thermal baths and found they don't open for business until March 1. I'm not exactly here at the high season!