Growing up in Mexico

By Peggy Brown Balderrama

In Growing up in Mexico, Peggy Brown Balderrama tells the story of her family's life in Mexico. She describes trips through various cities and towns in the country with interesting details, and as a bonus, she gives humorous descriptions of several trips through Europe and South America that she took with her family.

The author arrived in Mexico with her parents from England when she was seven years old, and relates, with wit, the impressions she formed of Mexico and its people when she was that age. Growing up in a very peaceful Mexico City in the forties, contrasts with the Mexico City of today. Her life in the American High School, her various boyfriends, and her eventual marriage to a Mexican physician, tell a different tale from a girl who might have grown up in England or the United States or even in the Mexico City of today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 28, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440162718

Peggy Brown Balderrama

Peggy Brown Balderrama grew up in Mexico City in the 1940s when it was peaceful and unspoiled. She and her husband, Frank, now retired, travel abroad frequently but return to their home in Mexico. Their only son Tony lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and three children.

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Growing up in Mexico

Peggy Brown Balderrama

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Growing up in Mexico

Copyright © 2009 by Peggy Brown Balderrama

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-6272-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-6270-1 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-6271-8 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009936713

iUniverse rev. date: 9/9/2009

Contents

VERACRUZ

LONDON

MEXICO CITY

ANGANGUEO, MICHOACAN

NACOZARI

MEXICO CITY

ACAPULCO

CHICKEN FARM

VICKI

THE SKELETON

FRANKIE

OUR WEDDING

CAMPECHE

MEXICO CITY

TORREON

OUR BABY’S ARRIVAL

FRANK’S ACCIDENT

OUR NEW HOUSE

ANOTHER ACCIDENT

THE DIAGNOSTIC CLINIC

LAS VEGAS, LOS ANGELES,

SAN FRANCISCO

NEW ORLEANS

THE FLOOD

EUROPE

OUR INVESTMENTS.

TRIP TO SILAO, GUANAJUATO

LOSS OF A FRIEND

SECOND TRIP TO EUROPE

MAZATLÁN

BEACH VACATIONS

SHORT EUROPEAN VACATION

ANOTHER ACCIDENT

LONG EUROPEAN VACATION

EASTERN CANADA

WESTERN CANADA

RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE

ZACATECAS

A VISIT FROM THE PRESIDENT

HUATULCO, OAXACA

OREGON AND CALIFORNIA COASTS

ENGLAND, WALES, STRATFORD,

PARIS, BRUGES

PARIS, MADRID, AND LISBON

OAXACA AND TAPACHULA

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA

AND NEW YORK CITY

SOUTH AMERICA

OUR TRIP TO THE

HEARTLAND OF MEXICO

VERACRUZ, FULL CIRCLE

THE SUMMING UP

               To my two loves, Frank and Tony,

                  And to my precious grandchildren,

                  Anthony Francis, Sophia Raphaela,

                  And Allegra Isabella

When I was but thirteen or so

I went into a golden land,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

Took me by the hand.

I walked in a great golden dream

To and fro from school—

Shining Popocatepetl

The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy,

And never a word I’d say,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

Had taken my speech away;

I gazed entranced upon his face

Fairer than any flower—

O shining Popocatepetl

It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed

Thin fading dreams by day.

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

They had stolen my soul away!

Exerpt from ROMANCE by W. J. Turner

VERACRUZ

Which one is my father? I asked my mother in a high pitched voice as we hung over the railing of the ocean liner which had just docked in the port of Veracruz. Several passengers standing nearby chuckled and one kidded my mother fondly, Go on, Louise, tell your little girl who her father is! My mother laughed while scanning the crowd on the wharf below. My goodness, I can´t seem to find him. He has to be somewhere out there. And then, suddenly waving wildly. Oh, there he is, there he is, see darling, all in white with the Panama hat! and she pointed to a man standing a little back from the crowd who was shading his eyes and looking up at the ship’s railing, trying to find us. Apparently he was unsuccessful as he did not wave back. He was too far away yet to recognize his wife and child whom he had not seen for over a year.

Come on Louise, we’re starting to disembark. said one of the fellow passengers urging my mother to start moving toward the gangway. I can remember, as we started toward the wharf , the sudden swarm of flies in my face and an unpleasant smell in the air.

Mama, Mama, I don´t like this, I want to go back to the ship! and I clung to my mother´s hand with both of my small ones. By the time we arrived at the bottom of the gangway, mercifully my father had spied us and was there with open arms to welcome us to Mexican soil. He kissed my mother full on the lips, looking at her fondly and then slowly turned down to me, still hanging on her skirts. "And here is my little ‘Pegitus’ he smiled, and reached down to tilt my face up to his. I turned away. I was upset that this only vaguely familiar stranger had dared kiss my mother so intimately, and I wanted no part of this reunion. Besides, I did not take fondly to the nickname he had given me of ‘Pegitus’ when my name was Peggy.

I was beginning to think you’d never arrive! he said. What on earth took the ship so long? I’ve been waiting here in Veracruz for five days! What happened?

The shipping company had wired the offices in Veracruz of the return to Antwerp, although not disclosing the reason. He took my mother’s hand luggage and urged her forward. She said I’ll explain later, darling, but just a moment, and turned back to reach out for a tall older man who was coming alongside. Tommy, please come, I want you to meet my husband, Fred Brown. Fred, this is Tommy Wilkinson who was a fellow passenger and helped us so much throughout the voyage.

So pleased to meet you finally, Mr. Brown. Your wife has told us all so much about you. She really is such a charming shipmate. She kept us all enthralled with her lively conversation and her experiences. I’m sure you´re very happy to finally have her with you. They shook hands, and then Mr. Wilkinson said, Well, cheerio, most probably be seeing you again before leaving for Mexico City. I understand we’ll be staying at the same hotel here, so good luck, and congratulations, Mr. Brown, that you have your family with you at last. He moved on.

The voyage from England had been a long one. After the train trip from London to Southampton in the middle of May 1939, we had boarded a Belgian ship to take us to Antwerp, where we changed over to a German ship of the Hamburg America Line, the Orinoco, and set sail for America, final destination—Veracruz, Mexico. But after a few days at sea we docked at Lisbon and all the passengers were suddenly asked to hand in their passports to one of the officers. Terror gripped the faces of our fellow shipmates and I clearly remember my mother standing in one of the hallways with a group of people after handing in her British passport, discussing in low voices the reasons for this request, and hearing snippets of conversations and theories about the likelihood of war being declared between England and Germany, in which case we might all be taken as prisoners. Finally we set sail again, but to my mother’s alarm she found out from one of the stewards that the ship was retracing its route to Hamburg, where it had started, because there were illegal passengers aboard who had to be returned to their original point of departure. By that time my mother had made friends with two lovely Jewish couples who sat with us at our luncheon table every day and who had disappeared from the scene ever since the passports had been collected. Whether they had preferred to remain in their cabins, or had been held prisoners on board I will never know. All I know is that when we docked at Hamburg, I was peeking over the side of the boat when German uniformed officers urged several passengers down the gangway--among them, the Jewish couples. Realizing the seriousness of the moment, even in my childlike mind, I ran to our cabin for my little Brownie camera, a gift from my sister for the voyage, and took a couple of pictures of this memorable event. Somewhere in one of our old scrapbooks the two tiny photographs still remain.

My mother and I were coming out to live with my father again. He had been working in Mexico for many years with the American Smelting Company, faithfully sending money to my mother, first to the U. S., where I was born, and where she and my siblings were living while they were attending school, and then to London so that the children, all older than I, could be educated in the English manner. I was barely a year old at the time, so my first seven years were spent in London, with visits from my father every six or seven months, or whenever he could afford the long ocean voyage.

During those years my mother had become a completely independent self-sufficient mother of seven from necessity. When we finally left London to avoid the imminent war, my sister, Victoria, was twenty-four years old, and had recently married a fine British interior decorator; my brother, Fred, was twenty-two and had just joined the Grenadier Guards; my brother, Dick, had run away from home and joined the Merchant Marines; Ted and Bob were in the Royal Air Force, and Bill, the youngest boy had dropped out of school and been tempted by his older brother to follow him into the Merchant Marines. So my mother felt free to take her youngest child and flee to Mexico to escape the clearly oncoming war. Also, she was eager to celebrate her 25th silver wedding anniversary with my father. He, bless his heart, had thought it would be wonderful for his wife and child to enjoy the warm weather and seaside in Veracruz before leaving for Mexico City, so had reserved the hotel room for another week, to my mother’s complete dismay. She, being accustomed now to living in a cosmopolitan city such as London, was eager to return to Mexico City and renew old acquaintances there to whom she had bid goodbye several years before.

As for me, that week in Veracruz holds very few good memories. It was hot and sticky weather; the flies were everywhere, and at night they were exchanged for a swarm of mosquitoes, so that we were forced to cover ourselves completely with mosquito netting before turning out the light. In the morning my father would order cereal for me, but the milk was boiled and tasted terrible. However I did go for the mound of pancakes and golden slices of fresh pineapple which I had never seen before, and I ate too much, so that on the third day I had a terrible case of dysentery and had to remain in bed taking an ill-tasting medicine. The one pastime I remember fondly was riding up and down several times a day in the golden cage elevator of the hotel. A young dark-skinned boy worked it, obviously enjoying my amusement and stopping at any floor I desired over and over again.

In the mornings, my mother, father and I would set out after a breakfast of sorts to see the city’s sites, and to my delight sometimes boarded a rickety open-air street car which had no doors, only one step up to the wooden seat we chose. We visited San Juan de Ulúa, the dark dank jail and dungeons where prisoners used to be interned, and which originally served as a repository for the silver and gold the Spaniards shipped out to their mother country during the sixteenth century after the conquest of Mexico. I found out more about its importance when my husband and I returned to Veracruz many years later so that I could relive my first impressions of Mexico. My parents and I would then stop at some restaurant for lunch, and from there to the hotel to spend the hotter part of the day indoors for a long nap.

Luckily for me, I had started to read when I was five, and had brought along several of my children’s books, one of which was the popular story,The Water Babies, by the Reverend Charles Kingsley, which my mother had already read to me, facilitating the re-reading for me, as it was rather advanced even for a precocious seven year old.

In the evenings we would stroll around the main plaza in front of our hotel and end up stopping for refreshments at the sidewalk café where we would be serenaded by music from nearby marimbas. I would invariably ask for a limonada preparada, which was a cool lemonade made with bottled water, while my parents would usually ask for a good cold beer.

Somehow the week went by and we finally took the train to Mexico City where my father checked us into a lovely downtown hotel, The Guardiola, in front of the famous Sanborns Restaurant, known as The House of Tiles. My mother promptly set about calling all her old friends which she had not seen since she left Mexico in 1929.

I should clear up the fact that my mother and father and my siblings had already lived in Mexico. I was the only child born in the United States, and was whisked off to London shortly after.

My mother had originally come out to Mexico from England as a child, with her parents, when her father, John B. Hardy, had been offered the position of Superintendent of the Huasteca Oil Company, El Águila. It was one of the first foreign companies which had been established when oil was discovered in the Gulf area in 1900. At that time prime jobs were being offered to foreigners under the government of President Porfirio Diaz, who had stabilized the nation after many years of bloodshed and who had opened up the country to foreign investment, which had poured millions into refineries, mining ventures, railroads, and work on the infrastructure.

As Lucy Louise grew, she was first sent to New Orleans to the Sacred Heart Academy, and later on, to a business school in Dallas, Texas. When my father, Frederick A. Brown, came out to Tampico from England to work as an accountant at the Huasteca, he and Lucy met. They were the only two Britishers about the same age at the time, and it did not take long for them to fall in love and marry in 1914, during the Mexican Revolution.

They only married by civil law, as Catholic priests were being persecuted by the rebels, so they traveled overnight to San Antonio, Texas, for their honeymoon, where they were married in the church, after being reprimanded by the priest for traveling together before their union was blessed. Later, they moved to the southern part of Mexico, and spent a little over a year on a sugar plantation on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the state of Veracruz. That is where their first child was born, fair of face, dark-haired, and named Victoria, for the late Queen Victoria, of course, and Louise, one of my mother’s names. A year later they moved to Mexico City where four of my brothers were born, first a boy, named Frederick Archibald, (poor boy) after my father, followed shortly by Richard, named for Richard the Lionhearted, Twelfth Century King of England, and then Edward Albert, for King Edward the VII and Albert for Queen Victoria’s adored husband. When the next boy arrived two years later, my mother had run out of royal names, so she took the first two names of her favorite poet, Robert Louis Stevenson.

My father was offered a better job in Pachuca, in the state of Hidalgo, and with the family growing so quickly, and the need for higher wages, they moved to this small mining town, north of Mexico City. Here, the youngest of my five brothers, William Hardy, was born. William, for William the Conqueror, and Hardy, my mother’s maiden name.

After a few years, my parents moved to Mexico City, where they decided that my mother should travel to the U. S. with the children for their education. My father remained in Mexico, where he held down a good position with another mining company, while making frequent trips back and forth to San Antonio, Texas, to see his large family. Then, after a few years, when my sister Victoria was seventeen years old and the youngest of my brothers was eight, my mother became pregnant with me, surprising the whole family. It turned out that she had planned the pregnancy, intentionally traveling to Mexico to visit my father during her fertile period because she had always wanted to have another little girl. But I have often wondered how my poor father took the news, for supporting a wife and six children must have become a burden, and I imagine the prospect of a seventh child did not meet with exultation on his part. I was the only child to be born in the United States, but before I could enjoy my good fortune, the whole family left for England, where they had decided to move again for the further education of the children, as well as a long-promised visit to my father’s mother and family. So, brave adventurers that they were, the entire family took the boat and went to live in London. I was named Margaret Diana, the first name after her long departed mother, and the second after the Goddess of hunting and chastity. What a name to live up to. My maternal grandmother had been a delicate Welsh porcelain beauty, judging from the sepia-colored photograph my mother kept on her dressing table. One could tell from the pose the Honorable Margaret Rowena affected, her left hand held daintily up to her cheek, heavy lace and satin gown clinging to her full bosom, that she had been a grande dame back in Wales, only daughter of Lady Margaret Richards and Sir William Richards. As one can imagine, they were not happy about my grandfather´s courtship of their daughter, he, being her second cousin, and penniless at the time. So the couple eloped and went to London, and it was there that my mother was born.

Dreamer that my mother was, I imagine she must have had visions of Eton and Cambridge for the boys, a finishing school for Victoria, and a home which looked out onto a lush back lawn surrounded by tulips and daffodils in the springtime while she sat in the drawing room sipping tea from lovely patterned Bone china with her new lady friends who would wear hats and pearls. She yearned to hear English the way it should be spoken with her mother and father’s accent. She could imagine robins sitting on her windowsill in the mornings, and could recall her parents’ description of long walks down country lanes in their youth. My father would work in The City and I’m sure she even saw him coming home from the office every evening and setting down his bowler hat on the hallstand before joining the family before a crackling fire in the drawing room. In reality it turned out to be heartbreakingly different.

My father, with the self-confidence of a man who had worked for years in Mexico in high-salaried positions, had assumed he could easily find work in England where he had started out. But he was wrong. That period in their lives would be a difficult one, and after having to take a succession of lower paying jobs, he decided to return to Mexico because he found doors in London closed to him. He had not worked in his native country for over twenty years, and found that all the letters of recommendation he carried were of no value whatsoever there. Disappointed, disillusioned and depressed, he sailed again for Mexico, where upon his return, he almost immediately landed another well-paying position enabling him to send money to his wife and family for their support. But returning to our arrival in London in the spring of 1932, it is a story I have heard recounted many times from various members of my family, each one slightly different from the other.

LONDON

My dad had advised his mother that he and his family would be arriving by train from Southampton, so she had rented a house within walking distance of her own home in Finsbury Park. She had signed signed a two year contract, clearly hoping to keep her dear son nearby after all those years when he had been living in that heathen country. Also she had thoughtfully furnished the bedrooms with beds, sheets and blankets so we would not have to stay at a hotel that first night. She had put a few items in the larder and the pantry for our first meals, plus necessary china and cutlery. A cellarful of coal which would last us for at least a month had also been ordered. Looking back, I am amazed at her forethought and arrangements -- a marvellous feat for a woman who was almost seventy years old and not financially well-off to say the least. How she wangled it I’ll never know, but I do know that my mother resented the fact that she had tied us to a monster of a house while she probably had visions of arriving at a fancy hotel, not taking into consideration the money my father would have had to pay for an indeterminate time while they house-hunted.

Anyway, this was to be the big family reunion. None of them knew what to expect, and the thought of having a daughter-in-law who was brought up in a foreign country, with seven children of all ages ranging from seventeen years to six months, descend upon my grandmother, must have been more than intimidating.

So, after a two week voyage from Galveston to Le Havre in France, and from there another ship to Southampton, we finally boarded the train to London, and were met at Victoria Station by Grandmother Brown and the whole family. In Dad’s absence, his father, William, had passed away, and Mrs. Brown had remarried a charming old gentleman named Edward Beer. He too was at the station, and I’m afraid my father’s reaction to the new addition to his family was not the most gracious. His brothers, Alfred and Frank, and Esther, Frank’s wife were there, along with his sisters Elsie and Mabel and Frank’s sons, Peter and Rodney. Quite an impressive welcome committee, but no less impressive than the arrival of our family as we stepped off the train.

I can just imagine my sedate little grandmother Brown’s first impression of the Mexican Browns (as our London relatives came to call us). Of course, the first off the train was my father, straight into his mother’s waiting open arms. He picked up the diminutive little gray figure and kissed her fondly, and I imagine he had tears running down his cheeks, for he was a most sentimental man. My son, my dear son, was all she was able to say, according to my mother, years later, and even she, admitted it was a moving moment.

He hugged each of the other family members and was stiffly introduced to his step-father. Turning proudly toward the train, he helped my mother down, babe in arms (me), my sister Victoria, splendid in a red wrap-around overcoat with fur collar, red painted toenails showing from her open-toed high-heeled sandals, and the five boys, all in brightly colored hand-knitted sweaters.

Before my mother could be introduced to her mother-in-law, grandfather Beer stepped forward, doffed his silver grey homburg, disclosing a shock of white hair to match his distinguished mustache and beard, and took my mother’s hand in his.

I’m Edward Beer, my dear he said warmly, and I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. At that moment there was an instant connection between them which would last the rest of our days in England, in contrast to my grandmother’s cool dry kiss on the cheek, and firm handshake, and Esther’s mixed look of curiosity and horror at Victoria’s open-toed sandals in comparison to her own sensible brogues.

We were driven from the station in two cars, with a taxi for most of the luggage. How we all piled in I cannot imagine, but we did, or so the story goes when recounted by my brothers. We arrived at grandmother Brown’s house, a dark old three story house that smelled of mutton when we entered the hallway. Almost immediately I was taken to one of the upstairs bedrooms and laid down to sleep after nursing from my mother.

Of course I don’t remember any of this, but my sister Victoria’s witty description remains in my mind as she told me the story when I was older. She said the only one in the whole family my grandma took to immediately was me, a cherubic blue-eyed little blonde baby. She described the supper that night as what was called a good hearty English meal: boiled mutton, boiled potatoes and turnips, and some sort of heavy pudding dessert. The boys, who at their ages would eat anything in sight, wolfed down everything, as did my father, reminiscing about his boyhood life and the good meals he had missed for all those years, clearly not a compliment to my mother’s cooking. Dad’s brothers then took us to our new home where Grandma had provided most of what she thought we might need for a few days before starting housekeeping. My mother went pale with her first look at the inside of the house, and clutched my sister’s arm tightly. The silt-stained windows in the peeling window frames, the mildewed wallpaper, and the heavy brown doors all came at her in one blow and she thought she might be ill, but managed to stay silent. Grandmother Brown had offered to keep my brother Billy with her that first week while Mother settled down, but Billy started howling immediately at this suggestion. He was terrified they would leave him with the little gray-haired lady and the old bearded man. He grabbed our mother’s skirt and wouldn’t let go. However, again, I must emphasize how I now admire my grandmother’s thoughtfulness, despite my mother’s opinion.

I cannot even imagine how my family dealt with the first few weeks in that musty old house with very little furniture to sit on, no wardrobes to hang one’s clothes in, and not even a mirror in the whole house, other than a small oval one in the upper bathroom. Somehow they survived.

My dad bought the newspapers the next morning and started to look for a job, but companies did not welcome an accountant who had only worked in Mexican oil or mining companies, even though he had the highest of recommendations. At first, he was offered a few crumbs with a starting pay that would not have supported a bachelor, much less a man with a wife and seven children, so after a month or so of eating up his hard-earned savings, he decided to sail back to Mexico. This proved to be a successful move, and from then on, the monthly check arrived promptly for my mother, who learned how to make it last until the next one.

Before my mother began to think of things such as furniture or curtains and rugs, she decided she did not want to live in that musty old house so she started to house hunt. She started out on foot until my grandfather--who by that time was a staunch ally--began driving her It wasn’t long before she found a house more to her liking in Crouch End, and although it too had three stories like the rest of the houses on the block, there was a lovely ample living room with French doors overlooking a neat pretty little garden, which she mentally planted with all sorts of colorful flowers and greenery. Then came the battle between her and the landlord, when she tried to get out of the contract her mother-in-law had signed. He was furious, and maintained that the contract could not be broken, until she finally told him that her husband had gone to America and left her penniless, and she could never pay him his rent, nor would her in-laws. In the face of this he tore up the contract in front of her with a scalding warning that she and her family had to be out of the house by the end of the week. Mr Beer helped by hiring a moving van, and in a few days the family was out of the dreaded house.

My mother had still not advised my grandmother about the move, trusting Mr. Beer to do so. One morning my youngest brother, Bill, answered the door, and there stood Grandma Brown, dressed in a black dress with a little lace collar and a shawl across her shoulders.

Hello dear, is your mother in? was all she asked, and nine year old Bill slammed the door in her face and ran to get my mother. Horrified at his rudeness, my mother went to the door to apologetically usher her mother-in-law in.

Come in, Mother, and welcome to our home. I’m so very sorry about Billy’s rudeness. Please come in. She reached out to hold the old lady’s arm, but Grandmother would have none of it. She wrenched her arm away and said, I can hardly believe your not advising me of your move, after all the trouble we took to find you a house and partially furnish it. I’m sure my son is not aware of your lack of courtesy toward me, but he’ll hear about it, you can be sure! And with that she turned and went down the three steps into the front garden. Only then did my mother realize that her second son, Alf, was with her, standing by the gate. Of course my mother followed her and tried to explain to Alf how the move was so precipitous that she had had her hands full settling down and was planning to call the family once she could receive them graciously. But by this time Alf had opened the car door for his mother and gone around the other side. They drove off without another word. My mother realized her mistake and now worried about my father hearing about the incident directly from his mother. To make a phone call was out of the question, for the cost would have been prohibitive, so she decided to wire my father to give him our new address, saying she would contact his mother that very day. He would then think that his mother had visited before his wife had had a chance to call her. Not a very likely story, but still, better than the real one.

Every month, my mother invested in one item. First was a large sofa in pale cream, at a discount, because no one was interested in a color which was so hard to keep clean. One would think that with growing boys, my mother would not have wanted it either, but she had a definite idea of how her finished living room should look, and although her vision of grandeur was anything but sensible, like so many of my mother’s ideas, it worked out well eventually. Little by little and piece by piece she furnished what she began calling the drawing room and ended by making herself some elaborate pale green, silk damask drapes which hung long, in the English style, on either side of the French doors.

One of the first steps was to find a school for my brothers. This did not prove to be a problem, as children had to attend school in the same area where they lived. However each child had to take an admittance test, and the result was that they were found to be below British school standards, so to my mother´s disappointment, had to be put in lower grades.

Victoria had previously taken a business course in the United States and was checking the newspapers every day seeking employment. At the very first firm where she applied, the bosses found her so efficient and were so dazzled by her glamour that they did not hesitate to hire her. Besides, she was a great bluffer and said she was 2l years old and had held down a position for two years in the United States with an important company. They took her word for it, and as she turned out to be quick and competent, within three months she was asking for a raise in salary, which she was granted.

Little by little relations were patched up between the Browns and my mother, and when eventually the drawing room was finished and ready to receive the family, they were invited over for a proper English tea. Grandmother’s only whispered comment to her daughter, overheard by my sister was My poor son. He works so hard in that far-off country to support this pretentious life style.

My mother was very fond of Mr. Beer, and called him Father almost right away. Although she also called my grandmother Mother, she never really became close to her, but by the time my father visited us a year later my mother had made the peace with her mother-in-law and even become quite friendly with her sisters-in-law. She had made friends with her neighbors too, and was gradually better accepted as a good English woman.

One of the friends she acquired at the local Catholic church was a French woman named Maud Moulton who had been living in London for several years, who took to my mother from the first time they met. She invited her to visit Paris to stay at her parents’ home. Later on, when I was older and my sister was already married, Mother left me with her while she and Maud took the boat-train across the channel (this involved taking the train from London to Dover, boarding the cross-channel ferry, disembarking in Calais, and taking another train to Paris) and stayed for a week. Maud’s mother was unable to walk for any distance, and Maud wanted