Paris: 1939-1940

Laura Philinda Campbell, my mother, often used to tell us that she had never finished college (at Swarthmore) because she saved all the required courses she disliked (mathematics!) for her senior year, and fled to Paris rather than face the requirements. The truth revealed in these letters (if we are to take them at face value) was rather different. But I'l let her tell the story herself, in the letters linked below.

Philinda was an avid reader and loved learning languages. This had led her to spend a summer in Mexico City to perfect her Spanish, probably in 1938. This stay in Mexico is the reason for the two letters written in 1938 by a seriously enamored young man named José Angel Vega. In many of her letters she sprinkles French terminology, which I've footnoted for those not familiar with that language. she also mentioned people she had met, and where possible I've given short introductions to them in footnotes. When adventure was out of reach, she often had her nose in a book, thatks to the American Library in Paris. She turned her often-arch reportage loose on these books, so I've tried to fill in details about books and authors that she didn't feel compelled to send to her family.

A couple of other "value added" touches I've tried to give are the historical and geographical background to the happenings of the time. This had no pretensions of being a history of the blitzkrieg, just a filling-in of a little background. When she had the chance to take two weeks vacation in the south of France, I've traced her route and included modern on-line photos, since she didn't have access to a camera - alas - so there are no photos in our collection from that period.

In addition to my mother's letters and occasional missives from home in New Jersey, I've included a brief article about "H. A. and Margaret Rey", the authors of the Curious George children's books. It turns out they lived in Paris during the time Philinda lived there, and were among the refugees fleeing the city ahead of the Nazis in June of 1939, a crisis described in several of Philinda's letters.

1939

1940