Wednesday August 27, 1930

Josephine wrote (1):

we are landing this morning - am packing my suit cases. They just put off passengers at Plymouth - we got out early to see them get off and saw the harbor of England - Plymouth - land Cherbourg - a beautiful harbor - pass thru most beautiful country - we were told it was Normandie

The final day of the sea voyage. At noon the pilgrims said farewell to the captain and crew. The SS George Washington dropped anchor outside the harbor in Cherbourg at noon. Cherbourg is on a peninsula of land on the northwest corner of France. As they approached the harbor they saw the Stars and Stripes waving just a little bit higher than any other flag.

The pilgrims’ luggage was brought off before that of any other passenger. After leaving the ship, the pilgrims filed into the customhouse for inspection; the Army had coordinated with French officials to speed pilgrims through the normally tedious customs procedures. Mrs. Mary Everson described Cherbourg as being a beautiful city.

The special tender carrying Majors Dailey and Kinderman; Captains Ochs, Haley, Earnest, Lambert, and Stark; Lieutenants Yarborough, Freeman, and Binns; five nurses, and three civilian employees had arrived at 11:57 am.

As Party R prepared to leave the SS George Washington, perhaps the passengers remaining on board serenaded them with the song, “God Be With You ‘til We Meet Again.”

The mothers and widows boarded a series of tenders (small boats) that ferried the pilgrims ashore. There, French gold star mothers and widows welcomed their American counterparts.

An officer jumped aboard Mrs. Fine’s tender and said, “Hello; is it very hot in New York? Those who sought the Meuse Argonne Cemetery were in charge of Lieut.Yarborough. This included 110 pilgrims, Josephine and Mrs. Fine among them. Lieut. Yarborough told them, “Follow me.” Mrs. Fine reported that that is what they did for the whole two weeks in France. Lieut. Yarbourugh would say, “Just follow me, two abreast.” He told the ladies that they were excellent soldiers!

At 1:30 pm the group boarded the “boat train” for Paris. French trains were different from those in America. The aisle was on one side and passengers were warned that it was dangerous to lean out. A compartment had six seats in it, three on each side so the passengers faced each other. Instead of going over hills, the tracks of the railway tunneled through the hills; quite often the train would go through a dark tunnel.

The train had the right of way, the Gold Star was painted on the engine, and the train traveled at a high rate of speed. Mrs. Fine reported that the compartments were very comfortable. The compartments were upholstered in gray nep, with lace covers on the backs and arms. The word “Etate” greeted the pilgrims everywhere. The French dictionaries did not help the pilgrims discover the meaning of the word. Lieut. Yarborough explained that “etate” meant state, or something that belonged to the state, and the state owned all the railroads.

The bagage compartment was above the heads of the pilgrims. There was no place to hang a hat or put an umbrella or to hang a coat. There was just one aisle, so most of the afternoon was spent in hanging on to the brass rail and looking out the window instead of sitting quietly in the compartments.

Josephine noted that she had passed through the most beautiful country. Many pilgrims described the scenery that way. Trees followed the railroad. The pilgrims passed a number of orchards. The pear trees were loaded. The thing that impressed pilgrims the most were the houses and stables all under one roof – parents, grandparents, ducks, geese, children, pigs, hay, etc. Everyone rode a bicycle, old and young, widows with their veils streaming behind them.

Mrs. Everson described the scenery she observed on the train trip from Cherbourg to Paris:

“I must say the country through which we passed is beautiful, by far the [most] beautiful scenery I ever saw. Our old U.S.A. is beautiful but France has it beat in an artistic way. The fields are planted like we plant flowers and the homes are quaint but lovely.”

One pilgrim (on another pilgrimage) observed that the houses were very old and made of brick and stone. Some of the house roofs were green with moss. As they got further out, the pilgrims saw great fields of grain, wheat, oats, potatoes, turnips, and tobacco as well as lots of crab apples and plums. They saw workers haul the grain into the machines with a cart that had three horses hitched to it, one in front of the other.

When the train would stop along the way, huge crowds looked at the pilgrims. Most of the people were waving and smiling. High on a hill they saw a large crucifix with a cemetery below it.

Hopefully, the escort for Party R noted when they approached the town of Lisieux. Did he tell the pilgrims, “There is a large shrine built on a hill to some little nun who lived and died there. I think they call her a little flower.” Josephine would know he was talking about St. Therese of Lisieux.

There were glimpses of fields of red poppies. Did that sight remind Josephine of the times she and Joseph and her children had worked, first in Addis and later in Schwab, to encourage others to wear paper poppies on Memorial Day as Joseph requested, “in memory of a son and brother, who sleeps in France”?

During the hours long train ride to Paris (some reports say four hours, others say six), the pilgrims had dinner on the train, giving them their first taste of French food. An officer passed out cards for the afternoon lunch. The pilgrims were quite hungry by that time.

The first course was bouillon. Mrs. Fine said all she could taste was the garlic and that there was not one bit of salt in it.

The next course was fish, something that was served to the pilgrims quite often.

Then came boiled snail, served with a thick cream dressing – not many partook of this dish!

After the snail came an egg omelet along with fried ham and French fried potatoes. Mrs. Fine said they the French fries were not half bad but were not like American French fried potatoes.

Then came ice cream and pears and grapes.

After the ice cream and fruit came the coffee. The French served coffee black and most of the women did not like it that way. Mrs. Fine said that the French roast their coffee, in fact they scorch it. It had a very bitter taste.

Many of the pilgrims who went to France from 1930 to 1933 found the food quite different, if not unpleasant. Many letters, diaries, and accounts remark on French food, and most specifically French coffee. French coffee was far too strong and bitter for most Americans’ tastes. And they found the bread very hard, almost to the point of breaking teeth as they tried to eat the bread.

I wonder how Josephine adapted to the French food. I know she must have been a wonderful cook because her daughters certainly were!

While on the boat train traveling to Paris, Party R was assembled into smaller units of varying sizes, depending on the respective cemeteries each pilgrim was going to visit. Josephine was in Group 1, those pilgrims going to visit the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery (from my study of the passenger list, I determined that there were also groups going to the Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, Sunesnes, and Oise-Aisne cemeteries). However, since the majority of the pilgrims were going to the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery – 110 pilgrims – so Group 1 was probably subdivided into five smaller groups.

Members of the party were given different color badges to indicate which cemetery each would visit. Josephine’s was yellow. Some had blue, some had pink, some lavender, and various other colors. Those with the yellow tags were all to get on the busses designated for the Ambassador Hotel. The bus numbers were attached to the colored tags.

Paris at last!

Josephine got her first glimpse of Paris around 7:30 that evening. She saw the Eiffel Tower, with its millions of lights of many colors, advertising the Citroen car, France’s most popular automobile at the time. (2)The pilgrims were informed that the population of Paris was 7,000,00 people.

Note: The Eiffel Tower ad for the Citroen car was so expensive to operate that it was normally shown only once a week. But for the benefit of the Gold Star visitors, it was shown more often. It was a beautiful and wonderful display for the pilgrims to see.

A large electric C was shown on all four sides of the tower. Then the figure “4" followed by the company name, Citroen, was displayed. Then sharp, jagged streaks struck near the base of the tower, illustrating lightning. Once the tower was “fired,” myriads of small colored lights struck the top. The fires gradually died out from the top down. Then the whole display was repeated again.

The train arrived at Gare des Invalides, Paris – the Invalides Train Station – at 8 pm. This train station was usually reserved for important visitors only. It was made available for the Gold Star mothers by the French government as a good will gesture so as to avoid the congestion of the St. Lazaire Station.

The members of Party R were met by Colonel Richard T. Ellis, head of the pilgrimage office in France, and members of his staff, interpreters, and nurses.

Mrs. Mary Everson reported that they arrived in Paris “dirty, but happy.”

Note: I have included the only picture I can find of Party R – they are pictured at the Invalides Train Station. (3) I have searched the faces in the photograph and do not recognized Josephine. This picture is probably one of the small groups of 25 or so that the pilgrims were divided into. There were anywhere from 225 to 250 pilgrims on Party R. Hopefully, I can eventually find some pictures of Party R that include Josephine – I have to make a request for the National Archives staff to search their files for this.

The pilgrims boarded waiting busses which took them to their various hotels – the pilgrims were to spend two nights in a first-class Paris hotel.

Lieut. Yarborough got the pilgrims to follow him – he had to load 60 passengers on busses. At this point in time, pilgrims went their separate ways, depending upon the cemetery they were to visit.

Had Josephine met and grown fond of some pilgrims who would be going to visit the Aisne-Marne Cemetery which contained the remains of those who fell in Belleau Wood?

Or perhaps she was well acquainted with some pilgrims destined for Suresnes Cemetery, which contained the bodies of those who fell south of Paris.

Certainly she must have felt comfortable with some of the pilgrims going to Meuse-Argonne Cemetery, her destination – in fact, 110 pilgrims would be visiting that cemetery soon. Meuse-Argonne contained the remains of those who fell in the Argonne and was situated on the site of the old village of Romagne.

There were many busses to take the pilgrims to their designated hotel. Hopefully, with the aid of their colored tags, all the pilgrims got on their respective bus because anyone who got on the wrong bus held up the crowd. The drivers of the busses could not speak English.

As the busses passed through the Plaza, escorts pointed out the entrance to the Square of the Bastille, formerly the guillotine with its column of July in honor of the fall of the Bastille. On a later tour of Paris, the pilgrims would learn more about these sites.

They were also shown the site where Louis and Marie Antoinette and so many others were beheaded. It may have caused Josephine and others to shudder as they passed by.

Josephine was domiciled at the Hotel Ambassador (4), Boulevard Haussmann, where first-class accommodations had been reserved for the pilgrims. Mrs. Mary Everson reported: “We were brought to this beautiful hotel (Ambassador) which has some hundreds of rooms. I do not know as yet how many there are. We are taken the very best care of in every way.”

Eighty of the 110 members of Group 1, the Meuse-Argonne Group, Josephine included, were housed at the Hotel Ambassador. The remaining 30 were housed at the Hotel Commodore. All necessary arrangements had been made prior to Party R’s arrival. Both of these were first-class hotels. It took quite some time to assign the pilgrims to their respective rooms.

The Ambassador Hotel was described as “American run” so the pilgrims expected the staff to be able to speak English.




Source: written by Carolyn Ourso