Bonjour, 2025!

A note from Janet Skeslien Charles

Bonjour, 2025!

Though I’m not one for New Year’s Eve (on December 31st, I was in bed at 11 pm), I’m a big believer in fresh starts. I celebrated the arrival of 2025 with a mini bottle of bubbly and a few litchi, meditating on 25 things I wanted to do or try.

When I was brainstorming my 25 possibilities, I was surprised that the first item on my list was a terrarium. As a child, I was fascinated by Grandpa John’s and have wanted one ever since. So finally, after a few decades, I am going to get one.

It’s been nearly a year since Eddy and I moved to our new apartment. We downsized and got rid of large furniture like our dining table and chairs that seated six people.

Here we are a year later, more settled in. We just got this table and chairs for our breakfast nook.

In my newsletters, I’m going to share the story of Cards. Today, we begin with Mary Master Needham (1883-1955), pictured in her CARD uniform. You’ll notice that her eyes are sad. She and her husband Henry Beach Needham traveled from Michigan to France to work as journalists. Near Versailles, he and a pilot died in a plane crash. Mary was pregnant and lost their son. Despite her great personal sadness, she rolled up her sleeves and joined the American Committee for Devastated France (CARD). She was stationed just miles from the front where, “to the east the heavens lighted up with the flash of guns on the battlefront while the wind brought the dull and rhythmic booming of the cannon.”

GrandPalaisRmn (Château de Blérancourt) / Michel Urtado

Her autobiography, Tomorrow to Fresh Fields, the Story of an Attitude, helped me learn more about the Cards. Mary described founder Anne Morgan as “something other and more than her name. She lives to me as her own vital, flame-like personality, as her own boundless energy and her own force, a force that attracts.”

But was Anne Morgan merely a figurehead, or did she get her hands dirty?

Mary recalled, “‘Big Anne’ made a swell furniture mover! She carried chairs, trunks, chests of drawers and tables to the truck. Just when everything seemed packed inside, and Miss Morgan had squeezed into the seat by the chauffeur, her head held forward to avoid an armoire that protruded from the rear, a Frenchwoman plumped down into Miss Morgan’s lap a birdcage containing a scared and fluttering bird. ‘There,’ commanded the woman, ‘carry that along. I couldn’t live without my bird.’” Later, Anne Morgan recounted the tale to others. “You know that bird seemed just a bit too much. Moving furniture is all right, but carrying birdcages—” When someone asked what Anne Morgan did with it, she replied, “Do with it? I carried it, of course!”

The women of CARD gave assistance to the French, but what did they receive?

Mary directed the first long “moving picture” of the Devastated Regions. She wrote, “On a trip to Paris to see the final projection of the film, I committed a sin which is always to haunt me. The truck taking me to the station was late. The train was pulling out. I ran down the platform in an effort to reach the first-class carriages. The trains in the war zone were filled with soldiers, with perhaps two or three women on a train. We were expected to travel first class because in those compartments we met only officers, and therefore not run the risk of troublesome situations.

“But this day, before I could get to a first-class carriage, a boy with bright red, curly hair was leaning out his window. He saw me, opened his door, and pulled me into his compartment. It was a third-class carriage and had in it three soldiers: this boy of nineteen; a man of about thirty who sat dejectedly by the window; and a true poilu [French soldier] of about forty. The boy made himself host and offered me some pinard out of his canteen to warm me. I softened my refusal with cigarettes.”

Mary recounted their lively conversation and how they accepted her. The train stopped in Compiegne, and they separated for lunch, while they waited for the next train to take them to Paris.

She continued, “As I stepped onto the platform for the train, someone ran eagerly towards me. The boy! With an expectant smile, he pointed to the rear of the train. When he reached me he looked at the compartment I was boarding. His smile vanished. I wish I could forget his expression as he said more to himself than to me, ‘Oh, you’re going first.’

“My impulse was to follow him, but I waited too long. How I cursed myself for the rest of that trip. What contempt I’ve had for myself ever since! I had thought I was tired. What was my weariness compared to theirs? Why should I - anyone - go in greater comfort than these three? For several hours more I might have shared with them, for they had accepted me as a comrade. I could imagine the faces of the others when the boy told them I was going the rest of the ways ‘first.’ I’ve always wished they could know how that incident made me ponder more deeply this whole question of ‘first class.’”

Class divisions in America existed, but it was only in France — in a different mindset, away from her homeland and her bearings — that Mary Needham understood that people of all kinds deserve comfort and warmth. She began to question what she’d been taught. This is the greatest gift to receive, a gentle nudge to reflect on what we believe and why.

As you can see, I devoured Mary Needham’s book.

This month, I had the best time discussing Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade with the Bookniks, the book club of the Association of American Women in Europe. Nothing brings me more pleasure than talking about the real-life characters of my books.

Julia Fainsilber kindly hosted us. I joined AAWE in 2022 and am so glad I did.

I’m excited that Alpha Chi Omega has chosen MISS MORGAN as a book club selection, especially since Mary Needham belonged to this sorority!

I love meeting with book clubs, either in person or on Zoom. If you are interested, send me an email at pariswritingworkshop@yahoo.com so we can find a time to connect.

What’s next? I’m looking forward to my writing year, including my latest novel The Parisian Chapter, which comes out as an audiobook in May. (I can’t wait to share the cover with you!) I just received the French cover for Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade, inspired by the Dutch one, which features the façade of my favorite bookstore, the Red Wheelbarrow.

Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter and reading my work. Your support means the world to me.

My best,

Janet

On my way to the book club meeting. Blue sky!