mercredi, novembre 24, 2004

I'm reading Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice Toklas. Joining the American Fund for French Wounded, Stein & Toklas were assigned to Mulhouse, in liberated Alsace, where they distributed supplies to the shelled cities & burned-out villages throughout the 1918-19 winter... As an architect, my grand-father had a lot of work in these villages. I can imagine him speaking with Gertrude and Alice sitting in their Ford truck. Two american women driving in 1918, that was a curious spectacle. My grand-father rebuilt many houses in a village called Burnhaupt. He did it two times, in 1918 and 1945, as an alsatian Sysiphe.