[A gallery of photos illustrating this story can be opened here.]
My mother, Margaret Elizabeth Brown, was born in Belgrade, Serbia, on July 25, 1920. How that came to be is another story, but briefly, my grandparents, Winnifred Kipp and Henry Rhodes Brown, were married in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 13, 1918 in the waning days of World War I. Henry left for Europe in the Army 13 days later, where he served behind the lines. After the Armistice, he remained in France with the Hoover Mission for Reconstruction in Europe and within a year he was appointed Vice Consul for the American Consulate in Belgrade. My grandmother crossed the Atlantic by herself on a French liner in September, 1919 to join him there.
And so, my mother, nicknamed Peggy, was born in Belgrade with a Serbian midwife attending and Red Cross nurses assisting in the Sanitarium Vratchar in Belgrade. She was soon followed by her younger brother Henry, Jr., nicknamed Bobby, 13 months later. The family was well provided for with a villa, a cook and a gardener, and a Citroen car. Fraulein Liddy helped with the children, sewed clothes for them and spoke German with them.
However, the diplomatic lifestyle didn’t last and, for some reason, within a few years there were financial difficulties for Henry and Winnifred. The family moved to Nervi near Genoa, Italy for a couple of years and Winnifred even returned to the United States for a year in 1926 to try to raise money by teaching music. When she returned, they settled in Paris, where Henry had taken a position with the American Battle Monuments Commission, helping to document and mark the graves of American soldiers killed in WWI, even as the shadow of another conflict began to fall over Europe.
In Paris, Winnifred found lodging at 13 Quay Carnot, St. Cloud, in an old house that had once been a pottery factory, on the banks of the Seine River across from the city. The house was still standing when Mom visited Paris in 1968, but it was gone when I was there last July (2023), since all the old houses along the river had been replaced by a busy autoroute. But back in the years the Brown family lived there, they enjoyed the view riverboat traffic and even sailed Henry’s model sailboats in the river. Walks to the nearby Parc St. Cloud were also popular outings.
Peggy’s youngest bother Peter was born in 1930 and Winnifred’s photo albums are full of photos she took of the children and their activities. Peggy, Bobby, and Peter when he was old enough, attended an American school run by the the McJannett family and Winnifred taught there for a year before Peter was born. There was always music in the home; Winnifred played the cello and piano and Henry played the violin. He wrote proudly to a friend, “my daughter can sing any note by ear and when she hears playing, calls the notes, as can her mother…” Recognizing her talent, she began taking private piano lessons when she was 7 and soon attended classes in piano and solfège at L’École Normale de Musique in Paris. In 1933, at the age of 13, she became a full-time student there since there was no American high school for girls and her parents didn’t want to send her to a French lycée. She also had tutors for German, Latin, and Algebra, but music always came first.
In April, 1935, the family moved to 8 Rue de Rio in Garches, a pleasant residential suburb west of Paris. The house was large and surrounded by a garden which they all enjoyed. Mom saw this house on her 1968 trip and took photos. It was a great treat to find this house still quite recognizable and in good shape when I visited, although apparently the current owner was away and the windows were boarded up.
Starting in 1935, Mom kept a series of small diaries, noting her daily activities. She kept track of family activities: a lot of housework and sewing, walks in the park, bike rides and playing ping pong, chess, and dominoes with her dad or brother. She attended many concerts (I found a huge stack of programs and ticket stubs!) and often there were evening concerts on the radio. Sometimes, Mom would play trios with her parents. She did a lot of reading and was constantly writing letters to friends, judging from the bundles of letters she received and saved. Winnifred had taken up the hobby of raising canaries and made frequent trips to the bird market. Henry continued with his hobby of model boat building and exhibited one of his ships in the window of the US Lines shipping company.
She often mentioned practicing the piano for 4 hours or more on advanced pieces. Although she often rated her lessons as “fair” and sometimes “not very good”, she noted that her classes were “interesting”, ensembles and sight-reading were “fun” and hanging out with friends was always “amusing”. She often enjoyed accompanying other students in chamber music pieces, especially the cello students in their class. She wrote a long, and interesting college essay about a typical Saturday’s musical activities, which you can read here.
At the École Normale, there were a lot of international students and classes were in French. Writing about it later in a college essay, Mom said that being bi-lingual sometimes felt schizophrenic, but she thought it had been a valuable experience in developing a broad outlook. Musical training at the École was rigorous with classes in theory and harmony in addition to piano. High standards were upheld and students were expected to frequently perform from memory in auditions and recitals, and in the yearly exams. Among the things Mom saved were several brochures from the École, which I enjoyed reading (in French!) You can read more about the school and the program of studies here.
Over the years, she developed close relationships with many of her teachers: Mme Bascourret, Alfred Cortôt, and Lazare Levy on piano, Diran Alexandrian, Pierre Fournier and Georges Benoit for chamber music, and Georges Dandelot and Nadia Boulanger for solfège and harmony. Nadia Boulanger also taught music history and Mom wrote a wonderful college essay about her which you can read here.
In September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and Britain and France declared war. Americans were evacuated from Paris and Winnifred, Peggy and the boys went to Dinard in Brittany where they enjoyed the beach. Bob was able to return to Paris and from there travel to the US to follow his dream of studying engineering at MIT. Peter and Winnifred stayed in Dinard until the winter, while Peggy returned to school at the École Normale, living in the house in Garches. Henry hired a maid for her as a companion, since he was staying in Dreux where the ABMC had relocated. He returned to Garches with the car on weekends. When she returned, Winnifred recorded that Paris was quiet but they did not know when they might have to make a quick get away.
It must have been a difficult and fearful time to have lived through with the war going on. Later in college, Mom wrote about the traumatic experience of hearing air raid sirens which you can read here. Against this background, she continued her studies and received the “License d’Enseignement” in July, 1939. She also tried for the “License de Concert”, but missed the qualifying score by 1/2 point, but finally passed in December, 1940.
On May 10, 1940, Winnifred recorded in one of the photo albums, they were awakened by air raid sirens and happened to tune into an American news broadcast on the radio, informing them that the German Blitzkrieg had advanced into Belgium and Holland. They were evacuated again, first to Dreux, where they saw many war refugees. Then they drove in a caravan to Biarritz, on the coast near the Spanish border. Unfortunately, they had to leave stored possessions behind in Dreux and later when Dreux was bombed, looters broke into the trunks and took everything of value including photo albums. Fortunately negatives were saved and later reprinted and made their way into the annotated scrapbooks that Winnifred put together after the war, which have given me such a vivd picture of Mom’s life in Europe. In Biarritz, they rented a piano for Mom to practice for the “License” exam. According to Winnifred, the “morceau imposé” (assigned piece), was “a dreadful discordant modern composition”! They moved everything including the canaries to St. Jean de Luz a short time later. Mom wrote about St. Luz in a college essay here.
According to the “Visa” issued by the French Vichy government, Mom returned to Garches in July, 1940, to continue her studies. Although they passed scenes of battle that had taken place, observed discarded and damaged vehicles and equipment, and soldiers buried along the roadside, the family arrived to find 8 Rue de Rio quiet and untouched. Paris had been declared an “open city” and was spared the fighting and damage other places had suffered.
There was a lot of uncertainty around classes and whether students would be able to continue with their studies. Alfred Cortôt had recommended that Mom continue at the Paris Conservatory for another 2 years and she was admitted to the piano class of Lazare-Levy in the fall of 1940. According to letters from friends (some opened by military censors), many had ended up in other places and were asking about news of friends and teachers and whether classes would resume. Mom commented once that a lot of her classes were only half full and some students had disappeared, but she never dwelled on that much. Winnifred observed that Paris was full of German soldiers, the opera and theaters were open and packed, but people were hungry and probably cold, since there was snow that winter.
As the war progressed, it became obvious that the US could not avoid becoming involved and the American government ordered government employees and their families to leave. On June 19th, 1941, Mom, her parents, and her brother Peter left Garches to travel to Portugal and, after staying in Lisbon for a short time, boarded an American ship for New York. She wrote about her impressions of traveling through Spain here and about a dramatic shipboard rescue while crossing the Atlantic here.
Letters from friends and teachers at that time all expressed their sadness at Mom’s leaving and hoped she would soon return. I found a long heartbreaking letter in French from her special friend, a young cellist named Jean Jacques Maurachon: “Je suis triste, tres triste, ce soir…” For some years, she did actually hope she might return and maintained a “leave of absence” status up until 1946, when she finally withdrew from the Conservatory.
I’m still wondering how the family ended up in Nahant, Massachusetts, after arriving in the US. Soon afterwards, Winnifred and Henry moved to the Washington, DC area, but Mom stayed in Massachusetts. She began classes at Radcliffe College in the fall of 1941 with the aim of becoming a music teacher. She also contacted the Longy School in Cambridge and arranged to meet Nadia Boulanger who had come to the US to teach and to escape the war. In a draft of a letter I found, Mom outlined her French studies and teachers, and offered to help with organizing classes, and to teach piano, solfège, harmony, and chamber music. Thus began a long association with the Longy School and a very rewarding career.
Although she enjoyed her new life in America, Mom continued to be concerned for her friends and teachers in Europe. She received letters from friends in the USA and from places as far away as the Philippines and Turkey, but few from occupied France. Some of her friends had gone on to successful concert careers. Her friend in Turkey sent concert programs and requested a copy of Cortôt’s “Piano Pedagogy” to use at the Turkish Conservatory.
An uncle in New York wrote that Jean Jacques had somehow escaped military service and being sent to Germany. Although he was unable to take his exams at the Conservatory, he was safely living in the countryside with family and still hoped to make a career of the cello and had given some concerts. (On her 1971 trip to France, Mom visited Jean Jacques and his wife at their country home. It was a delightful reunion, she remembered.)
But there were other causes for concern. In 1944, she received a letter from Lazare-Levy who expressed his anguish over the fact that his son had been deported to Germany and not heard from since. And I found a bundle of letters from Mme. Bascourret, starting in 1945, rejoicing in the liberation of France and the surrender of Germany, but also detailing the hardships of the war years and beyond. (I kept these letters and would like to try translating…)
Of course, a big part of her story is that she met my dad, Erwin Rohde, a young GE engineer, and soon afterwards they were married on March 28, 1942. They lived first in Lynn (I found their first rent receipt for $11 a week!) and then in Swampscott, before moving to Marblehead (3 Bowden St.) where they were living when I was born on September 3, 1947. Mom’s Pleyel piano, which had crossed the ocean with her family, followed her to each new home. Besides teaching at Longy, she continued to practice, took lessons in New York, and played in local concerts for various organizations. She even tried her hand at composing a string quartet and also a violin and piano duet for Erwin as a Christmas present! (I have the manuscripts, if anyone would would like to try playing!)
Soon, though, I was followed by my sister Kirsten (June 18, 1948) and my brother Carl (November 24, 1950). Mom told me once that she and my dad had waited to have children until after the uncertainty of the war. She also told me that, when she met Nadia Boulanger at Longy and told her she was married, that Nadia congratulated her and told her that she should have children and devote her time to family life! But, in addition to family life and activities, Mom went on to have a long and rewarding career, teaching at the Longy School for nearly 40 years.
To read more about Mom’s teaching career at the Longy School:
Mom passed away in Marblehead on December 6, 1995. Here are two family recollections of her life.
- Appreciation, written for the Longy Memorial concert in 2005
- In Memory, written in December, 1995, and read at Waterside Cemetery, Marblehead
