Nathalie Branche, from Le Moulin near Poitiers France.who served as an au pair. With Son Nate and his mom, Susan at our home in St Cloud MN in 1984.
Nathalie was student of Jacques Gravier, U of Minnesota friend from 1969-1971 Centennial Hall Days who lived in Poitiers "back in the day". She spent the summer with us, first in Vermont, then driving back to MN with a ferry trip across Lake Michigan, to Minnesota.
In 1984 I was offered the chance, by a Rockefeller no less to be the campus doctor for this small college in the idyllic green hills and mountains of Vermont. The Summer Language School and the Breadloaf writing school are two programs that attracts scholars from all over the world, as least back then, We were provided with a home near the Covered Bridge north of town, near the Morgan Horse Farm Road. I remember training for my first marathon their and riding my bike to the office on campus everyday. Their was a great ice cream shop in the town built over a cascading stream. Also there was an artist named Woody wood produced a lot of cow images on bandanas and the like, that I still have! Ah that sweet derriere, and Dairy Aire.
I was reminded of that summer by a Carleton College classmate and friend, Owen Anderson, PhD creator of Educated Runner at www.educatedrunner.com/ today. He sent me an invite to his Vermont Running Camp today. Thanks Owen. Owen is a writer and speaks a variety of languages. I remember Owen and another friend Harry McLachlin who carried their French language books around while I was studying German during our years together at Carleton in Northfield in the prairie-lakes area.
In 1984 with Natalie Branch from LeMoulin near Poitiers France, we traveled as a family from Vermont up to Montreal and Quebec City to see the response of a French speaker with the Quebecois. I remember being in a MacDonald’s and Nathalies exclaiming “Dis is not French!”
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