French War Brides in America

French War Brides in America PDF Author: Hilary Kaiser
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
In 1944 and 1945, millions of American soldiers took part in the Liberation of France. It was impossible for these GIs, who brought with them freedom, health, and wealth, to avoid fraternizing with French women. Some 6,500 Franco-American marriages would later take place. Many of these women would cross the Atlantic to join their husbands, following the example of their compatriots who had wed doughboys after World War I. This book, a collection of oral histories, tells the story of mademoiselle and the GI by following the destinies of 15 French war brides--three from World War I and 12 from World War II. All of the women encountered cultural shock as they discovered an opulent and open society, but one which was also materialistic and racially segregated. But these women, like the many others who came to America, got on with it and survived. Although about half of the marriages ended in divorce, only about 150 of the women returned to France. Most of them, in their own way, lived the American Dream. Today these women are both French and American. They reflect the image of a successful betrothal between two cultures.

French War Brides in America

French War Brides in America PDF Author: Hilary Kaiser
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book

Book Description
In 1944 and 1945, millions of American soldiers took part in the Liberation of France. It was impossible for these GIs, who brought with them freedom, health, and wealth, to avoid fraternizing with French women. Some 6,500 Franco-American marriages would later take place. Many of these women would cross the Atlantic to join their husbands, following the example of their compatriots who had wed doughboys after World War I. This book, a collection of oral histories, tells the story of mademoiselle and the GI by following the destinies of 15 French war brides--three from World War I and 12 from World War II. All of the women encountered cultural shock as they discovered an opulent and open society, but one which was also materialistic and racially segregated. But these women, like the many others who came to America, got on with it and survived. Although about half of the marriages ended in divorce, only about 150 of the women returned to France. Most of them, in their own way, lived the American Dream. Today these women are both French and American. They reflect the image of a successful betrothal between two cultures.

French War Brides

French War Brides PDF Author: Hilary Kaiser
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984004331
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Following both World War I and II, about 6,500 Franco-American marriages took place between French mademoiselles and American soldiers, be they "doughboys" or GI's. These women, who came from different parts of France and diverse background, would later cross the Atlantic to join husbands, settle in various corners of America, suffer culture shock, and adapt to marriage in a foreign land of postwar plenty with varying degrees of success. Despite these difficulties, like many other immigrants, they got on with it and survived. As the compelling oral histories in this book show, most of them did, in their own way, live the American dream.

The French War Bride

The French War Bride PDF Author: Robin Wells
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698405285
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
*USA TODAY BESTSELLER* World War II Paris serves as the backdrop for a story of compassion, betrayal, and forgiveness from the national bestselling author of The Wedding Tree... At her assisted living center in Wedding Tree, Louisiana, ninety-three-year-old Amélie O’Connor is in the habit of leaving her door open for friends. One day she receives an unexpected visitor—Kat Thompson, the ex-fiancée of her late husband, Jack. Kat and Jack were high school sweethearts who planned to marry when Jack returned from France after World War II. But in a cruel twist of fate, their plans were irrevocably derailed when a desperate French girl overheard an American officer’s confession in a Parisian church... Now, Kat wants to know the truth behind a story that’s haunted her whole life. She thinks finding out how Amélie stole Jack’s heart will finally bring her peace. As Amélie recalls the dark days of the Nazi occupation of Paris, The French War Bride reveals how history shapes the course of our lives...for better or for worse. READERS GUIDE INSIDE

War Brides

War Brides PDF Author: Helen Bryan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780750529525
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
In 1939 the lives of five women are about to collide in the sleepy little village of Crowmarsh Priors.Evangeline has eloped from New Orleans with a naval captain, Alice is resigned to life as the parish spinster, Elsie is evacuated from the East End to be a maid for Lady Marchmont, Tanni has fled from Vienna with her newborn son, and high-spirited Frances is to see out the war with her godmother. Together these five women face hardship, passion and danger, and form a bond that sees them through their darkest hours, and lasts for the rest of their lives.

Memoir of a French War Bride

Memoir of a French War Bride PDF Author: Jeannine Ricou-Allunis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781418474089
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Paris, September 3, 1939: fifteen-year old, Jeannine Ricou heard the bells ringing throughout the city that signaled the beginning of World War II. Her privileged life was about to change forever. The hardships of war replaced the comforts of her former life. She joined the French Resistance and aided in undermining the enemy. With the Liberation, came the American soldier she would fall in love with and marry. When Jeannine's new husband sent her home to America with their toddler, she was pregnant again. In America, she taught herself to speak English by reading comic books and struggled to understand the cruelty and alcoholism of her in-laws. When her husband returned home, Jeannine discovered he had a violent and unpredictable temper. The pain was just beginning.

WWII Voices

WWII Voices PDF Author: Hilary Kaiser
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781475285888
Category : World War, 1939-1945
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This collection of oral histories, poems, letters and essays gives voice to both American veterans who fought in Europe, particularly in France, during World War II, as well as to French women who lived through the war, met and married GIs, emigrated to the United States and learned to adapt to life in America in the 1940s. The stories and words of these men and women are diverse and engaging and will inspire readers of all generations.

GI Brides

GI Brides PDF Author: Duncan Barrett
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780062328052
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
For readers enchanted by the bestsellers The Astronaut Wives Club, The Girls of Atomic City, and Summer at Tiffany’s, an absorbing tale of romance and resilience—the true story of four British women who crossed the Atlantic for love, coming to America at the end of World War II to make a new life with the American servicemen they married. The “friendly invasion” of Britain by over a million American G.I.s bewitched a generation of young women deprived of male company during the Second World War. With their exotic accents, smart uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamour, the G.I.s easily conquered their hearts, leaving British boys fighting abroad green with envy. But for girls like Sylvia, Margaret, Gwendolyn, and even the skeptical Rae, American soldiers offered something even more tantalizing than chocolate, chewing gum, and nylon stockings: an escape route from Blitz-ravaged Britain, an opportunity for a new life in affluent, modern America. Through the stories of these four women, G.I. Brides illuminates the experiences of war brides who found themselves in a foreign culture thousands of miles away from family and friends, with men they hardly knew. Some struggled with the isolation of life in rural America, or found their soldier less than heroic in civilian life. But most persevered, determined to turn their wartime romance into a lifelong love affair, and prove to those back home that a Hollywood ending of their own was possible. G.I. Brides includes an eight-pages insert that features 45-black-and-white photos.

Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride

Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride Michigan: On the Trail of a War Bride PDF Author: Frey Julien
Publisher: Europe Comics
ISBN:
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
When Julien arrives in Michigan to meet his wife's American family, he gets to know the American Midwest, as well as some unusual cousins. But above all, he meets Odette, his French great aunt with what one might call a resilient personality. Originally from Paris, she married an American soldier at the end of the Second World War. Like her, 200,000 other European "war brides" left behind their families and their countries to be with the G.I.s they loved.

What Soldiers Do

What Soldiers Do PDF Author: Mary Louise Roberts
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226923096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? Do you appeal to their bonds with their fellow soldiers, their patriotism, their desire to end tyranny and mass murder? Certainly—but if you’re the US Army in 1944, you also try another tack: you dangle the lure of beautiful French women, waiting just on the other side of the wire, ready to reward their liberators in oh so many ways. That’s not the picture of the Greatest Generation that we’ve been given, but it’s the one Mary Louise Roberts paints to devastating effect in What Soldiers Do. Drawing on an incredible range of sources, including news reports, propaganda and training materials, official planning documents, wartime diaries, and memoirs, Roberts tells the fascinating and troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread—and then exploited—the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos—ranging from flagrant public sex with prostitutes to outright rape and rampant venereal disease—horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population. The sexual predation, and the blithe response of the American military leadership, also caused serious friction between the two nations just as they were attempting to settle questions of long-term control over the liberated territories and the restoration of French sovereignty. While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful—and more interesting—when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty of nostalgia to grapple with the real lives and real mistakes of the people who lived it.

War Brides: A Play in One Act (WWI Centenary Series)

War Brides: A Play in One Act (WWI Centenary Series) PDF Author: Marion Craig Wentworth
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1473367336
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
This early work by Marion Craig Wentworth was originally published in 1915 and we are now republishing it as part of our WWI Centenary Series. 'War Brides: A Play in One Act' is a drama about a young woman whose husband is killed in the fighting of the First World War. She contemplates suicide but she is pregnant and her prospective motherhood gives causes her to realise her new responsibilities. A plan by the military authorities to encourage the women of the country to marry returning soldiers causes her to organise women to march in protest of the war and leads her to a face-to-face encounter with the nation's monarch. This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history. Each publication also includes brand new introductory essays and a timeline to help the reader place the work in its historical context.