2023-12-30 12:20:00
Diary of a mountain teacher (1936-1945)
Chance brought out from a rickety pile of books, those that we buy on impulse and that I don’t read straight away…, “Diary of a teacher in the mountains (1936-1945)” by Mme Pierrette Coltice (editions La Fontaine de Silvé in Montmélian (Savoie)).
So I read with pleasure because it is beautiful prose and very informative.
The grumpy people who lament about today’s situation and like to look at the future in a rear-view mirror will see (perhaps) that, really, it wasn’t better before.
Here’s what the publisher says:
“Pierrette Coltice was twenty years old when in 1936 she was appointed teacher in a mountain village in Haute-Savoie. A real love story begins between her and her students, little boys and girls. What weight does the rustic accommodation, the terrible winters, the distance, the long working days weigh against the courage, the enthusiasm and the resourcefulness of a young girl ready for all the dedication to lead the children who take flight in her flight? are entrusted to him… and sometimes their parents?
Because at that time, the regent was not only responsible for loosening the children’s little fingers and brains, of awakening them to morality and cleanliness as well as to the mysteries of nature: alongside the village community she also functions as a social worker, nurse – even doctor.
Pierrette Coltice adapts with a smile to a new world for her, poor and harsh, but warm and illuminated by the beauty of the mountains. Alas! the years of happiness will be brief. Comes the war. It darkened the young years of Pierrette Coltice, born in 1916. Twenty years later, she prowls at the school gate, around her brood of students.
In 1939, the teacher had to leave the bright country above… Other children would enter her life, other schools, but nothing, ever, would make her forget the “dear gentian village” of her youth. . »
Illustration by two chapters:
“At the bedside of hygiene and health…
In Thollon, there was no possible help in the event of an epidemic: no doctor of course, no nun nurse, no midwife.
The teacher had to monitor the state of health of the village, possibly intervene, and help the sick (she took care of women and children; the priest, men and children over thirteen). It was up to her to detect an infectious disease, to alert the mayor in the event of an epidemic, to decide on eviction from school (from eight to forty days depending on whether it was chickenpox, measles, scarlet fever) , closure of the class for a case of cerebrospinal meningitis, and disinfection.
Anyway, the classes were disinfected every summer. Each time we returned to school, the characteristic odor of formalin bothered us. Despite prolonged ventilation, the children complained: “It stings the eyes”, “It stings the throat”.
The students’ and library’s books, tied up in packages for easy transport, left for Thonon at the start of the summer vacation. They were returned a few days before the start of the school year, also “perfumed” with lysol, chrysol, phenol or other vapor responsible for destroying the pathogenic germs of contagious diseases. The laws of 1898 and 1902 made this disinfection compulsory, like that of public places: trains with sodium hypochlorite, hospitals. The disinfection of schools was the responsibility of the municipalities. In Thollon, I was only confronted with an epidemic of whooping cough.
During the summer of 1938, there was an anthrax epidemic in the Mémises. The animals in the mountain pastures were slaughtered on site and buried with quicklime. Grazing was banned for a few years (five, I think). I was advised not to go there for a walk with my dog.
One night I was awakened by knocking on the door and calls:
– Mademoiselle !
I opened the window (on the first floor) and I recognized the father of one of my students:
– Come quickly, the baby is going to die…
What to do ? I cannot leave this family in pain. I need to at least join her, show her compassion.
So I accompanied this brave man to Chez Vesin, and found the whole household in turmoil: the baby of about six months, cyanotic, utters a sort of death rattle, he suffocates.
It’s terrible to feel like you’re being counted on and not know what to do… Light! A memory comes back to me from our first aid classes at the Normal School: how to revive a newborn when, at birth, he does not let out his first cry. Quickly, I explain what I can try. All in all… The father gives me permission and hands me a cloth so that my little feet don’t slip. I grab the poor kid, head down, I shake him like a rag. He vomits a mass of phlegm, sucks in air with a hiss, begins to howl and coughs. He is saved, the mother cries.
I don’t think I would have the same audacity today. Before the war, we trusted each other, mutual aid was not an empty word, whereas now we criticize, we take legal action all the time, it’s deplorable.
[…]
“The victory of the lice
My little schoolchildren had gray hair from nits and sometimes critters ran across the reading page.
I caught lice: I squatted down to be level with the tables and my long hair offered the hotel to this vermin. Apart from Marie-Rose, there was no great remedy.
I asked the mothers to do what was necessary. “Good, since the mistress wishes…”
Full of good will, always with this beautiful ensemble which proved their cooperation, they acted in their own way.
All my schoolchildren entered class with their heads shiny with oil, their locks stiff and greasy… and I don’t mean the stench! Inevitably, hands touched the fleeces and returned to the notebooks! The pages were decorated with beautiful translucent spots. It was a disaster.
Big problem !
I begged people to wash their hair, pointing out the disadvantages of oil, which was also flammable.
I went down to Évian, and brought back on my back I don’t know how many bottles of Marie-Rose, bought at my own expense. A whole morning was spent washing each head, combing, rubbing with the lotion.
I would undoubtedly have achieved a result in another context. I hadn’t looked into the subject in depth: in the vestibule, the hats touched each other and the critters could easily wander from one to the other; at home, each child rubbed shoulders with an entire lousy household, he was very quickly “inhabited” again. Entire families would have had to get rid of this vermin.
Before the war, premises, books and certain public places were disinfected, but there were not yet any home services to ensure hygiene in the communities. The school alone tried to intervene, to extinguish beliefs, to change behavior.
In Thollon, a strongly held opinion held that lice were beneficial, useful: these friendly little creatures sucked impurities from the blood, therefore protected against diseases. I had to give up. It was the lice who won the battle. »
Mrs. Pierrette Coltice was transferred to Bonne-sur-Menoge, then Archamps and, in September 1942, to Ambilly, very close to the Swiss border. And this gives us other testimonies.
This work, printed in 2008, ends with a “pessimistic conclusion”, quoting Bernard Clavel: “It takes a lot of luck to come across a year in which the world is not, here or there, at war, doomed to shame” (1993).
At the time, this conclusion might have been considered exaggerated. Today, we must face the facts: the world has become dangerous again. Are we well aware of this?
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