Spring 1955 in Mostaganem,
Frederic's birth11
Tandrea, visiting a Roman ruin (?) in Ami-Moussa
Claude gardening on his terrace
Tandrée's letter to the Rougier family, March 1955, is visiting us in Mostaganem:
Mostaganemlundi
Dear Family,
I think you'd like to be in my place, and I'll try to tell you everything I see.
Yves came to Oran to pick me up, Claude is driving in a car, but it's 180km back and forth, and it's a lot. He's fine, not fattened but airy face – it's not like his wife who looks very good and especially grew up locally – she's eating and it could go on. Very gay and exciting. Claude is very happy, mistress of house above all, not to recognize it – besides I make pictures and I hope the most beautiful one will be taken in the kitchen.
Sunday we spent the day outside, lunch in the dunes, foot bath in the sea, not a cat, and back through the countryside and the valley of the Chelif, very green and very rich, vines in quantity, villages of colonists very thick.
We cannot say the same about Arabs in terrible poverty – but they are used to it (?) -
The girl lives in Mostaganem's most beautiful house and elsewhere, on site very lively and a little noisy, but it does not bother them at all, the apartment is superb, the guest room very pleasant: balcony, toilet with shower, etc.
Next Saturday, big reception, fortunately the chairs (iron chairs) just arrived, all I'm gonna do is paint them, and I'm gonna see Marie Poisson again. (Vonette's friend, Cad Géli).
We're talking a lot about my future little niece. (Claude expected to have a daughter), her bed is ordered, she has diapers and tips, but for the first name it's more complicated, we can give suggestions, for now Marie-Laure and Frédéric, but we only ask to change – and the calendar does not give many ideas
Letter from Granie to Grand-Père, about June 4, 55, shortly after the birth of Frédéric, Claude is still at the Lamur clinic in Mostaganem (extracts)
...Frédéric is a baby's love and her mother is an excellent nurse, who would have believed her? At this moment I contemplate her little black head that makes persistent efforts to get rid of a milk-pull that we just broke.
He has a little jaundice, but he eats his mom so well that he has taken back his good round cheeks. We find that he chose Mrs. Cordelle his grandmother to look like someone, with her dad's hands and mouth.
He sleeps very well, he chats with his mom, he already takes 40g per fencing in his 4th.nd What does the child care worker think? (This is Fanny)
Here the childmind is very good, too. (the trouble is that I think she kept another little piece of deliverance) She set foot on the floor this morning.
Visits are beginning to come. I met Vonette's friend again. (I think it was Marie Poisson, wife of Admiral Géli, who was in Oran).
...it's a beautiful weather, but we don't suffer from the heat. In the morning I work at the cradle since the mother and the child come back on Thursday...
......I get along very well with my son-in-law, who, as you think, is very easy to live, I sweeted the mayonnaise this morning, he's a good audience, he found it good...
Claude and Frédéric
Letter from Granie to Grand-Father, about June 18, 55
......the mother and the child are always doing well, Claude is starting to get back up not too tired, but she has less milk for 2 days that she's been trotting and Frédéric is not very happy, she'll have to complete her bottles other than with sweet water.
He took it well, since the 17thnd yesterday was the great event of his baptism, dressed in wedding clothes, (Claude leaves the robe of Tandreus), without a guest other than the sacristan who replaced the godfather (Jean-Paul Hausermann) And I'm the godmother. (Fanny) He received salt, water and holy oils with serenity.
I find the temperature here delicious, we're in a summer dress without sweat or chill and I am surprised to watch Algerian women playing the fan.
Today, we are waiting for Oran's chief engineer and his wife who come to see Frédéric. Claude knows many people, good ladies, who are here young, unsettled, not a province at all and nicely friendly. I find the city quite picturesque with those Arabs who look and palabre, while their wives run into the street like ghosts, children and bags on their arms. There are slums that would indignation Abbé Pierre. We do not know each other and propaganda must do his usual harm in these simple and angry people.
....I finish my letter on the terrace very nice but very ventilated, Frédéric is by my side in his portable bag, we have the intention of taking him to Oran one of these days. We don't bathe him yet, his navel is not healed yet. I can't write to you, Claude talks to me without stopping: "If it's not a misfortune, this child looks like you, he has your mouth, your chin in a nutty break, blue eyes (they'll actually be brown), the Maillet race is not finished, fortunately, it has big hands, it will be an effective etc."
You see we're still radosing, but I'm going to go for a walk and visit the city that I only know with a caba in my arms, or to go to Mass....
Frédéric and Claude, June 55
Frédéric, June 55