Photographs courtesy of Maryse Bermingham

Maryse Bermingham's grandmother, glamorous French designer Madame Cazelle (who started the Cazelle-Couture Salon in 1896), did not have time to create a gown for her granddaughter's marriage to an American soldier. But she created a satin evening gown later as a gift, which Maryse wore when she was in her early 30s, and which her daughter, Gigi, wore for her wedding at Villa Montalvo this year.

Telling Stories

When people begin sharing their life stories, they see themselves in a different light

By Sandy Sims

Although the central theme of Thanksgiving is feasting on turkey, it is the family gathering on this holiday for which many people are most thankful. Over the years and generations, the stories shared around the dinner table often have proved more memorable than the meals. These stories inspire us, connect us to family history and help us to see our elders as young people.

In honor of the occasion this year, we asked several students from Sheila Dunec's "Life Stories" class (offered through the Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation) to share their stories with our readers. Dunec, a counselor and teacher in Palo Alto, has taught this class in Los Gatos for three semesters.

"Most students think their lives are ordinary until they start writing and sharing in class," Dunec says.

The class helps students, many of whom are older adults, take stock of their lives and identify what has given them satisfaction and continuity, what choices they have made, and what obstacles they have overcome.

These are some of their stories.

Maryse Cazelle-Bermingham

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Longtime Monte Sereno resident Maryse Cazelle-Bermingham was born in Toulouse, France, in 1926. She married U.S. Air Force Capt. Arnold J. Bermingham and has lived in the United States since 1946. After teaching French at West Valley College and San Jose State University, she retired in 1987 to write poems in French and English and also to write her life story. Cazelle-Bermingham has brought stories to class about life in France. She shared a story about her grandmother with us.

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My daughter, Gigi, was married to Matthew Goldsby at the Villa Montalvo in Saratoga on Oct. 16, 1999.

As I touched the thick silk white satin of her wedding dress, a flood of memories came back. The dress was designed in France by my grandmother, Madame Cazelle.

As Gigi grew up, she often asked to see the beautiful dresses from France which my grandmother had sent to me. She always pointed to the white satin long dress and declared, "I want it for my wedding dress!" I loved the idea. My grandmother was a dress designer in Toulouse, France.

Madame Cazelle was a great artist and could transform, with her sewing expertise and her knowledge of fabrics and colors, a plain woman into an elegant lady. She had founded her Cazelle-Couture Salon in 1896, when she was 17, and competed fiercely with Chanel and Lanvin.

Her clientele was composed of the well-to-do upper class of Southern France and Spain. She gave fashion shows in the big resort hotels from Nice to Biarritz, where she opened a branch.

Madame Doumerque, wife of the French President, was a client, as well as were ambassadors' wives from as far away as Argentina. She received a decoration of the "Palmes Académiques" from the French government for her contribution to art.

When I married an American, Capt. Arnold Bermingham, in 1945, in Notre Dame de Paris, she was very sorry not to have the time to create a gown especially for me. There was no way then for my Toulouse relatives to be present at my wedding in Paris. Arnold was anxious to get married as soon as possible because he might be sent back to the States any day, now that the war had ended. He had come with me to Toulouse to formally ask my father for my hand in marriage. Papa said yes. It was the custom in France for young ladies under 21 to have their father's consent.

Bridges had been destroyed and the railroad tracks were under repair and travel was by permission only from the authorities. None of my relatives, except my mother and father, were able to attend my wedding. They were all sad about it, especially my grandmother who was renowned for her sumptuous wedding gowns. She always regretted not creating one for me.

While she was still in business, she always kept a mannequin in my proportions, and I would let her know whether I was bigger or smaller. Over the years, until she closed her salon, she sent me a very precious and elegant wardrobe. But the best were the evening dresses, even though I very rarely wore them.

In 1957, Cazelle-Couture was for sale, and Christian Dior wanted to purchase the salon. But my grandmother was reluctant to have the name Cazelle be taken over by a young competitor. She had always hoped that one of her three granddaughters would continue the tradition. It did not happen.

The year 1957 was very busy for my grandmother, but she made sure I would get one of her last creations. This is the gown Gigi wore on her wedding day. Only the hem had to be let down a little; otherwise it fit her perfectly. She chose a tulle veil instead of using the hooded coat. It was very moving to see my daughter in the gown, an heirloom from my grandmother's Cazelle-Couture Salon.

Dorothy Brooker enjoys sharing the family story of her great-grandparents hiding their silver in the molasses barrel when General Sherman came marching through South Carolina.

Photograph by Kathy De La Torre







Dorothy Brooker

Dorothy Brooker will be 93 in March. She lives in Saratoga in the charming cottage her son, Attorney John H. Coward, built for her on his property. Brooker is originally from South Carolina, but has lived in California for 46 years, five of those in Saratoga.

"This [Life Stories] class is one of the best pastimes I know of," Brooker says. She tells her stories into a tape recorder and shares them orally in class.

Her stories go back to the Civil War, when General Sherman's devastating march to the sea went right through her great-grandparents' South Carolina plantation. "He burned everything in his tracks," Brooker says. She tells how her great-grandparents buried their silver under a molasses barrel in the chicken house. Sherman's troops turned the barrel over but never found the silver.

Brooker shared with the Saratoga News how she introduced the class to peanuts South Carolina-style, when she served them boiled green peanuts. In South Carolina, she says, the farmers always keep a half to a whole acre for planting peanuts. The peanuts grow on the roots of a plant, and in fall the farmers pull up the roots and throw them on top of buildings to dry. But they keep some of the peanuts fresh out of the ground and "put salt and water on them and boil them," Brooker says. "It's very tasty." Brooker called her nephew in South Carolina and had him send two quarts of boiled green peanuts for the last class.

Peanuts are a major source of snack food in South Carolina. When the peanuts are dry, they are picked off the roots and thrown in a shed for storage. "Whenever children come home from school, the mothers have parched (baked) peanuts waiting. "They are so good when they are fresh and warm from the oven," Brooker says.

Pauline Stonehill will never forget her grandmother's soups.

Photograph courtesy of Pauline Stonehill





Pauline Stonehill

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Pauline Stonehill came to class with the book A Barrelful of Memories: Stories of My Azorean Family already under her belt. The book fulfills a promise to her father, who died 54 years ago when she was 24. Stonehill is now writing about growing up poor in rural America during the Depression. She says writing for the class encourages her to go on. Stonehill and her husband, Len (also a member of the class), are members of the Los Gatos Galliard Recorder Consort.

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Cadmium yellow!

Fields of mustard

Paint the hills.

It's nature's golden epaulette;

A poorly marshaled troop.

I think of nature's palette.

My grandmother would think of soup.

Madrinha's soups are part of my heritage. There was always a large kettle of some kind of green soup on the stove. She used kale, fennel or turnip greens from her garden--even the beet greens.

A stand of wild mustard was cause for much excitement and soup; but the discovery of watercress growing in a ditch sent her into ecstasy.

How well I remember Vavo's reporting his find and the excitement of being allowed to accompany her to harvest this treasure from the swiftly-flowing irrigation waters.

"Stay back, child," (Fica' p'ra tras, filha.) "I don't want you falling in the ditch."

The basic recipe was pretty much the same: a lot of onion fried in home-rendered lard; some garlic, lots of water, diced potatoes and when those were almost done, the chopped-up greens. For special occasions spicy linguica was added. This was the main dish at most dinners and suppers--with thick slices of buttered homemade bread to fill in the gaps.


Photograph courtesy of Pauline Stonehill

Pauline Stonehill, 5, her brother Frank, 3, and their grandmother Madrinha in 1926.




To this day when I'm cooking, I hear her voice as she stirs and tastes, "Prova, Maria" (Taste, Mary). She holds out the big stirring spoon towards my mother. "Tem bastante sal?" (Is there enough salt?")

Mama gave me her recipe for Madrinha's cabbage soup made with lima beans and finely-chopped cabbage. The secret is her use of allspice for flavor. It's one of my husband's favorites. Madrinha lives!

But for some reason the most vivid picture of soup in my mind is of a very large bowl of a watery acorda, a garlic broth. Because the hens were laying, there were eggs poaching in the hot liquid sitting in the middle of the big dining room table. I stood on my chair so I could see their yellow eyes staring back at me until my grandmother turned them over with the ladle. Each plate received ladles of broth over its slice of bread and an egg neatly centered on it.

I have looked in various Portuguese cookbooks for acorda recipes and tried them out on Len to his dismay. None taste as I remember. Perhaps the missing ingredient is her love.


Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Dick LeClair's stories reveal the anguish his job in the aerospace industry sometimes caused him.




Dick Le Clair

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Dick Le Clair is a retired aerospace engineer and teacher living in Los Gatos with his wife. During the Cold War, he worked on defense weapons that he says were meant to "slaughter civilians." When he talks about this era, tears well up in his eyes. He writes poems and prose on a range of subjects that includes everything from his work on weapons to his relationship with his granddaughter. Here is an excerpt from his writing about his Cold War-era job.

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My years as an aerospace engineer were fascinating but traumatic at times; much of the time from 1955 to 1966 was spent working on strategic weapons, during which time I worked on the development of more effective ways of delivering nuclear and other warheads to portions of the population of the Soviet Union, whom I considered as our sworn enemy. More than once I woke up in the night with tears in my eyes, probably due to a combination of feelings of guilt and fear. At the time, my wife and I and our four children lived in the suburb of Los Altos, and I felt guilt over my purpose of killing civilians such as myself and my family.

We worked hard and quietly; some of us left Lockheed, but none of us cited conscience as our reason for leaving. We all abided by the adage, "What you do here stays inside here."

In 1966, I left Lockheed due to the excessive compartmentalization due to military security concerns. When I went to a local physician for a routine yearly physical exam, he said to me, "What did Lockheed to you engineers? You have extremely high rates of nervous breakdowns, alcoholism, and marital discord." We in our work call it the "Lockheed Syndrome." I did not answer his question.

In 1972, I started teaching at San Jose State [University], and I loved the job. It paid less than half of what I had earned as an engineer, but I slept well, and Marian supported me wholeheartedly. I gradually worked up to becoming tenured and was promoted to full professor in 1979. I continued teaching until 1993, when I was placed on early retirement status at age 70.

Memories of the summer camp Diana Zitman attended when she was 12 and 13 help her to connect with her Jewish faith.

Photograph by Diana Zitman







Diana Zitman

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Saratogan Diana Zitman is in her 50s--a younger class member. Her birth mother died when she was 18 months old. Zitman is looking at what has given meaning to her life, and through the class she is making connections with memories she'd forgotten. For example, the writing exercises recalled for her the beautiful Jewish ceremonies and festivities she'd participated in during her teenage years.

"The class psychologically healing," she says. "It helps make sense of my life."

Here is a small excerpt from her writing, which focuses on her recent interest in reconnecting with her Jewish roots.

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" ... Another area of my life that helped foster an identity for me was my involvement with Zionism. I joined Habonim, a Zionist organization, and attended camp 'Haboni' when I was 12 and 13. This gave me the purpose and feeling of belonging that I had been searching for. I loved the spirit, the Israeli dances and music that spoke to my heart. I particularly remember the celebration of Shabbot on Friday evenings.

We all dressed in white and went in a solemn single line around the pool after dinner, which was usually roast chicken and matzo ball soup. The candles had been lit at dinner and the prayers said, and so we sang round the pool. Everything seemed so clean and pure and lovely, and I felt so at peace.

It wasn't until years later that I would recapture some of my feelings and experience the beauty of Shabbot. I can still picture all of us dressed in our bright clean white shorts and shirts, and we were freshly showered to welcome the Shabbot. After that we all went into the hall to wildly dance the Hora, singing Israeli tunes at the top of our lungs and sweating with the exertion of the foot-stomping traditional Hora. After camp was over, I continued for a few years in the organization, but once I went on to Forest Hills High School [in New York]. I somehow lost the idealism of Judaism ... .

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For information about the upcoming Life Stories class (in January), call the Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation at 408.354.8700.

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