Wartime seems to be the base of many of these buried family stories that surfaced sometimes around a word or two in an unrelated discussion. If I assumed that most of the family secrets are somehow linked to a war or a conflict of sort, I wouldn't be far from the truth, at least when it comes to the history of my grandparents and their parents. After all, their time has seen more war that will see, or at least, more war in their direct surroundings...

I ever met only one of my great-grandmother. She was an old and gloomy woman, always sitting in the darker corner of the house, clad in black and grey. I always thought of her as a witch...

There is another of my great-grandmother I would have love to meet. Even more now that I know about her past. This unknown old lady seemed to have had an interesting past. Somehow, she had been a war bride.

In this title, there is nothing to see about those soldiers brides who left their country to follow a husband they met in special circumstances. No. The story of her meeting her future husband is slightly different.

When the Great War started, when the Third Republic decided to send young conscripts to bar the Pan-Germanism efforts in the North East of the Hexagon, this great-grandma was just out of her teenage years. Life hadn't been easy for her so far. She was doing small work as a seamstress or a hand in a confectionery shop, bringing to the family her part of the money that would let them go through another day, another month. Her father, or rather, the husband of her mother, was bringing a decent revenue to the household with his work as a wagoner. He possessed a horse and a chariot, so he could take on delivering jobs all over the city.

This, above, is what seemed to have been Great-Grandma's life as a young woman. It is a fact that there is a doubt on who was her father. Something my grandmother never talked about, as if the stain of being born out of wedlock had been dirtying her own life. When she ever talked about the man, it was always using his nickname, and, rarely, mentioning him as the husband of her own grandmother.

I learnt about it through my grandaunt, in fact. She didn't see it as a secret to hide, rather a subject she would discus only if someone ever asked her about. This happened as I spent some time with the dear old lady and she regaled me with stories of her younger days. Among those, she didn't hesitate to talk about the somehow irregular birth of her mother in a time where a single mother was frowned upon.

Great-grandma's start in life had probably been a bit difficult due to the circumstances of her birth, though I never heard anything specific about her struggle. She had been one of those people from a poor background, living in the old part of a beautiful city, in the south of a country entering, one more time, in a conflict with its neighbor...

The war wasn't near the beautiful city great-grandma lived in. however, young men left for the front, women cried their loss and children learned to live without fathers and brothers. For my ancestor, wartime brought some changes in her life.

The South West of France saw an afflux of migrants during the first months of the war. Refugees from the war zone had been relocated further away from the combats. The first injured soldiers are also sent dues south. By the end of December 1940, it is around four thousand five hundred injured soldiers that arrived by train in Bayonne to be treated. For the occasion, hotels and schools are requisitioned due to the lack of place in the hospitals.

In the life of my great-grandmother, this increase in population, the presence of these newcomers took a special turn. When she looked through the window of her apartment, on the fourth floor without elevator, she was now seeing new faces. There was this man that sent her signs. He was probably wearing bandages on the face, or had members on cast. Through the window, she could see the injured soldiers who had fought on the front lines and were now in need of medical attention.

In these troubled times, the solidarity was strong for the refugees and injured soldiers. Women and children prepared packages of food and clothes for the ones who had to relocate and were left with few of their belongings. The soldiers who had been injured on the front lines received cookies and fruits from pretty girls. With the war setting along the months and years, this solidarity continued despite the privations and penury.

For my great-grandma, those darker times brought her warmth and light. A complicity had grown between the two, by the window on the fourth floor; the young girl smiling to the hurt man, a short distance only separating them, few steps to cross the small street in the old city quarter.

With time and some courage, she started to visit the injured in the infirmary on the other side of her home. She probably brought him some home-made sweets. The war had hurt him, took her father away, nevertheless, it gave them each other.

The thread of the memory shared about this great-grandmother and how she found her husband doesn't elaborate whether the soldier had to go back on the front lines or not. I think I remember an aunt saying that he had been gassed in the trenches, therefore he probably wouldn't have gone back to fight, though I am throwing a wild guess here.

The sure thing is that the injured soldier, who was originally from the north east of the country, settled in the south where this branch of the family remained until today.

I like to imagine this great-grandmother I never met, as a young woman, her cheeks brightening at the view of this man through the window. Was she shy the first time she went and delivered cookies to the men in the infirmary just across the street? Did she blush when he told her she was pretty? Did he dread to ask the hand of the young lady to her mother?

I could imagine a full story from the snippets I had the chance to uncover almost three decades ago now. The things I remembered vividly are the settings of the story, a young woman, an injured soldier and the distance of a small street in the old city quarter to separate them. However, the details of the story that had been written by the past are now forgotten, leaving only traces in the following generations' selective memories...