Villa St.-Jean International School
Student Remembrances

January 21, 1999: Steve MacIntyre's "Bleak House" Recollection of the Villa Campus Deconstructed

Indulge a brief recollection of a first visit to the Villa campus, subsequent to its closing.

It was 1981 and though I've visited Fribourg and the campus site several times since, it was my first time back since graduation.

I knew the Villa had been closed, but was not prepared to find it in the throes of being razed. 1981 was a wet summer in Europe north of the Mediterranean coast and -- alone and traveling by motorcycle, a summer's worth of clothing and gear lashed to the back of the bike -- I was quite glum as I rolled up Perrolles.

It was Saturday, it was August, and so there was not a soul to be seen on the campus or vicinity.

The rain fell incessantly. What a sight! Sapi had been torn down, a pile of rubble where it had stood. Ditto Ormes, the administration building, dining halls and chapel. Bossuet was half standing.

The wrecker ball had taken its toll but the destruction was incomplete. The round, attached staircase wound its way to nowhere. Interior walls stood exposed to the rain, railings and pieces of shelving from the library lay, identifiable and familiar, among the rubble of masonry and stucco and wet dust.

Improbably the basketball "pavilion' was intact and Gallia, inexplicably, stood unharmed. We all know now that, for whatever reason, it was destined to be spared. But at the time it looked as though it too was patiently awaiting its turn for oblivion.

February 5, 1999: Alan Fuller's Recollections of Life Post-Villa

I left Villa St. Jean thirty-two and a half years ago, and pretty much never looked back.

The only contacts with Villa friends since then have been very few, and occasionally sort of meta-contacts.

Within eight months of returning to Minneapolis in 1966 I had occasion to have a small record player fixed. It was one I had bought in Europe. I walked into a drug store, sat down at a fountain stool and ordered a soda. The soda jerk commented on the unusual brand of record player, and in rapid sequence the following connections were made: Europe to Switzerland to Villa St Jean to Tony Morrosco. This guy knew Tony!

In college Brother Vincent Wayer appeared on campus in the graduate school, Department of Education. He was getting a Phd. For me this was a treat, as we renewed our relationship for a year or two. He lived in a house with some other folks, probably Marrianists. I recall they employed a cook who considered me underweight and was willing to work on the problem. I always found Brother Vincent to be a man of uncommon practical intelligence, and was sure he would go onto great things. Did he?

A couple years later I was driving through New Hampshire and paid a visit to Skip Korbet. He was employed as a State Trooper which somehow made perfect sense. We always knew he would be tangled up with the law in some fashion, the debate and primary interest centering upon just which side of that arbitrary line he found more interesting. Skip was living in a trailer off of a freeway somewhere; a small place tucked up in the woods. He was heavily armed as you might imagine and was remarkably unchanged. A serious smoker. He could still draw an impressive volume of air through a cigarette faster than anyone I have ever met. He kept his state police cruiser at home and he showed me how he had modified it. There was a kill switch under the dash which shut off the right front headlight. He used to sneak up on cars at night with one headlight out. Once he had them speeding or whatever, he would turn on his flashing lights and the missing headlight simultaneously. Surprise. He also would drive around at night on the freeways with his lights completely off.

When I was in college Alan Balladur turned up and stayed a couple months. He has been the only continuous Villa contact for me, although at times the contact has been very tenuous. I guess that is why you have my e-mail address: through Swiss.

I did go back to the Villa once, in 1970, on a motorcycle. Returning to Fribourg was a strangely emotional experience for me. All the buildings at the Villa were still standing as I recall, but I was surprised to find I felt as much connection to the ravine behind the school. I have fond memories of that whole area and was pleased it was unchanged. I stayed in one of the dorms for a week or so. A couple hours after arriving in town, I ran into Sylvia. Remember her from the Chess? It was a nice connection, and I hung around with her and her friends for a few days. I have always known that my departure from the Villa was premature, and would really have liked to stay the last two years to graduate.

But that was a long time ago, and I was surprised to fine the virtual Villa community on the Internet. I've got to locate my old yearbooks to refresh my memory and provide faces for some of the names I find here. I also have a bunch of photos of the Villa somewhere; I'll look for them at the same time.

February 5, 1999: Note from Father Bernard Truffer of Sion, Switzerland to Kevin Di Palma

I got your mail the 25th of January. If I am able to respond only today the reason is my stay at the hospital for two weeks. I can send you only papers of my own. That gives an idea about the foundation of the Villa Saint-Jean, knowing the spirit and the intentions of Father Kieffer, founder of the Villa (1904).

Two books of Kieffer are important:"L'autorite dans la famille et a l'ecole." Another book was: "Education et equilibre." Probably you would be happy to know more about the daily life during a school year. Yearbooks and so on. All this is only to find at Rome in the library of the Marianists. Mail address: Curia Generalizia Marianista Via Latina 22 - 00179 Roma, Italia /FAX (0039) 06.7 000 406

In the Archives of this house there are all indications more about the Villa Saint-Jean. If You should have in the next future the occasion to go to Rome; don't forget the address of the Curia Generalizia Marianista. The headmaster of the archives is M. Albano Ambrogio, one of my good friends.

During my stay of a whole year at Dayton, Ohio, I traveled across the states. And coming from California I visited Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, but from New Mexico unhappily I didn't see other cities than El Paso with a look to Ciadad Juarez, Mexico. I remain very happy for having lived in the states for a year. People, custom, kindness and so many countries are really wonderful. I like the United States of America.

February 6, 1999: Jean-Michel Simoneau's Note about Life at the Villa and Later

Some scattered thoughts: The last year at the Villa was like somekind of dream. I am not sure if we really knew it was closing until almost the end...I don't remember if I knew it. We thought of only one thing...our girlfriends, and when we could arrange dates with them. Our dances in Arthur Conan Doyle's Chateau were out of some fairy tale and were paid for with rare books from the Bossuet library that Brother Dobner passed along to a descendant of the author. Bro Dobner allowed us beer at the dinner table, two large bottles per table (?)

Academic pressures were increased by Bro Dobner who instinctively felt that idle hands created mischief. He had us read nearly 52 books in English that year..at least two a week. College was too easy when I got there...we were performing at a higher level at the Villa, amazing.

Our senior trip to Nice was pure fun, and we came back like eighteen beets to graduation...and then we all left as soon as we could pack. I flew to Turkey, met my folks who were leaving, spent the summer in Ireland, Scotland and England, then on the LA and Hawaii, then Okinawa, and then I headed back for college at Holy Cross where my dad had graduated in 1949.

There is much that is not in the yearbook of course. The mountain climbs were generally as you said, we did have a memorable one involving a night crossing of a glacier with ropes. Matt Bell, roped in front of me, put his leg into a crevice. He could move quickly after all. Watching the sunrise from high altitude above the glacier will always be a memory I will not forget. We sometimes practiced rapelling with the ropes, and those are the photos that you saw.

We continued to have great bands, amazing for such a small school. The dances never changed, the girls were always a real treat for sore eyes. My most interesting girlfriend was the heiress of the Fokker aircraft family. You can imagine the ribbing I took since her last name was Fokker. Had I been more savvy (and mature) I might be flying that aircraft today. The class of 69 were rebels. Really. When we became Seniors, the Brothers were ready for us.

Check out the class of '70 add. There is a photo there with a bus...it was on a "pee-pee-stop" everyone was relieving themselves on the side of the road...and I took the photo. When I made up the add I cropped out the actual pee-pee equipment, a major regret of my life.

February 22, 1999: Randy Dalton on Life After Villa St. Jean

I have been spending all morning going through the Villa websites looking at photographs (especially Joe Stivers') that bring back a lot of fond memories of some good times. It definitely was a unique period in my life - the Villa, Europe and the 60's. Thank you and Kevin for the extraordinary effort. I think it will help me re-establish contact with some of the personalities that made up Villa life. Yes, I'm alive and well, living in Austin, the "live music capital of the world", for the past fourteen years, currently working as the government documents librarian at Southwest Texas State University. What's more, I've been happily married (Diane Fisher) for ten of those years - with no kids (I think we're categorized as DINC's - double income, no children). Although I probably wouldn't admit it - despite having no children - I'm pretty much living the standard American middle-class life with a home mortgage, 8 to 5 job and my 401k investment plan.

Occasionally, through out the past thirty years, I have been able to make contact with some of the Villa guys. I remember getting together with Felipe Echavarria, Malcom Lawrence, Kevin Carrol, Larry Gruza? and Mike Childs one night at a club in Georgetown, Wash. D.C. in 1970. Most of us were home for the college break - Malcom was the only working stiff. That summer Mike Childs and I drove up to New England in my VW bug. I was bartending at a resort ranch in upstate New York (Lake George) and he was attending Goddard College in Vermont, which was, at the time, one of the first private "alternative" schools in the nation - no grades, clothing optional, plenty of drugs type of thing. I remember Mike was having a hard time of it, but I lost contact with him after that summer. I still worry about him to this day - I see he was on your list of e-mail addresses so maybe I'll drop him a line and see how he's doing.

After graduating from college in 1972, I drove out to California and "hung out" with Doug Miller for a couple of years. That is a story all of it's own. But I did look up Bill Buzzo when I was living in San Francisco. He was working as a letter carrier (postman back then) in San Mateo and, I remember, was deeply in love with some woman. I've lost contact with him too. During the 70's I would road trip back and forth from Florida to California several times and would always stop in Austin and stay with Eric Harrison. As it turns out, I now live here and Eric is probably the closest one from the Villa days that I still remain in touch with - we talk to each other about once a month. He's on his second marriage with three kids and is a local building contractor in the Austin area. I gave him the information on the Villa websites and the e-mail addresses, but he's not online yet.

February 26, 1999: Steve MacIntyre on The Closing Of The Villa

Looking with fresh eyes at the Aker's copy of the bulletin you just posted, and then finding my own copy and reflecting on that, and then examining our class rosters and thinking about how quickly the enrollment swelled at the American Villa from a dead standing start, one is forced to wonder how the decision was made to reverse course on what was obviously a great success and pull the plug on the Villa.

The decision seems such a sudden reversal of a plan which, at the time of the closing, had been implemented fairly recently and was working extraordinarily well. Converting the Villa from a French school to an American one was a daring proposition at the time. It might well have not worked. Students might not have been attracted. But it did work. Judging by the burgeoning enrollment from that standing start, judging even from the allegiance of its former students who three decades later with no visible means of support are keeping a spirit alive, it worked brilliantly!

So the why the dramatic change of heart? Who made the call to reverse course and close down the Villa? The known facts just don't point to such an improbable decision. I wonder if we will ever know.

March 9, 1999: Steve MacIntyre on the 1930s photos of Villa Life

1930 Photos:
The first thing that strikes me is the high photographic quality of them. They seem to have been taken with a large-format camera. The detail and composition are fantastic.

The second thing which strikes is how little had changed in the 30 years between Mr. Halbeisen's days at the Villa and our own. Even the plexiglass rain grooves which ran along the sides of all the buildings above the sidewalks were the same. And how about that pavilion? Such an insubstantial looking structure compared to the solidity of the main campus buildings. And yet it is outlasting it all.

I have only guesses as to where some of the more hard-to-fix pictures were taken. Here are a few attempts to guess:

1. The palm trees are interesting. It always amazes me that Palm trees grow naturally in Switzerland, a product of some of the microclimates one finds in the valleys. Lugano, of course, is full of palm trees, but even Montreux, a town not so far from Fribourg, has palms growing by the sides of the streets. The palms in this picture, I would guess, lived inside from November through March and then were brought out again into the courtyard alcove where the photo was taken. As to which alcove it is, there are several possibilities. Near the entrance to the chapel occurs to me. So does the crotch between Bossuet and the dining halls.
2. The skating picture on the ice is really great! By the time we arrived at the Villa, students skated at the patinoire. This picture was obviously taken on the Sarine, down behind the school at the base of the cliffs. In our own day we would go down there to swim, but not to skate. It is truly one of the most spectacular spots in the world, and yet we had no photos of it, until now! Bravo.
3. I vote for one of the rooms in Gallia as the locus for the group shot of seated students looking slightly downward toward the camera lens. The complex door and its transom looks to me like one of those in Gallia. I also infer this from what I take to be the desks that the students are seated at. The decorations on the wall are a little different than those we knew. Rather more charming, I'd say as an adult, though I am not sure we would have noticed one way or the other when we were 15.
4. The sailor-suit shot is hardest of all to locate. When we were at the Villa, the only fence of this type which I remember ran behind the school along the far side of the street across from Bossuet. I cannot remember the name of the street. Bissonet? Buizonet? Probably nothing like that. On recent maps, I may have seen that the street has been renamed Saint-Exupéry.

March 15, 1999: Michele Latimer on her father's days at the Villa in the 1930s

1930 Photos:
I talked to my father yesterday, trying to extract more informations about Villa St Jean and here are few amusing anecdotes: About the skating picture, the boy to his left was Legrand de Fecamp - whose father was the owner of Benedictine, he would always come back from home visit with a supply of Benedictine samples which he gave among his schoolmates!

I asked him about skating on the Sarine, he said it was an unusual cold winter and the Sarine froze, usually they would skate on the tennis court, they used to hose them every night to provide a decent skating ring.

The sailor outfit picture was indeed taken in front of the school, rue du Botzet(sp?) and so was the picture with his brother. He promised he will write down the names of Professors and some of his schoolmates and will try to find some more information.

By the way, I don't know if you have read the St Exupery biography by Stacy Schiff (1994), it is excellent, she mentions villa St Jean many times and the influence the school had on St Ex. Hope those crumbs of information might be useful somehow!

March 15, 1999: Jerry Gegg on the Closing of the Villa and the subsequent lives of four Marianist Brothers Who were there at the time

1930 Photos:
I talked to my father yesterday, trying to extract more informations about Villa St Jean and here are few amusing anecdotes: About the skating picture, the boy to his left was Legrand de Fecamp - whose father was the owner of Benedictine, he would always come back from home visit with a supply of Benedictine samples which he gave among his schoolmates!

Concerning Fred Fuchs, he does not have an e-mail address. He lives in St. Louis County. His phone and address is in the phone book. Fred was at the Villa four years--its last four. He taught math and German.

Werner was something else. A character. Loved excitement. Extremely talented. Gifted teacher. Anyone who had him as a teacher is sure to remember some of the stuff he did in class to make it interesting.

WHY DID VILLA CLOSE? Religious Orders were losing members in the late 1960's. The Marianists of the Society of Mary were dedicated to teaching young men. As a result, they stubbornly refused to go co-ed when everyone else did. Hence, Villa's enrollment in its last year was 55 students--with 12 full-time staff members. The St. Louis Province, which included VSJ, decided to close a school. Those who made the decision to close VSJ apparently were not in love with VSJ as were some of us were. The decision to close the Villa was made in December 1969. In spring of 1970 the decision to leave the religious order was made by four of the six Marianists stationed at the Villa -- Cy Boschert, Werner Dobner, Fred Fuchs, Jerry Gegg. The other two (Bro. Pat Moran and Rev. James Mueller) returned to the States.

Cy married a Swiss gal, had 3 daughters, and has been working at College du Leman, Geneva, for the past 25 years. Werner married a German woman, had two children, and has been with the US Military school system near Stuttgart since 1970. Fred married and lives with his wife in St. Louis County, Missouri. Jerry married, had two children, and lives with his wife in St. Louis County.

The four of us get together often. We have many happy memories of VSJ.

January, 1999: Message from Cavan Candito

After graduating I went to the American College in Leysin (in the mountains east of Lausanne), for all four years. Then I went to Fribourg University for a graduate year in law (but hated it, I dropped out). There were several ex-VSJ-ers at Fribourg University with me, such as Jim Gallagher and Mary Liz Logan (her brother Steve was at VSJ). Well Fribourg U ended in 1970 for me, then I went back to Leysin and stayed there til 1977 !! In Leysin I did everything from work in a ski-store to leasing and running a bar-restaurant for several years (it was an American Student pub for the college kids). Can you imagine, roughly 17 years in Suisse from gradeschool in Bern, thru VSJ and the American College and Fribourg U. I still miss the whole country and wish I'd stayed there.

My brother John and I were just talking about our favorite Fribourg hangouts -- remember La Fondue, they had the best fondue in Switzerland? And La Viennoise, right next door to the GREAT pizza restaurant Le Frascatti? During the year I was at Fribourg U, we also discovered several great little hole-in-the-wall places in the "lower old" city (Vieux Ville?). You know, way down the cliffs from Blvd Perolles. I don't think we as VSJ-ers had ever ventured down that far. I think the Brothers had that in mind when they didn't allow us long-enough "downtown time" to find such places! We got into enough trouble for them at Chess and Viennoise!! (I'll never forget helping to haul Heitzman home to the dorm horizontally -- drunk, passed out -- & sneaking him in past Brother Paul).

Anyway we get old, and mired in our 24-hr-a-day jobs and other responsibilities, so I haven't even been to Suisse since 1977. I escape California a couple of times a year, for a week in nearby places like Mexico or Arizona. But one of these days I'll have to take several weeks off together, to go have a Beauregard again. (And let's not forget Cardinal)

February, 1999: Christian Jayet tells us the fate of Mont-Choisi

I'm sorry to inform you that the Chateau Mont-Choisi school went out of business in 1996. You may reach the director/owner, Mr Pustacheri at 021/728 87 77 (ch. des Ramiers 16, 1009 Pully). He has been trying to sell the estate but has not yet found a buyer. The school sank pretty quickly.

In 1994 it was still doing well but in two years it went from 120 students to only 20 ! It was a pretty sad story - a lot of the teachers had been working at the school for over 20 years....

If I can be of any further help,. do not hesitate.

Best regards
Christian Jayet