Doctor Wade Edwards and Professor Heather Edwards describe meeting each other in France.
“Heather and I met in a two-year Master’s program in French at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In between the two years, we took classes for 6 weeks at the Université de Bourgogne with other students in our program. It wasn't the first time we had been to France – Heather studied for a quarter as an undergraduate in Nice, and I studied for a year in Angers –but it was the first time we had been to France together.
(One day) after our classes had ended, we were driving through eastern France, looking for her great-uncle's grave in an American cemetery for World War II soldiers. Following a map sketched by her grandmother, we arrived at the small village of Champignol, only to discover that the cemetery had been moved years earlier to Epinal, a much larger city to the east. We were fortunate enough to be befriended by Champignol's mayor, who led us to the field that had once house the graves, now a gorgeous sea of orange poppies.
Without really knowing anything about us, he invited us to dinner and shared pictures and stories of his town's former cemetery.
Heather left her contact information, and was pleasantly surprised when, after we'd returned to the US, a package full of facts and photos arrived from the mayor. He wanted to share the research he'd done on my uncle and his new resting place.
This is a story that also captures what we love about French culture--people in small towns have pride in their communities and love to host visitors. Any American who can speak French is treated like royalty.”
