CATHERINE FILLOUX: Where you were born and when?

JEAN FILLOUX: I was born the seventh of July 1925, in Guéret, Creuse, France...Northern Hemisphere.

CF: Magnifique. And what is your parents’ profession?

JF: My parents were schoolteachers. Both of them.

CF: And when you were a child did you visit places in the surrounding areas?

JF: The surrounding areas of where I was born, in Guéret?

CF: Yes.

JF: Yes, but I think that at that time I must have been pushed in a…little baby carriage with wheels. (Laughing.)

CF: And what is the furthest you traveled from Guéret during your childhood?

JF: Meaning, what do you call my childhood?

CF: From birth to 18 years old.

JF: Up until 18 years?…I think I went on a big trip when I was at school. They had taken us at the end of the school year to see the military boats of France in the bay of, or the harbor of Toulon.

CF: Oh really?!

JF: That was about as far as I had gone, I’m sure.

CF: Yes. And where did you go to high school?

JF: I did not go to high school. I never received a Baccalaureate…I am Baccalaureate-free.

CF: So, I think I understand that during the war [World War 2] you went to Cluny?

JF: During the war I went to a school that was called--at certain times…

CF: At what age?

JF: When the war was declared, I had finished my primary education, as they called it, and I was…I spent a certain amount of time helping my grandparents during the vacation, the summer break, particularly. When the war was declared…it must have been…I was at Noyen [a farm in the sparsely populated rural countryside of La Creuse, France.]

CF: At Noyen?

JF: At my grandparents.

CF: And after you left for school?

JF: Oh, I had been at school much before.

CF: …At what age?

JF: Oh, when I left for school, it was after passing my Study Certificate. That happened normally around 12 years old. At 12 years old I had my Study Certificate. Then I left, I was put in school at La Souterraine, I think it must have been in 1937-38, around there. And I stayed in the school at La Souterraine for a few years. I applied to a preparatory school for technical school, it was at Vierzon in Le Cher. North of La Creuse, about 100 kilometers [60 miles].

CF: Yes, and after that?

JF: And, so, after the war arrived--after the war broke out…I went for one more year to that first school of Vierzon and since there were bombings of the train station and it was a very dangerous area because the Germans bombed all the time -- And during those bombings we went to the school basement -- It became unbearable and so at the vacation I returned home. At the end of the vacation, they had closed the school. I was sent to an equivalent school at Limoges.

SOUND LOST FROM 5:31 TO 8:51

JF: I had an accident, when I was eight or nine years old, the day of the 14th of July [Bastille Day], a kid exploded a firecracker behind my head to scare me, I think it damaged my ears, at least my left ear.

CF: And your other studies were done where?

JF: Cluny was a technical school where one received an engineering degree. Engineer des Arts et Métiers. So, I finished there, it was an extremely interesting school. We were in pension at school, we were free on the weekends, but you had to work very hard. It was interesting, it was very general, you did all sorts of things, with a concentration on math and technology, the sciences, and industrial design -- The method for calculating beams, bridges and we did manual work and I succeeded very well -- A particularity, I have to say, is starting when I was 10-12 years old I always had a knife and I always used my knife a lot, and particularly when I was at my grandparents--their ancestors had been wood workers. There was an atelier, there was wood, and there were tools that were very old. Since I was interested and aware of everything that was at this farm, I could use it all, I didn’t need to ask permission. (Smiling) Sometimes I cut the tips of my fingers a little. With that and my knife I could design things and I had my fun if I can say…

(Sound in background is Odette Filloux [Maman] cooking in the kitchen.)

SOUND LOST FROM 12:41 TO 13:19

JF: …L’École supérieure d’électricité in Paris. There I spent 2 years in Paris from 1946 to 1948.

CF: Where did you meet Maman?

JF: At Fontainebleau at the end of 48. I needed to find a job. I found a job at Fontainebleau in a company that dealt with public works. That’s where I met Maman. At Fontainebleau. Or it’s her that met me. (Smile.)

CF: You came to the United States after that, and did you imagine in your youth that you would come to the United States? Was it in your thoughts?

JF: No, but since I was very young, I was interested in traveling. It was very special, since I was very little, I was at my grandparents often, not continuously but often, at Noyen. The first year we went to Guéret my parents worked at a school in the area of Guéret, in a town called Soulier. Like a slipper. [Soulier means shoe.] And I must have stayed that first year—I can’t say that I remember—I had just been born. From what I heard I stayed with them during that first year – and they [his parents] were appointed to go to Ars. The next year when I was one it seems I heard that I was put in school when I was one, because Mami, Mamiguite [his mother] she was also a schoolteacher, she had to work, and during that time she couldn’t take care of a baby like that, though I wasn’t exactly a baby I was one or two – During winter, at least the first year, I stayed at Noyen, it was Clémentine [his paternal grandmother] and le Pépé [his paternal grandfather]. I stayed there several winters, maybe two. I stayed with them so Mamiguite could do her class in peace. And then they found a person who came and lived at Ars at the house for a few more years. Her name was Suzanne and…But I had always been for long periods boarding at Noyen…not boarding, living at Noyen… I remember in that period – and now I begin to remember – I slept with my grandparents – in between Pépé Alexandre and la Mémé Clémentine – and it was very pleasant. There was this large bed with an alcove – did we talk of that?

CF: Yes.

JF: I remember that and I remember in the period of the hazelnuts, I was given some hazelnuts and the blue battoir [beater] of the Mémé to break the hazelnuts and while breaking the hazelnuts on the steps of the staircase [made of stone] of the house of the great grandmother there is a piece that jumped in my eye and damaged the eye and they had to take me – not right away – the next day I think it was –

CF: Maman, can you stop with the water for a moment…?

OF: Okay.

CF: Thank you.

JF: Well, I calculated it once, it’s easy to say when it was because it was summer – I think I must have been four years – four years – maybe three but I doubt I cracked hazelnuts at three years – it must have been four years – and after that I was no longer at Noyen – or I was there only for the summer break. But this was when my parents were working. What was the question?

CF: I asked the question about the United States, and you said you wanted to travel from a young age.

JF: Oh yes, of course, after often spending the summers there [at Noyen] when I was a bit older and I know that Madeleine and Pierre [his siblings) were littler -- but before I was there alone and I was starting to form habits and I could do things the others couldn’t do because there was fear for them – I had taken the habit because with my grandparents I was at a place where there were no cars that passed – there wasn’t the appearance of great danger – and so I traveled much farther than I was allowed – and so little by little I had been pretty much everywhere – I had found a system for figuring out where I was – so around Noyen I traveled – when I was four years old – when I was four years old I left like that – there was not a large danger –

CF: What your profession in the U.S.?

JF: I became little by little an oceanographer. But the denomination…It depends, at the beginning I was a researcher, engineer, a research oceanographer. And after, after many years, actually there’s one thing that must be said, when I took a job – I was at Fontainebleau for two years – and then I left to travel – a sea voyage – it gave me the opportunity to take as one of the consequences to do geophysical studies – at the University of California to become the denomination after several years of what you call (in English) a marine and submarine geophysicist.

CF: A marine and submarine geophysicist, yes. And can you tell us, you traveled a lot. Around the world…

JF: (In English.) Not around…, I wanted to go around the world, but I did not make it. (Laughing lightly.)

CF: I didn’t mean “around the world” but you traveled a lot. What, can you list some of the countries that you traveled to?

JF: (In English.) Yes, but it’s true that I have been interested in traveling.

[Sound of one chime for 1pm from grandfather clock which was brought from his parents’ home in Guéret, France.]

JF: (In English.) What I was telling you about my traveling at Noyen (In French.) Around the house, the paths, the streams, it’s the beginning.

CF: That’s beautiful, yes.

JF: My great grandfather the father of Mémé de Noyen [Jean’s paternal grandmother Clémentine]…At the farm there was a tiny little living quarters that was quite complete, easily pleasant for two people, rustic, but not that bad, in terms of temperature, because the walls had almost a meter of thickness, so the temperature inside was suitable. He was a clog maker, and he lived alone there, and his mother brought him his lunch, breakfast and dinner, because he didn’t like to eat with the rest of the family, he preferred to be alone…

CF: What was he called?

JF: The Grandfather, but he was a great grandfather, the father of Clémentine, and there was a window near the front door, and in front of that window there was a workbench, that was his workbench, where he made the clogs, and repaired them. And in front of the window there was a large flat zone where there were all sorts of things, and he put his eyeglasses, his newspaper, some books. And he stacked—in France it was the tradition in the rural areas to have, every year, a book which was called the almanac, for the days of the year, fortune telling, so you could look for each day, for each person, what were the predictions. And there I saw--one day I was looking for what would be my future--and there was a rather large photo, not a photo, a drawing, and there was a little child who was hoisting a sail on the boat, and that was my future. (Laughing with delight.) And so, I was interested in this story, and in the middle of the farm there was a stream that was about the diameter of a room, a few meters, “a pond”, with water in it, and it was under some big, beautiful trees, some chestnut trees, and some walnut trees, and inside, there were some barrels, some half-barrels. When there were barrels that leaked a little, they cut them in half and put them outside, like a “container” to put things in. And there was one that was in that pond. And, of course, it floated on top. And one day, after…without discussing with anyone…You see, I didn’t ask for permission, if they saw that I was doing something that didn’t please them, they told me not to do it. Anyway, I saw that thing, and when I pushed it with a stick, it would drift away, and if I went to the other side of the pond and pushed it, for it to come back, I was having fun, so I decided to get in it. I got in and, of course, it left, but almost immediately it touched the bottom, because it was heavier with me inside. So, it stopped. (Smiling; combination of French and English.) That was the first time I ran aground. And after, I could push it with a stick, like a pole boat.

CF: (Laughing.) It was your first boat.

JF: Yes.

CF: That’s great. I know that you traveled in places like Tahiti, the Great Barrier Reef, and the Sargasso Sea, are there any places that you preferred over others?

JF: The thing which I have been, most impressing to me, is to be able to look under water with a mask on the face and while swimming and diving. One doesn’t need a lot…

CF: Yes.

JF: You can, with modest training, go down several meters under and with a mask you see, and it’s very interesting. But the place where it is most interesting is where the water is clear, and there is a lot of light. It’s the seaside, not…we would swim in La Creuse [river in his homeland] but we didn’t have masks.

CF: But it was dark [underwater].

JF: It was dark. So, after I had the occasion to do a first trip on the Mediterranean, and we dove with some…it was interesting to see some fish, but it had nothing as spectacular as when, after, I went in clearer seas, more tropical, with coral and many fish.

CF: That’s for sure.

JF: So, the first place was then in the region of Polynesia, Tahiti. The first places were in the Martinique with the Copula, Jamaica, all the Antilles…

CF: And when you wrote your book about the crossing of the Copula, you wrote it in French, and it was translated into English by whom?

JF: I don’t remember, it was a woman who translated it…

CF: Okay, and was it the publisher who chose the translator?

JF: Yes. No, it was…After, I wrote the book in France, I came to the United States, I had passed through the United States, and I had tried to plan a trip to continue, because the trip was stopped in the United States, we couldn’t continue, so at that time I met someone who was trying to publish photos and things like that. Her name was Marie Rodell.

CF: Oh yes.

JF: She was an agent. She chose the translator. (Sound diminishes.) “Lady with a Spear” I had heard a lot about this book. I read it. Yes, it was Marie Rodell. But it was also another person who introduced me to Rachel Carson…

CF: Oh, right.

JF: And more than her, I knew Margaret Meade.

CF: Wow.

JF: Margaret Meade I met when she received a prize for her book, it was at the Natural History Museum [in New York City].

CF: The Natural History Museum. Now when you took your boat La Creuse through the Panama Canal, how long would that take to get through the Panama Canal?

JF: One day, with ease.

CF: And from the Panama Canal to San Diego, how long?

JF: Let’s see, Fort Lauderdale to San Diego that was four months.

CF: And the weather was pretty good?

JF: Yes.

CF: And the crew was Russ Snyder and who else? Anyone else?

JF: …He was called Larsen. I don’t remember his first name.

CF: So, there were three of you? Wow that must have been pretty amazing. And then is there anything else you would like to say, I mean… (Laughing).

JF: (Laughing.) You are the one who asks, I just answer.

CF: Okay. Well, I…I thank you.

**