Grenoble  1928-1929

Grenoble had a slum section second only to Marseille. We did a lot of work in this slum area. One christmas we took food baskets over there and distributed them to the poorest of the poor. We tried to see that they reached families with children and I shall never forget the gratitude experessed by some of those poor French mothers.

While stationed at Grenoble we occasionally went up into the alps to ski. It was a wonderful experience, way up in the tops of the mountains. I do not recall ever seeing it as cold as it was on one occasion when we went skiing. It was so cold that the moisture would collect on the hairs on your upper lip and form icciles. Frost would collect on your eyebrows and when you would take a deep breath your nose would freeze together. In the ski shack where we would go to thaugh out there was a big barrel stove in one end of the room. They would keep the stove just glowing red all of the time. Yet, a glass of water in the far end of the room on a table froze solid. I learned a lot about skiing on these trips and enjoyed my stay at Grenoble very much. .


YEAR (FILE ) SUBJECT
---- ------- ---------------------------------
1929 (9044) John Griffin on skis
1929 (9045) John Griffin and missionaries on skis
1929 (9058) John Griffin and missionaries

LETTERS
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(L281223) John Griffin to Mother / Grenoble, France
(L290109) John Griffin to Mother / Grenoble, France
(L290117) John Griffin to Mother / Grenoble, France
(L290124) John Griffin to Mother / Grenoble, France
(L290129) John Griffin to Mother / Grenoble, France

In addition to being a university town there was a lot of manufacturing. Several of our saints worked making gloves. They would do the work at home and were paid by the piece. The-factories would collect the finished gloves and leave new leather to be cut and sewed.

One of my companions at Grenoble was a Frere Middleton from Salt Lake City. His father was a doctor. He brought with him a Cello which he played very well. Memories of him practicing his cello on some of the evenings after returning tracting will remain with me always. As one of the old French ladies that we knew use to say 'a cello has a soul' and it really seemed so during some of those long winter evenings.

(MISSIONARY JOURNAL OF JOHN GRIFFIN - page 26)

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