Forging Ahead: Recollections of the Life and Times of Esther Dartigue by Esther Dartigue and John Dartigue (review)

Abstract

Forging Ahead: Recollections of Life and Times of Esther Dartigue. By Esther Dartigue and John Dartigue. CreateSpace, 2014. ISBN 1477595902. 482pp. $14.50 paperback.Review by Grace L. Sanders JohnsonIn 1994, educator and activist Esther Dartigue published An Outstanding Haitian, Maurice Dartigue: The Contribution of Maurice Dartigue in Field of Education in Haiti, United Nations, and UNESCO. In so doing, she successfully wrote deceased husband and former Haitian Minister of Education, Maurice Dartigue, into modern history of Haiti. Esther's work has been widely cited in literature on post-US occupation politics, education, and international organizing and has enhanced recent scholarship in field, most notably Millery Polyne's From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, and Panamericanism, 1870-1964 (2010) and Chantalle Verna's forthcoming work and The Uses of America, 1930-1957. In a 2007 article Verna aptly argues, for example, that Maurice Dartigue was the leading educational reformer during two decades following U.S. occupation.1 Much of what we know about Maurice Dartigue's legacy is credited to his wife's tireless combing through his personal papers and related archives in order to bring his vision for to a broader audience. Yet, until now, little has been known about Esther herself-the assiduous mother, scholar and, on select occasions, orator who used historical prose to combine her two great passions, [Maurice] and Haiti (v).Her memoir Forging Ahead: Recollections of Life and Times of Esther Dartigue provides insight into Esther's life, love of Haiti, and contribution to Dartigue family. Esther conceptualized Forging Ahead as a family history for only child, John, and started writing details of childhood, marriage, and first decade and a half of son's life in mid-1990s. However, due to fatigue and illness, she was unable to complete autobiographical project. Inspired by his mother's commitment to their family's genealogy, John Dartigue picked up where his mother left off and narrated final fifty years of life using childhood memories, stories from family and friends, and a meticulous mapping of Esther's personal calendars, letters, and daily notes. Forging Ahead, then, is both a memoir and a biography, with first part primarily written by Esther Dartigue and second part written by John Dartigue. As a companion piece to Esther's first book, Forging Ahead is foremost a family conversation-a love letter to those individuals and places that Esther cared for dearly.Forging Ahead is an unconventionally written collection of remembrances (vii) sometimes connected and other times appearing in tangential and fragmented ways that memories float to and recede from our forethoughts. With a narrative cadence that reads like an oral history, text is not ordinary in structure, scope, or genre, as John Dartigue warns reader from outset. At several points he even suggests that text may not be of interest to a general audience and that some readers may find it useful to skip certain parts. And yet, while a reader who is not familiar with Dartigue family may be tempted to pass over litany of surnames and addresses, readers will likely find themselves continuing to read out of curiosity and expectation that one of those names casually mentioned may be of note: Resia Vincent, Jacques Roumain, Madeleine Sylvain, Jacques Stephen Alexis, or Rafael Trujillo.In this regard, Forging Ahead is at once a genealogical dig, an archival hunt, and a geographical odyssey. The book is divided into fourteen chapters that chronicle near century of Esther Dartigue's life-from birth in Hungary and early adolescence in United States to adulthood in and Central Africa and through death in France. The first three chapters are detailed accounts of Dartigue's poor upbringing in Hungary and young immigrant life with family in Ohio. …