Pressé Comme Un Citron

The 13th adopted child, Jean Claude Baker, collaborated with author Chris Chase on the life of the most extraordinary gift America has handed over to France.

His mom, by adoption, Freda Josephine McDonald. 

Generations all over the world, know her as the legendary, East Saint Louis-born, Josephine Baker.

Renowned for her civil rights activism and the creation of her Rainbow tribe by adopting  war orphans from every place on earth and creating a home and sanctuary for them in a castle in the Dordogne region of Paris.  She is remembered  for her famous song “J’ai Deux Amours, Mon Pays et Paris”

The irony of this, in my opinion, is extraordinary considering the cumulative circumstances of her life journey.

She came into the world during the area when the status quo of the United States for black Americans was that of poverty, Jim Crow Laws (look it up, people) and ethnic torture targeted mainly at it’s black citizens.

Somehow, despite this she developed theatrical talents in the US to arrive in France in the late twenties in an all black troupe of performers in a folkloric Negro review called La Revue Nègre. 

The word “nègre” in France has always given me pause..but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Her success catapulted her into stellar heights of show business, politics and philanthropy.

First husband, and manager "Count" Abatino

First home; Villa La Vesinet

second husband, businessman, Jean Lion

I have read a number of biography’s of Madame  Baker, but her son’s book, by far, is the most informative and detailed account of  the life of a woman who survived Prohibition, racism, two World Wars, the Civil Rights war in America, the McCarthy ear, wild  personal and global economic swings, the vicissitudes of stardom, living and loving in a foreign country, and the fickle nature of international relations.

going to war

Madame Baker wins war

War Hero: Receiving the medal of the Crox de Guerre

Home and much, much more...Castle  Les Milandes

Last husband and the Rainbow Tribe

Single mother of teenagers

debt, debt, debt and mo' problems

astounding resilience!!

Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw, or ever will.”

After reading this absorbing  biography of this quintessential renaissance woman, I was left wondering what became of all the family members of the Rainbow Tribe.

Mme. Baker and the author, Jean Claude Baker

Perhaps someone out there would like to take on the project which perhaps could be called…A Baker’s Dozen.

Wouldn’t that be chouette?

Okay, all you expat writers... On your mark...get set...GO!!!!