claremont courier focus 2.2.13

7/29/2019 Claremont Courier FOCUS 2.2.13

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F CO US Unique women of Claremont

CHS wrestlers Dina Marron and Clarissa Garciawere always ready to step into the ring.p.4

Marilee Scaff has been donating her time tothe Claremont community for 7 decades.p.7

Monique Saigalsjourney fromthe FrenchResistance

to Claremont.

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February 2, 2013

See the entire FOCUS edition online at claremont-courier.com


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FOCUS/Unique Women of Claremont 2013 3

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A history lesson by Sarah TorribioOne womans journey from the French Resistance to Claremont

Sugar and spice by Chris OakleyDina Marron and Clarissa Garcia wrestle with the boys

An activists perspective by Beth HartnettMarilee Scaff keeps her eye on local politics

FOCUS: Unique Women of Claremont

O

ften studying the roleof women in frontier

towns has been anafterthought. Not so inClaremont. From the verybeginning women have beenan integral part of the story,through committees,businesses, organizations andelected and appointed office.

In Judy Wrights bookClaremontWomen 1887-1950 They Created aCulture she sums it up this way, Ioften say that the men built thecollege(s) and the women built thetown.

Claremont founders included a

large number of college-educatedwomennot the usual pattern infrontier communities.

Since Pomona College was thereason for Claremonts existence,faculty members were drawn fromeastern and mid-western collegetowns. Many of the wives of theseearliest pioneers were well aware ofwhat they had lost in the civilizedplaces they had left behind.

One young woman looking norththrough the sagebrush from one of thefew buildings in early Claremontwrote: I wept hot tears down mybabys neck. From these tears, acommitment to make this wild placemore like what they had left behindhad developed.

One tradition they brought withthem was the New England Town

Meeting, where men and women hadan equal voice and vote, beforewomen could vote in regular state ornational elections. It has often beennoted that Claremont women beganserving in elective office far earlierthan others in this valley.

Sarah Bixby Smith served on theschool board from 1918 until 1926and our first city councilwoman waselected in 1946, to be followed by

many councils with a female majority.All of this occurring before womenwere admitted to the Rotary, Kiwanis

or University Clubs.Another reason that the town

attracted independent women was thatwidows were drawn to a town thatwas dry, where they could raisechildren away from publicdrunkenness. Widow Ruth Powellbrought her children from San Diego,which was then a sailors town. Sheopened a dry goods store that laterbecame Powells Hardware. And she

became the first postmaster in our1930s post office. She was only thefirst of many women entrepreneursthe Whinery Sisters Blue DiamondRestaurant, Kitty Urbanus firstgrocery store and the Barrett sisterspharmacy.

The citrus packing houses wouldnot have functioned without the Angloand Mexican American women whosorted and packed the fruit. One of themost influential women in Claremontfor many years was Leila Ackerman,director of the Claremont Chamber ofCommerce from 1923 until 1944. Sheworked to bring the message of theCity Beautiful movement toClaremont. Her drive to create well-planned and attractive public

buildings and parks has been ahallmark of the town ever since.

Womens history is not anafterthought in Claremont. It is partand parcel of what we are and howwe got here. In the upcoming centurywe will need the work of both menand women together to solve civicproblems, nurture the arts, educate ourchildren, help the less fortunate andbe the stewards of our rich heritage.

From the

files of

Claremont women: Past and present, integral to a flourishing townby Ginger Elliott


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Wrestling is a sportthat requires men-tal strength, physi-

cal balance and a constantawareness of the position theopponent has taken. ClaremontHigh Schools team is havingan up and down 2012-13 sea-son, but 2 bright spots havebeen the inclusion of ClarissaGarcia and Dina Marron.

As you might have guessed, theseyoung ladies wrestle almost primarilyagainst boys. Mental strength is the

attribute that Garcia and Marron eachpossess in abundance, as they continueto defy traditional gender stereotypesthrough this grueling season.

Clarissa Clare Garcia is a junior atClaremont, and is fifth in a family of 11children. Garcia started wrestling at the

beginning of the season with virtuallyno experience. In fact, when Garciatold her family she would go out for the

boys wrestling team, her brotherwagered $20 that she would not make itthrough her first tournament. I showedhim. He paid me right away, and didntsay anything else about it, Garcia said.

Dina Marron is currently in her sec-ond year at CHS, and is looking to

become a preschool teacher in thefuture. Marron plays the piano and the

bass guitar, and comes from a family of8 children. Marron joined the team less

than a month ago, and she has citedCoach Gerald Escalante as the mainreason behind her determination to joinand continue to wrestle throughout theseason.

My mom told me, Dont get hurt,but I want to do more than just that.

Claremont High School wrestler Dina Marron faces off with her opponent during arecent wrestling meet at Charter Oak High School.

Claremont High School head wrestlingcoach Gerald Escalante speaks withDina Marron after she lost in a pin dur-ing a recent meet at Charter Oak HighSchool. The Charter Oak team was par-ticularly strong and CHS won only onematch during the junior varsity meet.

CHS ladies show toughness competing in a male sport

WRESTLINGcontinues on page 6


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COURIER photos/Steven FelschundneffClaremont High School wrestler Dina Marron waits for her match to begin recently during the Packs juniorvarsity meet at Charter Oak High School. Marron and her teammate Clarissa Garcia are both relatively newmembers of the CHS wrestling team.


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Coach has helped me build up my confidence towrestle against boys. He has been a role model tome, she said.

Escalante stresses the mental aspect of the sportbefore the physical: Coach told us to always thinkthat we can win before we wrestle. He is there yellinginstructions in our ears when were on the mat, so Iknow what to do and have support. Escalante has

never hesitated to throw both ladies into bouts, butalways makes sure that they are ready mentally andphysically.

Even though the girls have not won a match yet, itsclear wrestling boys has not intimidated them.

I was scared the first time I wrestled a boy. WhenI finally got to wrestle a girl, it felt like I had achance, Marron said. That sentiment is likely to fadeover time, as both ladies improve on their skill setsand show that girls can be just as good as boys atwrestling.

Garcia and Marron will each wrestle in the CIF all-girls tournament at the seasons end. Garcia has hadmore time to develop her on-the-mat strategy.

I am working on a signature move, the headlock. Iam more confident in my hand fighting and hope towin my first match before the season is out. It will

be interesting to see how they perform against girlsafter honing their skills against boys all season.

We certainly hope to see both Garcia and Marronwrestle next year, after competing in CIF in February.These ladies want those who say wrestling is a manssport to remember, girls can do whatever guys can.

Chris Oakley

[email protected]

WRESTLINGcontinued from page 4

COURIER photos/StevenFelschundneff

Claremont High Schoolhead wrestling coach

Gerald Escalante offerssome direction to one of

his players during a recentjunior varsity meet at CHS.

At left is Clarissa Garciawho is one of 2 girls on

the wrestling team.

Dina Marron, left, and Clarissa Garcia are wrestling onthe Claremont High School junior varsity team.


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There is hardly an area of commu-nity service Marilee Scaff has leftuntouched in her nearly 70 years

living in Claremont.Theres her devotion to Rancho Santa Ana Botanic

Garden, for example. Ms. Scaff is entering her 30thyear as a volunteer at the local botanic garden, whereshe indulges her never-ending curiosity about nativewildflowers, a passion developed as a young child. Shehas also made a name for herself with the local chap-ter of the League of Women Voters, serving at both thelocal and county level.

Asking her to reflect on her other areas of involve-ment over the years prompts a long list, from the

Community Friends of International Students to theUnited Nations Association, and she mentions eachname with a devout level of interest.

Perhaps Ms. Scaff found the fountain of youth in herhealthy dose of community engagement because this97-year-old is sharp as a whip, with walker in hand atcity council and Sustainable Claremont meetings andLeague of Women Voters gatherings. She continues tobe Claremonts resident expert in water rights, thoughshe would humbly dispute the title.

I am not an expert on anything, she says. I justknow a lot of things.

Ms. Scaff may have retired long ago, but the lifelongcareer woman never stopped.

When I retired, I began another whole career, shejoked, adding with a laugh, I ought to have quit.

On a warm Tuesday afternoon, a stack of books ispiled neatly in her front room, some she perceives as

light reading, displays her varied interests: DoingEnvironmental Ethics by Robert Traer, Botswana:The Insiders Guideby Ian Michler, Both Feet on the

Landby Narayan, to name a few. An inquisitive spirithas always fed the ever-inquiring mind of Ms. Scaff,who was fervently interested in just about everythingshe came across as a child. That spirit continues today.

Ms. Scaff was born in November 1915 in SanMarcos, Texas. One of 4 daughters, she enjoyed theoutdoors as a young girl, hiking, fishing and huntingwith her father.

Because there were no sons in the family, I did withmy dad all things a male child would have done, Ms.Scaff said. One of our great joys in the summer wasbackpacking in the Sierras.

The family did a fair amount of traveling, as Ms.Scaff loved car trips. His work with the SouthernPacific Railroad also kept the family traversing backand forth between Arizona and southern California,

where Ms. Scaff did most of her growing. Out of thesetravels and childhood adventures was also born a great

sense of curiosity.I loved getting around and seeing the country, Ms.

Scaff said. I was very interested in the Indian culturesof Arizona and in the native wildflowers. I can remem-ber as an elementary school child going out to thedesert and digging out desert bulbs and my mothersaying, Honey, I dont think you can make them growin the soil we have at home. I tried but they didntgrow.

Higher education allowed her to continue adding toher ever-expanding knowledge base. She returned toher home state for a bachelors degree in sociology andeconomics from the University of Texas. It was duringher undergraduate studies that she met someone with athirst for knowledge that rivaled her own. Alvin Scaffwas a classmate and the president of the Young MensChristian Association (YMCA), while Ms. Scaff washeavily involved in the Young Womens ChristianAssociation and Mortar Board honor society.

We did all kinds of things together in those days,she reflected.

Mr. and Ms. Scaff continued to feed their shareddesire for knowledge, both going on to graduate workat the University of Chicago. Though Ms. Scaffacknowledged that, at that time, many women werepurposefully kept from admission into graduate pro-grams, she never experienced any problems in herschooling. It was later, when she was trying to make it

Fountain of lifeMarilee Scaff never stops giving to the Claremont community

COURIER photo/Peter WeinbergerMarilee Scaff talks of her eventful life at her home in Claremont.

Marilee Scaff in younger days during her travels throughCanada and Alaska.

Ms. Scaff's main travelling companion was her husband Alvin.

MARILEE SCAFFcontinues on page 8


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into the professional world, that she faced gender dis-

crimination. When her husband took a job as the grad-uate dean of the University of Iowa in the late 1960s,Ms. Scaff was selected for a position within the schoolof education. She was the first and only woman on thefaculty of 35 men.

The chair of the department told me he didnt wanta woman on his faculty, Ms. Scaff said, adding, Younow run into what they speak of as sexual harass-ment. Then, it was all just humor at my expense. Ilearned to laugh.

After receiving their diplomas, Ms. Scaff earning amasters degree in theology and social ethics, the couplemarried in 1938: In those days, you didnt get marrieduntil you finish your graduate work, Ms. Scaff noted.

In addition to many other things, both she and herhusband shared a keen interest in cultures, particularlythose left untouched by civilization. That interest min-gled with their love for students as the Scaffs set towork as teachers under the mission board of the con-gregational church, schooling children in a remotemountain village in the Philippines, where they begantheir family. It was during these years that the warbegan. In 1943, the Scaffs were captured by the

MARILEE SCAFFcontinued from page 7

COURIER photo/Peter WeinbergerMarilee Scaff's latest mission involves Claremont water rights. She says the only way the city can manage futurecost increases is to manage water themselves.

MARILEE SCAFFcontinues on page 10


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COURIER photo/Peter WeinbergerMarilee Scaff travelled the world, but always had a special connection to Africa.


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Claremont will join with activistsaround the world for One BillionRising, the largest day of action in

the history of V-Day, the global activist

movement to end violence againstwomen and girls. The event, scheduledThursday, February 14 from 4 to 6 p.m.,will be held at the Claremont Forum inthe Packing House and will includespeakers, poets, music and dance.

One Billion Rising began as a call to action basedon the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on theplanet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up tomore than one billion women and girls.

On February 14, 2013, V-Days 15th anniversary,Claremont will join activists, writers, thinkers, celebritiesand women and men across the world as they expressoutrage, demand change, strike, dance and rise in defi-

ance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an endto violence against women.

The event is free and open to the public. To learnmore, visit www.onebillionrising.org.

To learn more about the Claremont event, visitonebillionrising.org/page/event/detail/startarising/4jvrr.

Global campaign,

One Billion Rising,to help stopviolence againstwomen and girls


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Considering that some 6 millionJewish people were killed by theNazis, along with tens of thou-

sands of Gypsies and other minorities,learning about the Holocaust can be adeeply disillusioning experience.

Monique Saigal, a recently retired Pomona Collegeprofessor whose grandmother, Rivka Leiba, was killedin the gas chambers of Auschwitz, is a living testamentto mans potential inhumanity to man.

There was, however, another facet of human naturedisplayed during World War II: a heroism thatshowed itself through acts of quiet resistance anddaring rebellion.

Ms. Saigal was saved by one such act.France is besieged

In 1940, the French government surrendered to theNazis andunder the direction of newly appointedpremiere Philippe Ptainagreed to cooperate withGermany on the promise that France would not bedivided between the Axis powers.

While Germany occupied three-fifths of northernFrance, French Resistance forces, under the directionof Charles de Gaulle, refused to surrender or recognizethe resulting Vichy Government, so the remaining por-tion of southern France remained free.

For the next 4 years, the Vichy Regime openly col-laborated with the Nazis as they persecuted Jews inOccupied France. First, they were ordered to wear ayellow star, identifying themselves as Juif. Then,in July of 1942, 13,000 Romanian Jews in Paris,where Ms. Saigal and her family lived, were rounded

up and sent to the Drancy transit camp and then toAuschwitz. Eventually, 70,000 French Jews wouldbe killed.

Ms. Saigals grandmother, who was of Romaniandescent, escaped the first raid. The next month, fear-ing for her granddaughters life, Ms. Leiba threw Ms.Saigal, then 3, on a train with a group of childrenheading for southwest France. The children, whosefathers had all died in combat, were going to staywith volunteer families for a month-long vacationfrom wartime woes.

While her father, Aaron Sgal, had been killed in thetrenches of France, no arrangements had been madefor Ms. Saigal to accompany the delegation. Whetherbecause Ms. Leiba was in a hurry or because she want-ed to hide her granddaughters Jewish name, she was-nt even wearing a nametag.

Twenty-year-old Jacqueline Baleste and her father, aveteran who had been injured in World War I, came tothe train station in the village of Le expecting to pickup a 4-year-old boy. When he didnt show, theyencountered a little girl with blonde hair and a reddress, crying and clutching the hand of a slightly olderboy. They decided to take her home.

Later, Ms. Baleste would say, Angels sent methis little girl.

On September 26, 1942, the day before Ms. Saigalwas scheduled to return to Paris, French policeknocked on the door of her grandmothers apartment,

Professor shares stories of hidden childhood, heroism

COURIER photo/Steven FelschundneffRetired Pomona College French language professor Monique Saigal wrote French Heroines about some of thewomen who participated in the French Resistance during World War II. Ms. Saigal, who is Jewish, survived theHolocaust because of the heroism of a woman who sheltered her even though they were strangers.

FRENCH RESISTANCEcontinues on page 13


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Embracing the pastAs years went by, however, her history began to nag

at her. Ms. Saigal contacted a Los Angeles professorwho specialized in working with the hidden childrenof the Holocaust. After hearing her story, the professortold her, You still have a hidden life.

The professors pronouncement resonated with Ms.Saigal, who gradually began to own her history.

In 1995, she traveled to the Yad Vashem Memorialin Israel to honor her godmother and the Baleste fam-ily. She also traveled to France in 2007 when Ms.Baleste received the Legion of Honor in France for herdeeds of righteousness during World War II.

Closer to home, Ms. Saigal decided to tell her storyin 1999 to French students enrolled in her coursecalled Paris: Myth or Reality? Two years later, whenshe heard that a Cal State Los Angeles professorplanned to bring a group to France to visit former

internment camps and other significant World War IIsites, she decided to go along.

When the trip, which Pomona College agreed tohelp finance, was cancelled, Ms. Saigals husbandsuggested they go anyway. She obtained the originalitinerary from the professor, which included a stop atthe Drancy transit camp where her grandmother hadbeen briefly held, and they set out for France.

Ms. Saigal visited internment camps in villages likePithiviers and Beaune la Roland. She filmed theStruthof concentration camp in Alsace and strolledthrough Oradour-sur-Glane, a village that was deci-mated by the Nazis.

The trip provided an opportunity to learn aboutmoments of triumph as well as tragedy. Ms. Saigal andher husband spoke to people in Chambon sur Lignon,

a small Protestant enclave whose citizens helped save5,000 Jews by refusing to report anyone as Jewish tothe Nazis.

The trip proved to be a watershed moment for Ms.Saigal.

This business of being Jewish and Catholic hadbeen confusing, Ms. Saigal said. Doing theresearch, it liberated me.

Inspired, Ms. Saigal decided to write a book focus-ing on the women of the French Resistance, whoserole in defying and thwarting the Nazi regime has

often gone unacknowledged. Her book, she vowed,would also honor the contributions of her adoptivefamily and the memories of her father and grandmoth-er, both of whom paid the ultimate price during WorldWar II.

Through research and through word of mouth, Ms.Saigal obtained the names of women who performed

heroic acts during World War II as part of the FrenchResistance, many of whom were still alive.

Ms. Saigal spent several summers interviewing andfilming living heroines of the French Resistance,

whose stories she has highlighted in a book calledFrench Heroines, 1940-1945: Courage, Strengthand Ingenuity.

Ms. Saigals book includes chapters on 18 women, anumber she chose to reflect the Hebrew word andcharacter Chai, meaning life, which has special sig-nificance in the Jewish tradition. In Hebrew numerol-ogy, the letters add up to the number 18, which repre-sents good luck.

Ms. Saigal has also included her own story, includ-ing her good luck in being sheltered from the horrorsthat claimed her grandmothers life by a loving andcourageous family.

Whether engaged in subtle sabotage, as in the caseof the women who broke machinery and tamperedwith the products of German factories, or in outrightspycraft, each of the subjects of Ms. Saigals book is

well-deserving of the title of heroine.French Heroines introduces readers to women like

Mati Girtanner. The daughter of a Swiss father and aFrench mother, she was 18 when, in August of 1940,German soldiers invaded the village of Bonne, situat-ed on a river dividing Occupied France and FreeFrance. When they entered her familys garden, Ms.Girtanner, spurred by a Biblical wrath, vowed tojoin the Resistance.

Able to speak good German and armed with a bicy-cle and a rowboat, she helped hundreds of Jewish peo-ple escape from the Nazis, providing them with food,shelter, money and false identity cards. Before she wascaptured by the Gestapo in 1943, Ms. Girtanner alsoused a combination of daring, lies, charm and adeptpiano playing to hide stranded British soldiers, report

on the activities of German submarines to Resistanceleaders and procure the release of several jailedResistance fighters.

FRENCH RESISTANCEcontinued from page 13

FRENCH RESISTANCEcontinues on the next page

COURIER photos/Steven FelschundneffPomona College Professor Emeritus self published thebook French Heroines about 18 mostly unknownwomen who courageously fought back against theGerman occupation of France during World War II.


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Eventually, she was imprisoned for

several weeks in a retaliation camp inParis, and subjected to merciless beat-ings and experiments on her spinalcord performed by a young Gestapodoctor. Though the experience left Ms.Girtanner permanently disabled, shewent on to become a teacher and, yearslater, mustered the strength to forgiveher Nazi torturer.

It is a compelling tale, as are the storiesof women like Lilian Klein-Lieber, akaFirefly, who helped countless Jewishteens to find hiding places or cross theborder into Switzerland; Marthe Cohn,whose flawless German and forged doc-uments without the Jewish stampallowed her to become a spy for the

French army; and Yvette BernardFarnoux, who helped provide food andsupport for jailed Resistance fighters andtheir families before she was arrested andsent first to Auschwitz and then theRavensbrck womens concentrationcamp.

While the stories of the death of Ms.Saigals grandmother and her fortunateplacement with the Baleste familywere cut from the original edition ofher book when it was published inFrance, she has produced a translatedversion ofFrench Heroines in whichher own story has been included.

Some of the subjects of FrenchHeroism

have died since it was writ-ten. Ms. Saigal is happy she was ableto record their stories while they lived.

In most cases, Ms. Saigals heroineswere in their 20s or even their teens

when they began aiding the Resistance.She attributes a good portion of theirdaring to youth, recalling her own bold-

ness when she first moved toClaremont. In 1968, she donned adress made with fabric emblazonedwith Eugene McCarthy campaign but-tons and went from door to door,

exhorting people to vote for the poetand Congressman who was running onan anti-war platform. She is not as

brazen now, Ms. Saigal said.When youre young, youre notafraid of danger, she said. Id askthese women, Werent you scared?and theyd say, No, because I was inthe middle of action.

The action of World War II is reced-ing into the past. Nonetheless, shefeels that there is much to learn fromthat time, especially given that historytends to repeat itself.

You should stand up for yourrights. If theres something you dontwant to accept, you should try to

change it.Not in a violent way. There are waysto rebel without using violence, shesaid, adding, I think people shoulddevelop some courage.

Anyone interested in obtaining acopy of French Heroines can emailMs. Saigal at [email protected].

Sarah Torribio

[email protected]

During World War II when Monique Saigal was 3-years-old her grandmother Rivka Leiba put her on a train full of children head-ed for south France. Though she was not supposed to be part of the children traveling that day a stranger Jaqueline Balestetook her in and raised her as one of her own effectively sheltering Ms. Saigal from the Nazis.

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