On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Today we have Paris Through A Life, and what a life it was. Thank you for sharing your mom and her life with us. ~WaterGirl
Empress of the Known Lute World
My mother, Alice Frayer Usher, had a life-long relationship with Paris. At the age of 8 (c. 1926) she spent a year attending a girl’s school just north of Paris and learned French by immersion. She also got chilblains. In those days, when the children got pain au chocolat for a snack, it was just a piece of ordinary French bread with a hunk of chocolate.
Mom grew up and became an artist, studying sculpting at the University of Michigan and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, married and had kids. After WWII my parents “adopted” a Parisian girl whose family had been bombed out of their home, sending care packages with clothing, food and such. Mom was able to correspond with them in French, and our family is still in touch with Christiane and her family.
In later years Mom often traveled to France, and while there in 1988 she painted this tribute to Paris.

“A L’escargot” (At the Snail [bistro]) is made from an actual map of Paris. She turned the winding sequence of the arrondissements into the body of a snail. They are numbered in blue to match the river Seine. The painting also features cobbled streets and pedestrian crossings with footprints and tire tracks, to remember all the people who have traveled on those streets before, and will after. She added the names of some of the many French artists who inspired her. The spiral flower alludes to the mosaic labyrinth in the floor of Chartres Cathedral.
The painting is now hanging in my living room. I’m sure Mom would want me to add that this rather whimsical work is not representative of her most serious art! She had it stored in her basement when I asked if I could have it.

In 1959 my history professor father took a sabbatical and we all went off to see the sights in Yurrup, which we kids had to learn to spell correctly. This is Mom, Christiane–all grown up and about to get married–and the four of us kids. And our Fiat, in which we toured Italy, France and England.

Christiane and her daughter Sandrine visited Mom in Indianapolis in the 1980’s and had planned to come again in the fall of 2016. However Mom passed away at the age of 98 that April. They came anyway and had a good visit with myself (travelling from Durham NC) my sister and my brother and sister-in-law. When I arrived Christiane walked up to me and said, “C’est le visage d’Alice” (That’s Alice’s face).
This is me and Christiane with Mom’s statue of St. Francis, in the wall of Christ Church Cathedral on Monument Circle.

For good measure, the actual labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, one of Mom’s favorite places.
Lapassionara
The labyrinth at Chartres is also one of our favorite places.
Thankyou for sharing this story. Once, the world was made up of lovely stories like this one.
Elizabelle
Love the snail. Your mom sounds wonderful. 98 years, well lived.
ETA: Love the Fiat, too. Ralph Nader sobs.
opiejeanne
thank you for sharing your mother’s talent with us. What a great story about your mother and family and helping Christiane’s family.
I love Chartres Cathedral. We were driving back to Paris from the Loire valley and saw it rising above the fields for miles before we got there and thought surely that couldn’t be what we were seeing, that we were so many miles from Chartres that there was no way we could see it.
Thank you.
Mary G
Love the painting!
eclare
What a great story, thank you.
Auntie Anne
That’s a great story! Thank you for sharing it.
laura
The story – and mostly the painting on the map remind me of my late mother in law and how much I love/d her. The day to day of life that demands to go on in addition to the come what may.
Wag
@Elizabelle: Ralph’s tears are so sweet.
Beautiful memories!
Barbara
So lovely. Thank you.
Kristine
Thank you for sharing this.
BigJimSlade
Well, damn if this isn’t the sweetest Paris After Dark yet!
randy khan
Chartres. Someday. *sigh
JPL
Such special memories about a mother whose life was well lived. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
J R in WV
So wonderful, thanks!
There go two miscreants
What a lovely mini-biography! I was not aware of the labyrinth, so thanks for that picture — very interesting.
arrieve
I’m late to the thread, but have to say what a wonderful story this was. I especially love the picture of your family and the Fiat.
Miss Bianca
Wow, thank you for sharing this. Lovely story, lovely photos. Love the snail!
Your mom and my mom would have been born in the same year, I gather – 1922.
way2blue
Thanks for sharing this glimpse into your mother’s life as an artist and humanitarian. I love the “A L’ESCARGOT” painting with its embedded tribute to Paris.
Empress of the Known Lute World
@laura: Indeed, one thinks of someone hurrying home with a fresh baguette, or a student on their way to a lecture, or a taxi bringing visitors from far away. . . all intent on their own purposes and their own lives, but part of a living whole.
@BigJimSlade:
Empress of the Known Lute World
@BigJimSlade: My blushes, Jim!
Empress of the Known Lute World
@arrieve: That Fiat kept going for another 4-5 years, until it was rear-ended by a taxi as my father was waiting to turn left into our driveway. Dad bought it from a couple of plausible young gentlemen on a street corner in Naples, who claimed that all the papers were in order, si, si, naturalmente. When we arrived at the French border a couple of weeks later, it turned out sadly not to be so. There was a delay of a day while additional papers were acquired and a significant sum of money paid to the Italian tax authority.
Empress of the Known Lute World
@Miss Bianca: 1918, actually.