‘Thirteen months in Corsica gave me the most interesting opportunity to meet another culture.’

Edwin Rosenberg of North Hollywood owned a pharmacy until he retired 12 years ago. He now keeps busy with volunteer work, study and travel. Rosenberg and his wife, Sylvia, are on vacation in Europe, where he will see people he met during World War II.

In 1942 I went into the Army Air Corps as a draftee and was assigned to meteorology. It was one of the most interesting parts of my life. For 3 1/2 years I was a weather observer.

Landing in northwest Africa at Casablanca was like something out of the Arabian Nights for a young Midwestern native. Smelling oranges, going into the native quarters in Casablanca, into their Medina Casbah on market day and seeing the fortune tellers, the medicine men, the story tellers, the gambling games.

We were in Tripoli for several months and then moved up to Algiers to go across the Mediterranean to Corsica.

Thirteen months in Corsica gave me just the most interesting opportunity to meet still another culture. Corsica was a primitive island. It was an old place with a mountainous people. The Corsicans were really Italian. They had Italian names, spoke French. At that time Corsican was illegal to speak or read.

In Ajoccio I met a family. The father, Pierre Bernardi, had a retail dry goods store. The shelves were all empty, which was a funny kind of store to me. But I understood later everything was under the counter because you had to be careful of what you sold. Most of it was black market. As I came in and started asking questions, he saw that I was curious. That was the beginning of our friendship. He took me home to dinner. After that I went to dinner at their home frequently. I met his wife and his 8-year-old daughter, France, never dreaming that someday I would see this girl again as a doctor.

As I spoke to Mr. Bernardi, who was very prosperous, he communicated the fact that his daughter was undernourished. They could not get proper food for her. Could I help out with anything in camp? I knew that it was against regulations, but I would bring them margarine and sugar that the cook would give me. I would bring the little girl Hershey bars they sent me from home. Also, I sent home for a doll for her. People didn’t have these things on this little island.

I was part of their family celebrations, along with a lot of their friends. Also I would visit some of their friends who lived in the mountains and got to know the Corsicans quite well. If you want to have a real thrill, get on top of a mountain and just keep your own fantasy and let it all out. Quote poetry to nobody in particular, except the sheep.

After I left Corsica, we landed in France for the invasion of Germany. We eventually came back to Italy and then back to the United States.

After we’d been in business for several years in North Hollywood, we decided to take a trip to Europe in 1960. We tried to get to Corsica, but there was a terrible storm, and we couldn’t get there.

Meanwhile, we’d heard about their daughter going to Marseille to school. We corresponded once a year through the usual medium of Christmas greetings. They told us that their daughter was now a doctor and had married a Dr. Gambrelli, also a student from Corsica. They were two Corsicans setting up their practice in Marseille. We later found they had three children in medical school. The children are now doctors, and all three married doctors. So there are eight doctors in the family, which is nice from their primitive beginnings. Not poor beginnings, but primitive.

In 1981 we finally made it to Corsica. Mr. Bernardi and his wife are quite old. We went to visit the daughter and her husband in Marseille. By this time, they were quite well off and lived in a beautiful home overlooking the Mediterranean.

Last Christmas they came here on the way to Tahiti, and we showed them Los Angeles. I even went to church with them. We decided this year to go to Switzerland, and we’ll stop in Marseille and see them again. It will be different this time. We feel much closer to them.