Yvonne Rall, Educator and Passionate Advocate of French, Dead at 84

            Yvonne Rall, a brilliant and demanding educator who left her mark on thousands of high school French students, died February 7th in Kettering, Ohio. The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

            She was 84.

            She was my mother.

            A native of France who arrived in the United States at age 25 in 1961, my mom became a memorable presence at Centerville High School near Dayton, Ohio for her stylish wardrobe, commanding presence—she was 5’9” with hazel eyes that could transition from a kind glint to piercing contempt in an instant—and passionate advocacy of French language and culture.

            During her tenure from 1973 to 2005 Rall initiated the school’s advanced-placement French program, began a French Honor Society and was named Teacher of the Year in 2001. She held a bachelor’s degree from Wright State University and a master’s from the University of Dayton, both in education.

            She was as feared as she was fondly remembered. Students recalled a sharp-tongued teacher who enforced a zero-tolerance policy toward slouching, laziness and the use of English in class. She was also kind. She arrived early and worked late each day in order to tutor students who needed extra help. She inspired several of her students to become French teachers.          

            Née Yvonne Touzet in Mugron in the southwest department of Landes, she was born on May 3, 1935 to Charles Touzet, an orphan, merchant mariner and fisherman who suffered from alcoholism and had trouble holding a job, and Marie Le Corre, her mother. Marie apprenticed to wash and fold the distinctive bigoudène lace headdress of Brittany but that work dried up after a government campaign to unify the country by eradicating expressions of Breton, Basque and Provençal culture.

            Born at the height of the global Great Depression, Yvonne’s childhood was defined by abuse, poverty and deprivation. “My parents repeatedly told me I was an accident and that they didn’t want me,” she told me. Weeks after her fifth birthday, Germany invaded France. As the army disintegrated and the government crumbled before the Nazi advance, Marie dispatched Yvonne and her older sister Janine to the town well to fetch water for the stream of refugees now called l’éxode. “They passed by our house for months,” she recalled. “No one said a word.”

            World War II was traumatic. Touzet’s second-grade teacher, accused of resistance activity, was executed by a Gestapo firing squad in the school courtyard as she and her classmates were forced to watch. A member of the Communist Party, her father joined the Resistance. His long absences left the family without a breadwinner. German authorities targeted the family members of the maquis for reprisals, which forced the Touzets to move from town to town in the Vichy-administered “free zone.” Seeking work meant exposure to arrest. Hunger was constant. Her 1943 Christmas present was an egg.

            On a hot day in July 1944 Yvonne found herself alone in a village main square when she noticed a cloud of dust on the horizon. As a column of vehicles drew closer she saw that the lead tank carried an American flag. To alert the townspeople that liberation had arrived she raced into the village church. Forty years later a resident recognized her: “You’re the girl who rang the bell!”

            “I fell in love with America that day,” she said.

            A voracious reader—she loved history, politics and anthropology—blessed with a steel-trap memory, she drew on her encyclopedic power of recall and curiosity to rise to the top of her classes. But the French economy remained hobbled during the postwar years. She couldn’t afford to attend college.

            She moved to Paris in search of work. At age 25 in 1960 she landed at NATO headquarters as an office worker. There she met her future husband, Fred Rall, Jr. A bright aeronautical engineer who has been called “the father of the modern Air Force,” Rall was on assignment as an officer. The two were married in Chicago in 1961. They lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts while he studied at MIT before moving to Kettering, Ohio after he was reassigned to Wright-Patterson air force base. She worked as a homemaker and, after I was born in 1963, as a mother.

            My parents were a poor match. Like many men of his generation, Fred was a dry, laconic workaholic and political conservative who viewed his wife as subservient. Urbane, charismatic and witty, Yvonne did not believe in limits when it came to the American Dream. She described Fred as cold and authoritarian. After Fred expressed approval upon learning of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the marriage disintegrated. The couple separated in 1965 and divorced in 1968.

            In divorce negotiations my mom traded away alimony in exchange for college tuition. Active in social-justice movements, she protested the Vietnam War and marched for women’s and gay rights. She volunteered for Democratic campaigns. She chose the teaching profession because the workday ended at 3 p.m. so she could be home when I came home from school. She became a leader of her teacher’s union.

            She became a U.S. citizen during the 1976 Bicentennial celebrations. In addition to teaching, she was a published poet and paid translator.

            Always unorthodox, she engaged with citizenship in her own way.

            A devout Roman Catholic and opponent of abortion, she nevertheless supported Roe v. Wade. “It’s not the government’s business,” she said. She worked for the release from prison of a teenager who murdered her child after concealing her pregnancy and secretly delivering it.

            Sitting on a jury for the trial of a young man charged with selling drugs and assaulting the police officers who arrested him, she pointed out to fellow jurors that the cops were each twice the defendant’s size. “It was ridiculous,” she said, “the assault charges were just not credible.” Hers was the lone vote to acquit. She refused to change her mind. He walked.

            After the man was released she asked his lawyer to arrange a meeting. “You’ll never get another juror like me,” she warned him. “Next time it will be a bunch of white Republican racists. So straighten up.”

            My mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s was the subject of a National Public Radio profile in 2019. She lived independently, as she preferred, until the last year of her life, when she suffered serious injuries from a fall.

            Yvonne Rall is survived by her son, the political cartoonist and writer Ted Rall and her grandson, Erick Rall. She never remarried.

            Donations may be made in Yvonne Rall’s name to The Montgomery County Drug-Free Coalition, an organization fighting the opioid crisis in Dayton or, alternatively, to the Bernie Sanders for President campaign, which she supported.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Francis: The People’s Pope.” You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

12 Comments.

  • May light perpetual shine upon her her memory always be a blessing.

    A remarkable life.

  • A remarkable lady. Your tribute affected me deeply. So sorry for your loss.

  • I knew your mother from a Pilates class we took together about 9 years ago. God love her, she was a fascinating, humorous, warm, loving, whacky pain in the ass! How delighted I am to have had the opportunity to read about her in her younger years! She was really gorgeous and tremendously courageous, wasn’t she? I remember when she learned I was running for County Recorder as a Democrat in my extremely Republican County she was SO excited. She asked me a million questions and then thrust a $20 campaign contribution at me. I was very flattered, but now I wish I had known her background then–I would have been even more flattered to have caught her attention. Her indomitable spirit will live on forever. My condolences on your loss.

  • Your writings about your mom inspired me to donate to Bernie’s campaign(once again, but it’s a good excuse to do so).
    I’ve been watching the French TV show Un Village Francais since it’s about a village under occupation and my mom was born in 1936 who lived in a village during occupation. I am sure it did affect her emotionally which she took out on me & my dad, but as they say, “Ce’st la guerre”.

  • Wonderful obit about a fascinating woman.

    Thanks, Ted.

    Tonight, I will raise a glass to Yvonne Rall Touzet.

  • So sorry for your loss.
    Mrs. Rall was my homeroom teacher at CHS from ’92-96. Her robust energy at 7:55 AM often rubbed this never-a-morning-person the wrong way. Her job as homeroom teacher wasn’t to teach us in that 20 minute block of time, but she did anyway. I never took a French class but the perpetually tired me still knows “je suis fatigue” and a few other French phrases thanks to her. When something good happens, sometimes I still mutter to myself “bon” as she did. We didn’t learn just French, she served up life lessons too. She didn’t talk about her past that much (glad to find this out here) and I think she didn’t reveal she had a well-known cartoonist son until senior year, but when she did, she beamed with happiness in a way I hadn’t seen her do before… her demeanor was significantly different enough for the memory to stick out all these years later. I think she might have been a big fan of yours.
    She will be missed by all the lives she touched!

  • Your link about eradicating Breton etc culture is going to apple.com website, not sure why. I used to have French dolls and the ones with the most interesting head dresses/hats were the most prized(I suppose this was after the cultural eradication campaign ended).

  • Sorry for your loss, Ted.

  • Such a fine tribute, Ted. Your gift for narrative makes us all feel as though we knew her. It’s impossible to fully imagine the times in which she lived, but a profile like this is as close as we can get. Condolences on your loss, and good on you for honoring your mom’s memory so well.

  • Thankfully, Ted, you take after your mother rather than your father, at least when it comes to politics (in the broad sense, i e, how society is to be organised and for whose benefit)….

    A good teacher is a pearl ; I know of at least one prominent statesmen with a background in the profession who, when asked how he wished to be remembered, replied as a teacher….

    Henri

  • Hey Ted,
    I was one of her former students, found this looking for viewing arrangements, etc. She was a lovely, funny, scary at times, force of nature. The image of her striding the halls will be with me forever, as will be her stories and lessons. First teacher I remember that talked to us like adults, challenged us as such. So sorry to know she’s no longer around, she will be deeply missed.

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