44. Merci Train Figures

This carved wooden sculpture of a seated Breton man and woman arrived in Maryland in 1949 as part of the contents of the French “Merci Train.” With France still suffering in the aftermath of World War II and the German occupation, in 1948 the United States sent more than 700 boxcars full of relief goods, mostly individual donations. In gratitude, France sent 49 boxcars of gifts to the American people, delivered by ship to New York City in February 1949. Forty-eight cars were then sent off to their respective states; the forty-ninth was shared between the District of Columbia and the Territory of Hawaii (it seems the Alaska territory lost out).

The Merci Train cars were received with parades and ceremonies. Maryland declared an official “French Thank You Train Day,” and the city of Rockville held an event when the boxcar passed through town. The Maryland boxcar is now in the collection of the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, where it is sometimes on view.

The contents of the Maryland boxcar were exhibited at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore and divided up by bids from the counties. In June 1949, the Montgomery County Sentinel reported “several highly interesting pieces to be added to the collection of the Montgomery County Historical Society have resulted from bids made last February.” The four items in Montgomery History’s collections today are a flax wheel, a miniature portrait of Marie Antoinette, a modern model of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and this little folk carving. There is no documentation of what prompted these choices.

The 9¼ -in. tall wood carving is signed on the back by a J. Drèan of Auray, a picturesque port on the south coast of Brittany in the northwest corner of France. The back is also marked “MERCI TRAIN/1949”. The otherwise anonymous artist was supposed to make a personal connection between the two nations in what was offered; a couple wearing traditional dress and sabots (wooden shoes) perhaps represented a pre-war era of peace and contentment.

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