Elisa Asensio and Violet Brown’s weekly lunches are testament to their long-standing relationship.

For 15 years now, Violet Brown, Director of External Relations, and Elisa Asensio, who taught Spanish at both Haverford and Swarthmore, have been lunching every week at the Quadrangle, the stately, charming retirement community five minutes away from campus, also in Haverford. Elisa is now 97 years old, and Violet is of an age to be her daughter. But their relationship is not only mother/daughterly, though it is that, too. Violet converses with Elisa over lunch in Spanish and French (the latter rather unsuccessfully), and has enjoyed Elisa’s mentorship in acquainting her not only with colloquial turns of phrase and off-beat vocabulary, but with Hispanic culture and manners as well. However, what characterizes the bond between Elisa and Violet, beyond its familial or pedagogic aspects, is its quality as a long and abiding friendship.

Elisa Asensio is a thorough pedagogue in the finest sense of the term, who retired from Swarthmore in 1974, but taught earlier at Haverford (from the 1940s, when she and her husband Manuel, fleeing Franco’s fascist regime in Spain, settled here). She is now and has always been an utterly delightful and elegant Catalan lady from Barcelona, whose wit and charm rarely fail her. My husband Marcel and I first met the Asensios in 1948 when we arrived at Haverford as newlyweds. Marcel had just been appointed Assistant Professor to teach French and the humanities. At that time, Manuel and Elisa resided in La Casa (Spanish House), in a first floor apartment, with student rooms above. There they held seminar classes and Elisa served lunch. Although we Gutwirths were charmed by the wrought iron and darkly incised woodwork of the Asensios’ Spanish interior décor, their personal warmth impressed us far more. It would only be many, many years later, however, that we would begin to grasp the whole of the searing history of the Asensios’ escape from Franco – they were far too tactful and affirmative-minded to dwell upon it in their new life in the New World.
The extent of Manuel’s commitment to the anti-fascist struggle of the Spanish Civil War was long unclear to me, but committed he surely was. It was from Violet that I learned more of the Asensios’ circumstances before their departure from Spain. Although Senor Pi, Elisa’s father, a prosperous conservative Barcelona merchant (who’d lived with his family in French Morocco), was not opposed to Franco, Manuel had been active in anti-Franco activities along with his physician brother-in-law, who was married to Elisa’s older sister, Maria. After the brother-in-law was assassinated for having treated war victims, and for aiding the opposition Republicana Izquierda (Republican left) forces, his killers, the eventual minions of General Francisco Franco, presented his bloody shirt to Maria – as a warning against further “subversive” action. Maria then insisted that Manuel, whose life was now clearly in danger, flee with Elisa. First Manuel fled. Then Elisa, after a scary episode in which she found herself alone in her house one morning, the terrified servants having abandoned her, escaped to Gibraltar. There, Elisa’s father had some influence with government officials. Although they had arrived virtually destitute, they remained on that island, by no means unhappily, for five years, befriending the governor and teaching languages – still hoping to return to Spain eventually. Yet when Gibraltar, too, came under threat, they were forced once again to flee, this time to Portugal. But once Hitler began his cruel march of conquest in earnest, the Asensios, assisted by the Pi family, turned their hopes toward crossing the Atlantic to asylum in the United States.

A kindly article in The Wilmington Evening Journal carefully ignored all the heavier political and gory aspects of their story, instead framing it as a floral affair. According to the reporter, Manuel Asensio “and his stunning Spanish wife” were greeted on their arrival at the Wilmington Marine Terminal by the florist Robert Pyle, of West Grove, Pennsylvania (see photos).

Mr. Pyle, a Quaker with ties to the Quaker groups in the mid-Atlantic area at the time, had visited Barcelona as early as 1925, in search of a tiny yellow rose developed by Catalan botanist Pedro Dot, who happened to be a friend of Elisa’s father, Senor Pi. Naturally intrigued by this prize-winning specimen, Pyle befriended Dot, and was eventually able to introduce the Spanish rose in America as “the Baby Gold Star,” an aesthetic and lucrative triumph for all parties concerned. Because of the Dot/Pi/Pyle friendship, the young Asensios were eventually guided to Haverford College, where Manuel soon began his college career as a teacher of both Spanish and aesthetics – he was an avid collector of paintings, furniture, sculpture and art objets. Elisa, who began teaching slightly later, is remembered to this day for the sumptuous teas and lunches that punctuated instructive sessions at La Casa.

When the Asensios first arrived in 1939, they’d lost all their possessions, but Manuel was quoted in the Delaware newspaper article as saying “We are young. I am 35 years old and my wife is 30, and we are not afraid of working!” Their removal to these shores under Quaker auspices proved an altogether happy one. The Society of Friends warmly welcomed the couple, who became house parents in the Masters’ Relief and Reconstruction program at HC during the Second World War years. Elisa taught at Haverford, and later at Swarthmore. Both enjoyed distinguished academic careers, and were beloved by their students. Their hospitality was legendary, and their apartment in Spanish House, adorned with many choice furnishings and works of art, chosen by Manuel, including a valuable stamp collection and sculptures and prints by Della Robbia and Goya, was a joy to visit. Their house remained permanently open to all on Sunday evenings for fellowship, and the pleasures of speaking Spanish properly.

The Asensios retired to the Quadrangle (established by Louis Green, Professor of Astronomy, and other Haverford faculty) in the 70s, and Mr. Asensio passed away in 1992.

Elisa still lives there and happily enjoys Violet Brown’s devoted friendship and care.

* * *

Violet comes from Cliffside Park, New Jersey, but lived in her parents’ native Italy for a year as a child and again as a teen-ager. The basic fluency this gave her later lent her skill in pursuing language studies at the University of Perugia. Subsequently, she became an able practitioner in French and Spanish as well as Italian. When her formal work was complete, she put in some years as a “foreign correspondent” at American Cyanamid Company in Wayne, New Jersey, working in product registration. Her love of travel and language skills were put to good use as a non-journalistic “foreign correspondent.” But after her marriage to Bill Brown, an accountant, and the birth of her daughter Melissa Carla, she taught in a Head Start program, Little Neighborhood Centers, in Philadelphia. She later tried out for a post as faculty secretary at Haverford in 1981.

Ho Hunter, Professor of Economics, first interviewed Violet for this job. However, since she had never actually been a secretary before, she at first failed the typing test. But luckily, Nancy Grunhofer in the Personnel Department called her back to change the College’s initial verdict. Violet’s ability to type in Spanish and French overrode her modest secretarial skills. Haverford therefore gained an associate whose abilities more than repaid its confidence in the intervening years, as she steadily climbed the institutional ladder.

After six years at Haverford, Violet applied for an associate’s position in what was then called the Development Department (now subsumed by Institutional Advancement), and there she remains – first as Director of Events and Special Projects, then Director of External Relations (Alumni Relations), and more recently as Director of External Relations and Parent Programs. Twenty-five years of solid service, in which she oversees special events, dinners and appearances by Haverford’s presidents and high officials, and all family-oriented programs.

It was in this role that Violet became involved with the Asensios, who, on the brink of retirement, still occupied a campus residence. She was to assist them in their move to the Quadrangle, and oversaw the storage of Manuel’s and Elisa’s belongings, including their marvelous paintings and art objects. After Manuel’s death in 1992, Violet’s and Elisa’s relationship, which had begun as essentially part of Violet’s job, blossomed in the regular “Spanish” lunches they’ve shared over the last 15 years into the profound bond they share now. They also discovered they shared a common sense of humor, demonstrated in girlish laughter and language puns in Spanish, French and English – at extended Quadrangle lunches and elsewhere, Elisa will say to Violet: “Los zapatos y vestido hacen huego!” ( ‘The [your] shoes and dress match!’)

To which Violet might reply: “Gracias. Yo soy contenta.” (‘Thanks. I’m pleased.’)

Elisa: “Estoy muy contenta que hablas Espanol tan bien.” (‘I’m very happy that you speak Spanish so well.’)

Violet (giggling): “No, yo estoy contenta, Cuchueta!” (‘ No, I’m happy, little Chicken!’) – [Elisa’s brother’s pet name for her, as a child] Violet’s mother died some time ago, and in the finest sense, Elisa has replaced her. To watch them picking daintily at their ouefs gratine or tuna salad in the Quadrangle dining room, is to see a little of the refinement of feminine temps perdu. For Elisa, Violet is the gentle, caring daughter who reminds her to take her medication, and shops for drugstore sundries for her.

Once, when her doctor came to the table to chat, he ran a little ‘memory’ test on Elisa:“Mrs. Asensio, can you tell me who’s living in the White House now?”

“Oh, doctor,” she chided gently. “You’d know that better than I would!”, and turned the conversation to three beautiful little blonde girls, chattering happily with their mom and grandmother at the next table: “I’d rather know who they are, doctor …”