2023-10-08 13:42:00
“Hope and perseverance”. This was the motto of Mariette Delahaut, who died this Saturday at the age of 101, a motto which accompanied her throughout an exceptional life dedicated to others and particularly to youth and education.
Mariette Delahaut was born on April 17, 1922 in Namur. His father Joseph is a market gardener, his mother Jeanne is a housewife. The family settled in Jambes and the young girl studied with the Sisters of Notre-Dame. A studious and determined student of the Latin-Greek option, she also takes English lessons.
1940, war. His school is bombed and his family takes the road of exodus. Returning from France, Mariette pursued a literary career at the Normal School. She would have liked to enter university, but the doors of the Namur faculties were closed to young women at the time and the train journeys to Liège or Louvain were too complicated.
At the UN and the USA
A graduate, Mariette Delahaut did not teach but joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. The Allied bombings of August 1944 on Namur and the dozens of bodies of fellow citizens to be buried left a deep mark on her.
The Americans stationed in Namur spotted this young woman volunteer who spoke their language. Mariette Delahaut then worked as a civil servant for the allies in Belgium and then in Germany. Other doors then opened, those of the UN in Paris where the young woman attended the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, in the presence of Indira Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Back in Belgium, she taught for a few years in the Namur region before winning the American Fulbright scholarship. This took him to Iowa to teach French, then to Louisiana to direct the mission of French-speaking teachers for several years.
She reinvents school
Mariette Delahaut, very attached to her Namur roots, returns to Belgium for good. Her vocation as a teacher is coupled with a desire to advance the world of teaching. She imposes her visionary talent and innovative ideas in an environment dominated by men. She founded and directed a middle school in Glons, another in Lesves and finally, in 1970, a specialized primary and secondary education institute in Jambes. It is the first establishment of its kind in Wallonia, where it becomes a reference. Since 1996, it has borne the name of its founder, to her great pride.
After her tireless professional retirement, Mariette Delahaut became even more involved in various associative movements and service clubs of social or cultural significance.
Elegance and modernity
Mariette Delahaut had a younger brother, Jean, a renowned sports doctor and ENT specialist. She did not have children but was surrounded by numerous nephews, great-nephews and great-great-nephews.
She spent the last years of her life at the Les Chardonnerets rest home in Jambes. She died not far from the Meuse that she loved so much, at the end of an extraordinary and exemplary existence.
His modernity, his voluntarism and his altruism have never wavered. Her elegant silhouette, her sparkling gaze, her sunny and enthusiastic personality have enlightened and still enlighten generations of students, and countless colleagues, collaborators and friends.
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