Obituary: WWII helped shape the life of S.A teacher Finder
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA081707.06B.Obit_Finder.2d7f37c.html
Web Posted: 08/16/2007 09:23 PM CDT
Carmina Danini
Express-News
Yvette Finder, who lived through the Vichy government in France in World War II, came to the U.S. with her Holocaust survivor husband and became a teacher, died Sunday of complications from lung cancer. She was 78.
Born Yvette Yolande Mazzia, she grew up in the village of Lapalisse near Vichy in central France.
The right-wing government established in 1940 by Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain ruled over unoccupied France and collaborated with the Germans until 1944.
Accepted into medical school after the war, Finder attended only two years out of what was a seven-year program.
She was working as a secretary when she met Rudolf Finder, a translator at a military base in France.
German and Jewish, he joined the U.S. Air Force after he was liberated from a concentration camp.
Yvette Finder
Born: Sept. 10, 1928, in Lapalisse, France
Died: Aug. 12, 2007, in San Antonio
Survived by: Two sons, Dr. Steven Finder of San Antonio and Phillip Finder of Austin; two grandchildren, Christopher and Allison, also both of Austin; and a brother, Jean Guy Mazzia of Toulouse, France.
Services: Visitation today from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Porter Loring Mortuary North, at 2102 N. Loop 1604 East and Gold Canyon Road; memorial service at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Porter Loring Mortuary North chapel. Her cremated remains will be buried in the Lapalisse cemetery next year.
Donations can be sent to the Animal Defense League of San Antonio, 11300 Nacogdoches Road, San Antonio 78217.
They married and in 1962, came to San Antonio. He later taught German and French at Kennedy High School.
Meanwhile, his wife, who spoke little English, studied toward a degree in education at what's now the University of the Incarnate Word.
Her master's was from Our Lady of the Lake University.
"She had taken some English in school in France and they had lived on an American base in Germany but college was something else," said one of her sons, Dr. Steven Finder. "She was immensely proud of having gone to college here."
Her first teaching job was at John Jay High School. She taught French for nearly 20 years, then switched to another subject — world history.
"She liked teaching French but she loved world history, which she taught for the last 10 years at Jay," said her son.
She didn't totally abandon the French language because she also taught it at San Antonio College.
Finder, her husband and Steven, their eldest son, became naturalized American citizens in 1965.
Rudolf Finder died in 1994.
Teaching and traveling were the things his mother loved the best, Steven Finder said.
"Her mother lived to be 100, and I expected her to do the same. She was living on her own and in good health," he said.
Finder was a past president of the L'Alliance Francaise of San Antonio.
cdanini@express-news.net
Web Posted: 08/16/2007 09:23 PM CDT
Carmina Danini
Express-News
Yvette Finder, who lived through the Vichy government in France in World War II, came to the U.S. with her Holocaust survivor husband and became a teacher, died Sunday of complications from lung cancer. She was 78.
Born Yvette Yolande Mazzia, she grew up in the village of Lapalisse near Vichy in central France.
The right-wing government established in 1940 by Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain ruled over unoccupied France and collaborated with the Germans until 1944.
Accepted into medical school after the war, Finder attended only two years out of what was a seven-year program.
She was working as a secretary when she met Rudolf Finder, a translator at a military base in France.
German and Jewish, he joined the U.S. Air Force after he was liberated from a concentration camp.
Yvette Finder
Born: Sept. 10, 1928, in Lapalisse, France
Died: Aug. 12, 2007, in San Antonio
Survived by: Two sons, Dr. Steven Finder of San Antonio and Phillip Finder of Austin; two grandchildren, Christopher and Allison, also both of Austin; and a brother, Jean Guy Mazzia of Toulouse, France.
Services: Visitation today from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Porter Loring Mortuary North, at 2102 N. Loop 1604 East and Gold Canyon Road; memorial service at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Porter Loring Mortuary North chapel. Her cremated remains will be buried in the Lapalisse cemetery next year.
Donations can be sent to the Animal Defense League of San Antonio, 11300 Nacogdoches Road, San Antonio 78217.
They married and in 1962, came to San Antonio. He later taught German and French at Kennedy High School.
Meanwhile, his wife, who spoke little English, studied toward a degree in education at what's now the University of the Incarnate Word.
Her master's was from Our Lady of the Lake University.
"She had taken some English in school in France and they had lived on an American base in Germany but college was something else," said one of her sons, Dr. Steven Finder. "She was immensely proud of having gone to college here."
Her first teaching job was at John Jay High School. She taught French for nearly 20 years, then switched to another subject — world history.
"She liked teaching French but she loved world history, which she taught for the last 10 years at Jay," said her son.
She didn't totally abandon the French language because she also taught it at San Antonio College.
Finder, her husband and Steven, their eldest son, became naturalized American citizens in 1965.
Rudolf Finder died in 1994.
Teaching and traveling were the things his mother loved the best, Steven Finder said.
"Her mother lived to be 100, and I expected her to do the same. She was living on her own and in good health," he said.
Finder was a past president of the L'Alliance Francaise of San Antonio.
cdanini@express-news.net
