She was a beautiful strong woman, mother, teacher and best friend. She was predeceased by her loving husband, Joseph, and son-in-law, Patrick Fayet of France; and survived by her daughter Lorraine Fayet of LaChassagne, France; son Mark J. Elting of Lexington; great-grandchildren Remy (Laure) Fayet and Claire Fayet (Nicolas Borde) of France; and greatgreatgrandchildren Lyse and Emmy Fayet, and Romy Borde of Mornant, France.

She was born Suzanne Mercedes Jeanne Gredelu, March 19, 1923, in Paris, the only daughter of Georges Louis Gredelu, a typographer for Le Petit Parisien newspaper, and by Cecile Claudia Baffert, both of Paris, France.

During her early life, Suzanne witnessed huge tumult and changes in Paris, transitioning from an older order, still with some horse-drawn wagons and old traditions, to a modernized electrified city with war-updated social mores, especially for women. As a teenager, she was to rebel and choose a modern path. Paris was electrified in the 1930s, when peace was interrupted and there was sometimes gunfire and unrest in the streets between socialist and other factions. The Great Depression and fascism would soon engulf France.

Suzanne attended the Sorbonne briefly for legal studies. During World War II, Hitler invaded France, and without effective resistance, quickly occupied the city of Paris in June 1940 while Nazis were still in the process of installing a new puppet government ruling via fear, brutality, subversion, sabotage, capture and killing by a triggered and dangerous Nazi occupation force.

Suzanne was 17. Many French chose to be sympathizers, who were to be rewarded with safety and hard-to-find goods and food.

The Nazis were ascendant and would maintain a deathly stranglehold on the city. Policy dictated that 100 residents were to be killed in revenge for every Nazi killed, often done by spraying machine gun fire in the subway.

By suggestion of older friends who knew her, Suzanne joined the French Resistance, at great personal risk, to fight the Nazi occupation and the Vichy collaborationist regime.

In the Resistance, Suzanne sometimes provided intelligence on German troop movements.

Discovery by the Wehrmacht meant summary execution. Communication inside the Resistance was on a needto- know basis; clandestine Resistance meetings were with always-changing strangers and no phone communication was allowed. In meeting with Resistance members, it was important not to be seen walking the same way twice. Suzanne used her young age and station as a disguise.

Soon, for her safety, Suzanne had to go in hiding, taking a job as governess in the French countryside. One day an American Army soldier stationed nearby, Joseph Edward Egyed, said hello. It was to be a fateful meeting. Joseph served in the Army Combat Engineers Battalion, and at the Battle of the Ruhr Pocket. He had seen bodies piled to the ceiling in buildings; they quickly formed a lifelong bond and felt right away they were destined to be married.

Soon after the European war’s end on May 8, 1945, Suzanne obtained required sponsorship to emigrate to the United States, and came on an ocean liner in 1946 to New York City, a different environment that was mercantile and bustling and diverse.

An appreciative post-war French government installed her as a cryptographer for what became the French Delegation to the United Nations, newly formed in 1947; while there she met U.S.General George S. Patton; Italian physicist Enricho Fermi; French Prime Minister Robert Schuman, later a cofounder of the European Union; and other dignitaries at official functions.

Suzanne and Joseph were married in Manhattan, New York City, May 31, 1947. They remained in New York until settling in White Plains, New York, a progressive small city where her husband Joseph was a lifelong educator at a shiny new high school. Suzanne had some aptitudes, skills and capabilities of a frontier woman as she and Joseph built their own house there.

Her children grew up with a solid foundation. To grow up as her child was to know real love and stability. She was a wise and purposeful mother — matured by searing war experience — generous and kind — and tough when needed, with a deeply felt imperative to teach her children well in the home to meet a new world and new post-Sputnik educational requirements embodied in the White Plains school district, which was leading nationally and boldly to remake American public education.

When we as small children might complain or object, she and Joseph would in turns remind us of famine and suffering in the world. Dangers — whether of contact with electricity — or from playing with a pen-sized dynamite explosive blasting cap, that could be left strewn about a construction site — were explained. We were treated as adults, free to roam and make our own decisions after forewarning. We were given a bit of Christian education at Bible camp and later by membership in the local Protestant church. And we were encouraged to pursue our own interests, whether art or science.

Suzanne started a home business — tutoring French and French grammar, and even English grammar, to IBM executives and others who needed to be effective communicators overseas. Polite men in gray flannel suits would arrive at our front door to sit for tutoring sessions underwritten to address a huge new urgent need — for the U.S. to sell and influence the entire world, helping advance us all together, as we came out of the ashes of war. Even as children we could sense this was a new age of peace and optimism, with Beatles records the rage, and new industries and tools developing monthly that we would learn about later. It was a precursor to a vast new age in computing and communication worldwide. And we lived in Westchester County, one of its arguable birthplaces.

Our family soon moved to Pleasantville, NY, where Suzanne became a successful real estate broker. Suzanne read many types of books and encouraged us to do the same. She sewed and quilted intricately. She had the mentality of constant learning and wonder about the world. She really enjoyed and wondered about new discoveries and inventions, wondering aloud what will be next. Thereafter Suzanne and Joseph decided to settle in Lexington to retire. They never regretted it, and made many dear friends and joined the Lexington Presbyterian Church. Suzanne and Joe became busy like teenagers. Mom continued to enjoy quilting, bridge, and attended concerts where her husband played violin in the Rockbridge Symphony Orchestra.

Suzanne continued to practice the art of cooking. She was akin to a French in-house Julia Child, improvising via acquired insight, knowledge and experience. Holidays were graced by beautiful formal dinner tables and French wine. Steel gift boxes of her aromatic home-made chocolates were known to friends in the Lexington area.

We give heart-felt thanks to all the fine people in Lexington who were her caring friends.

Arrangements are by the Harrison Funeral Home.

Donations may be made to Doctors Without Borders or Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital.

NG