Pierre Ernest Bouvet

1921 - 2016

Pierre Ernest Bouvet died peacefully at home on January 27, 2016 surrounded by his loving family.
Born in Bombay, India, on Jan 6, 1921, he was the son of Merchant Marine Captain Pierre Bouvet and wife Fanny Ternel. The Bouvet family returned to Mauritius, their native island, in 1922, where Pierre and five siblings grew up.
Graduating first of his class with a diploma in tropical agriculture at the Mauritius College of Agriculture he was awarded a full scholarship to attend a University of his choice.
His choice was the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was admitted to the Chemical Engineering department in early 1942. After completing his first year of study, he volunteered in the South African Air Force (SAAF), an all-volunteer force that was engaged in WWII. After receiving a commission as 2nd Lt. he was deployed with the 31st Bomber Squadron of the SAAF flying B-26 bombers as navigator/bombardier in northern Italy where he took part in the bombing of the retreating German army all the way to the Brenner Pass in the Alps. After surviving a fiery crash in Aviano in a plane loaded with bombs that exploded on impact, he was transferred after VE-Day to the SAAF 25th Transport Squadron based in Algiers, Algeria.
Having received his honorable discharge in October 1945, Pierre resumed his studies at the Witwatersrand University where he graduated with a bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering in 1948. While still a student, Pierre met his first wife, Josée Desvaux de Marigny, in Durban where her family had migrated from Mauritius. They got married in 1947 and returned to Mauritius in 1950 where he engaged in a successful career in the cane sugar industry at the managerial level.
Unhappy with the political upheaval prevailing in the Island in 1965, Pierre migrated to Hawai'i with his family of five children and his aunt who had helped to raise him. He was offered the position of superintendent in a factory that was being modernized and expanded, thus starting on a second successful career, this time in the Hawaiian sugar industry where he managed the largest sugar plantation consisting of 32,000 acres of cane land and two major sugar factories that produced 160,000 tons of sugar by the time of his retirement in 1983.
After retiring he went into the international consulting business of cane sugar manufacturing, working on projects financed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, USAID and other international consulting firms. His commissions took him to Indonesia, Pakistan, China, Venezuela, Papua New Guinea, Fiji Islands, Reunion Island, Dominican Republic, Eritrea and Barbados.
After the death of his first wife in 1980, Pierre married Nancy Crouch who has been a real blessing to him and his children. Without children of her own, Nancy became a mother, friend and counselor to the children she had inherited ranging in age from 18 to 29.
In 2005, after Nancy's retirement from her position of Executive Director of North Hawaii Hospice that she had founded in 1986, the Bouvets moved to the beautiful mountains of North Carolina that they have enjoyed ever since.
Pierre is survived by his loving wife of 35 years, Nancy, daughter Bernadette (John) Lang of Scotland, sons Dominique (Iris) of Minnesota and Didier of California, daughter Marie (Robert) Hardin of Tennessee; nine grandchildren: Oliver, Fabienne, and Gabrielle Lang, Rachelle (Thomas) Baldwin, Marie Christine, Jean-Pierre, and Isabelle Bouvet, Anna and Nicolas Hardin, as well as two great-grandchildren, Thomas (TJ) and Andrew Baldwin. He is survived by his brothers, Roger (England, UK) and Jean (Washington), scores of nieces, nephews, cousins, and a multitude of friends who loved him. Predeceased by his sons Pierre, Gilbert, and Jacques Bouvet.
A funeral Mass will be offered at the main sanctuary of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hendersonville, NC on Monday, February 22, 2016 at 3:00 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Four Seasons Compassion for Life, 571 S. Allen Road, Flat Rock, NC 28731 or North Hawaii Hospice, 65-1328 Kawaihae Road, Kamuela, HI 96743. To offer condolences online please visit www.forestlawnhendersonville.com.