Andrée C. Sciamanda

07/08/1917 - 02/20/2012

SCIAMANDA, Andrée C. (Thoreux)
(Age 94)

Beloved mother, aunt, and grandmother, Andrée Sciamanda passed quietly in her sleep before dawn on February 20, 2012 at her home in South Spokane. Born in Paris France to Eugéne and Clémence (Schvach) Thoreux on July 8, 1917 during World War I, the younger of two children, she was sent with her mother and older brother Lucien to Normandy for the rest of the war and the duration of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Andrée grew up loving the countryside, gardening, good food, art, architecture, history, literature, and travel.
An excellent student, Andrée learned German at her mother's insistence and English at her own inclination, and majored in English and French language and literature at the Sorbonne. She spent the academic year of 1939-40 on full scholarship at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, but returned to be with her family before the invasion.
Times were hard during the Occupation, but the family survived using their suburban cottage and its many fruit trees. Andrée continued her college education, and did bits of work for the Résistance. After the Liberation, she taught French to US GIs and English to French high-school students, and was sent to the University of Pennsylvania in 1947.
Her 5'6" frame had filled out to an imposing 90 pounds. With her gray-blue eyes and auburn-red hair, Andrée looked rather Nordic, and more than one occupying soldier had told her that her that her German was good enough to remind him of home. She smiled but was often put out when Americans assumed she was German.
She met and married Dominic Sciamanda, and perfected his French. Dom soon fell seriously long-term ill, so Andrée had to become the bread-winner. They'd had Frank in Philadelphia, and Eric in New York City. She made a career as a teacher of French in US private schools.
Andrée maintained her ties with Europe by correspondence and travel. She and Dom went to France in the summer of 1948 to see her family. She took her two sons on three trips to France. Later on she went to Europe every other summer. In 1993, she took a delicious three-week farewell tour of England, with Gorseth Travel, and astonished her fellow travelers with her appetite.
Retiring in 1982, Andrée drove to Eastern Washington, where her sons had gone to WSU. She was charmed first by the geographic diversity and then by the people of this area. She settled down in a small house in a quiet, friendly, and helpful neighborhood of Northwest Spokane. Maintaining that she should have moved out here 35 years earlier, she joined the congregation of St. Francis of Assisi.
Andrée joined the Association of American University Women, where she made many new friends; she volunteered at the Library and at the grade schools her grandson Eric attended. Andrée was overjoyed when Eric and Kathryn presented her with a granddaughter Genevieve.
By 1996, Andrée moved into Maplewood Gardens, three hours before Ice Storm struck. There, she enjoyed the fun parts of her independence (friends, gardening, and travel). As her collections grew, she moved into a larger apartment at the Academy, until her family moved her to a small house where they could tend to her full-time.
Andrée sends her love to all her friends.
A funeral service will be held at the Hennesey Funeral home, 2203 N Division, with Father Alberic Smith OFM presiding. Please refer to <www.hennesseyfuneralhomes.com> for a longer biography.