Marcelle Granger

Marcelle Granger
June 8, 1915 - February 10, 2013
Resident of Oakland
Marcelle passed away peacefully at her home in Oakland, CA on February 10, 2013 at the age of 97.
Marcelle was born in the small town of St. Projet, France. She and her mother, Germaine, emigrated to the U.S. in 1919 soon after her father, Emile Theil, was killed during WWI. They moved to the South Park area of San Francisco where Germaine met her future husband, Benjamin Raujol. They owned and operated a laundry, but eventually invested in a restaurant on Broadway called the Hotel de France. Marcelle spent most of her youth living there. She graduated from Lowell High School and attended Stanford University for one year before settling in at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her BA degree and eventually her MA degree and teaching credential in French from UC Berkeley.
This was the beginning of a life-long love of teaching. She began her career with high school and junior college students and culminated by teaching French to adults for 44 years at the Berkeley Adult School. Marcelle continued to teach to a small group of students in her home until the middle of 2012. Teaching French was truly her passion.
While still living at the Hotel de France in the late 1930's Marcelle met her future husband, Clarence Granger. They were married July 11, 1942. Clarence was an engineer working for Kaiser Engineers in the construction of Liberty Ships during WWII. After the war, they were transferred to several different jobs and locations with Kaiser before returning to the Bay Area and settling in Oakland in 1955.
Marcelle was very talented in sports, being named to the All-California tennis team while at UC Berkeley. In addition, she was an accomplished golfer, artist, bridge player, and chef.
Sadly, in 1990, Clarence passed away. However, Marcelle continued on with all of her other activities. In 1996, she reunited with an old friend, Henri Lancelotti, and the two remained frequent companions until his death in 2011.
Marcelle is survived by her daughter, Germaine Akin, and her son, Clarence Granger (and wife Diane), as well as her grandchildren; Genevieve, Gannon, Carl, Greg, Jonathan, David, and Ian. She had a zest for life and touched all who knew her.
A memorial service is scheduled for 11:00am on Saturday, February, 16 at the Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA in the Julia Morgan Chapel.