Roland Henri Simon died May 26, 2022.
He was born on Oct. 7, 1940, on a French military base in Haiphong, Vietnam, where he lived with his family until the Japanese invasion of North Vietnam in l945. His father was one of many killed during this time. When he returned to war-torn France with his mother and brothers, he was 6 years old. Their ship, carrying widows and orphans, was stoned in Toulon by those French who felt that the colonists had escaped the ravages of war.
At age 11, he was enrolled in a military school as a war orphan in Le Mans, France, and in 1958, he graduated from the Ecole Militaire Preparatoire Technique. He attended the University of Nancy, France, before enlisting in 1960 in the French Army. After three years of service, he was honorably discharged at his request. He had known for a long time that his passions were elsewhere. At the encouragement of a retired GI he met who was traveling around France in an RV, he decided he would move to the United States to teach. He enrolled at the Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen de Nice, France, where he earned a Diplôme d’Enseignement du Français a l’Etranger and applied for a U.S. visa. At that time, the quota for France was full, but because he was born in North Vietnam he was able to qualify.
Mr. Simon’s first job in the United States was teaching French at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, in the fall of 1964. He showed up with a suitcase, spent his first salary on an MGB, and used it ably to woo the woman who would become his lifelong partner when they met at the University of Wisconsin in 1965. In 1969, he went on to pursue doctoral studies in French and humanities at Stanford University, where he was subsequently appointed University Fellow and received a National Defense scholarship for the duration of his doctoral studies. During those turbulent war years, he was forever scrutinized by the FBI who was suspicious of his North Vietnamese visa status, as it was a former French colony. In 1972, he joined the faculty of the French Department at Middlebury College in Vermont and was appointed dean of the French Schools from 1973-1976 and then again in 1983. In 1976, he received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in French and humanities. He also taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University, at the Institut d’Etudes Francaises of Bryn Mawr College in Avignon, France, and at the University of Bordeaux, France. He was co-founder of the American Council for French social and cultural studies and a trustee of the Institute of French Studies of New York University for many years. He was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the Premier of the French Government in 1992 for services rendered in the promotion of the study of French language and culture in the United States. He was a great philosopher, a critical thinker, and a man of intellectual integrity.
After more than 30 years of teaching at the university level, he retired. He built many dwellings and planted many fruit trees on a high promontory in West Virginia, overlooking Highland County, Virginia. His favorite building was certainly the workshop where he spent many hours with his faithful dogs, Milou and then Pitou, by his side, making unique pieces for those who asked him. He collected exotic wood and churned out pens and chairs, tables and bowls, always with the intent of making his next piece more beautiful than the last. He nurtured bonsais and orchids like fussy children. He adored music, from bluegrass to the most obscure classical, to the greats and less greats of jazz. Chuck Berry, not so much.
He loved and respected straight talkers and hard workers, regardless of their walk of life. He didn’t have time for peacocks, pretense, or television. He always listened to his doctor’s orders, and smoked, drank red wine and enjoyed fine French cheeses until the end. He loved to drive and walk, and always moved with purpose.
His wife of 56 years, Rosanne Larkin Simon, survives.
Also surviving are a daughter, Andree Rose Simon, and her two children, Caleb and Malachi of Washington, DC; and a son, Cristian Jacques-Thomas Simon, and his two children, Daniel and Nadia of Woodbridge, Virginia.
Donations in memory of Roland Simon should be made to the Charlottesville Free Clinic, his favorite local charity.
A memorial service will be announced at a later date.
