Notes for Simone Georgette Fontaine

1946 Simone Georgette Fontaine arrived in New York on April 2 on the ship MacMurray Victory which sailed from Bordeaux, France on March 22. She was a teacher and could read French, German, and English. She was planning to join her uncle Paul Chevalley in Alton, Illinois. Her age was 25 years 11 months, and she was born in Auxerre, France. [1]

1946 The Alton Evening Telegraph published an interview with Simone Fontaine on April 8. [2] [3]

Alton Evening Telegraph, Alton, Illinois, April 8, 1946, p. 1 and 2

Paris Girl, Here, Describes Life as Prisoner of Nazis
Madamoiselle Simone Fontaine, a vivacious and charming 25-year-old woman of Swiss and French descent, told a reporter of her experiences as a prisoner of the Germans. She is at the home of her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Chevalley, 824 McKlnley.

Mademoiselle Fontaine, who resided with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Fontaine, and two brothers and two sisters in Clermont Terrand, a suburb of Paris, was reluctant to talk of some of the gruesome tortures she had witnessed while interned.

The Germans invaded Paris in June, 1940. Mademoiselle Fontaine with her parents, sisters, brothers and grandparents fled to southern France. The Germans took possession of their home at Clermont Terrand. The family group resided in two rooms in Southern France—without money or much food. In August of 1940 Mademoiselle Fontaine decided to return to Paris to work. The Germans had left the family home and she took possession again. She obtained a position caring for children, also worked in an administrative office. Later she studied home economics for two years and was teaching the subject when she was taken prisoner by the Germans.

When She Was Arrested
She was acquainted with a French officer, who was connected with the underground and who was valuable to the Free French, English and Americans. She knew he was wanted by the Germans. One day while walking in the street she saw him coming toward her. She feared to engage in conversation with him, so as she passed him she moved her lips to say, "They are looking for you". A German police officer saw her and took her into custody, but the young man got away.

This was the beginning of her internment. She was interned in Paris for a month with women from all walks of life. All her possessions were taken from her. When being transported from one camp to another 50 women were placed in a box car that had formerly hauled horses. It was summer and they were without air or light and were so crowded that they "couldn't even stretch". These conditions prevailed for three days and night without air or sanitary facilities. At the end of the trip she was placed in a torture camp at Rayensbruck, Germany, on July 7, 1944. Here she was given a blue and gray uniform which had a red insignia on the sleeve to indicate she was a political prisoner. Women in the camp who wore green insignia were criminals; those listed a» prostitutes wore black insignia.

Political Prisoner
The political prisoners were sent to factories, where they worked unwillingly but were able to accomplish some sabotage. They were taken out daily to see others tortured, never knowing when their turn might come. The political prisoners were fed inadequately; had to find food for themselves.
Mademoiselle Fontaine said she lived on grass, potato peels, and other vegetation she could find. They were never given water for bathing. When she wan served a half-cup of muddy coffee she would use the liquid to try to clean herself. When it snowed she tried to wash.

Mademoiselle Fontaine was ill of scarlet fever while interned and had scabies three different times. She said that lice and bed bugs were prevalent in the camp. She suffered from dysentery for three months, and was little more than a skeleton when liberated. Suffering from malnutrition, some of the women died from over-eating after being served real food.
Mademoiselle Fontaine, whose father is a retired merchant, will visit In Alton for a year.

1946 The Alton Evening Telegraph reported on June 21, [4]

Miss Simone Fontaine addressed a picnic of Red Cross volunteers at La Vista Lodge this afternoon. Miss Fontaine told of her experiences as a French citizen, a prisoner in Germany and a member of the French underground. She brought a first hand picture of France in the war. Miss Fontaine is a niece of Paul Chevalley of Alton.

1948 The Alton Evening Telegraph reported on June 30, [5]

Simone Fontaine Weds American
Miss Simone Fontaine, French underground veteran, who visited in Alton with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Chevalley of 824 McKinley, after her release from a German Internment camp where she was a political prisoner of war, was married last Wednesday in St. Paul, Minn., to Antone Sietner, a graduate of Hamline University, St. Paul, who has been studying for the past year in San Francisco.

The bride, who was graduated this month from Macalester College, St. Paul, with a B. A. degree, was married at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Hugo Thompson, in St. Paul. Dr. Thompson is professor of philosophy and religion at Macalester, and he performed the ceremony.

During her stay In Alton Mrs. Sletner became widely known through appearances as speaker before women's organizations.

She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Fontaine of Paris, France. Her father is a retired merchant, who resided at Clermont Terrand, before the war. After the Germans took possession of their home they went to Southern France, returning after the war.

Mrs. Sletner was a teacher of home economics in Paris when she was taken prisoner by the Germans. She and her husband will reside in California.

1961-1963 "Mary Wallis attended the college [Napa Valley College] from 1961-1963. Interviewed in 1992 ... she ... remembered her French teacher Simone Fontaine, 'She was very tall, and thin, and always wore floral dresses. She had the classic French red cheeks and we really liked her because she would call the guys jerks in French when they were goofing off.'" [Lauren Coodley, Napa: The Transformation of an American Town, Arcadia Publishing, 2007, p. 125]

1966 Simone Fontaine (age 46) of Napa, California, and Robert P. Wilson (age 43), of Deer Lodge, Montana, were married on December 27 in Deer Lodge, Powell County, Montana. Simone Fontaine, daughter of Edmond Fontaine and Amicy Chevalley, was born in Auxerre, France. Robert, son of Simon P. Wilson and Marguerite Beaumont was born in Deer Lodge, Montana. [6]

1981 Simone F. and Robert P. Wilson were divorced on March 18 in Napa, California. [7]

1988 Robert P. Wilson died on February 28 in Yountville, Napa County, California. An obituary states, [8]

Robert Wilson
Yountville -- Robert P. Wilson, 65, died Sunday at the California Veterans Home. Mr. Wilson was born in Deer Lodge, Mont., on Feb. 10, 1923, to Simon and Margarite Beaumont Wilson.
After graduating from college in Montana, he enlisted as a lieutenant in World War II. He received the Purple Heart.
After the war, Mr. Wilson received a master's degree in political science and history from Montana State University.
Mr. Wilson moved to Napa in 1956 and taught at Napa Valley College. He later taught in Hawaii and Alaska. He returned to Napa in 1966 after marrying Simone Fontaine. They later divorced.
Mr. Wilson, who moved to the Veterans Home in 1980, was an avid reader of philosophy, science, history and literature, and wrote poetry. He also enjoyed riding his bicycle and playing tennis.
Mr. Wilson is survived by a sister, Judie Daniels of Deer Lodge. For several years he had been looked after by Fontaine.
A memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Veterans Home, with the Rev. Barbara Thomas-Smith officiating. Burial will be in the family plot at Hillside Cemetery in Deer Lodge.
Treadway and Wigger Funeral Chapel is directing arrangements.
The family suggests contributions to the Veterans Home or any cancer research institute.

2014 Simon Fontaine died on November 18 in Napa, California. [9] An obituary states, [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

Simone Fontaine, French Resistance heroine and NVC professor, dead at 94
Simone Fontaine passed away quietly on Tuesday, Nov. 18. Most Napa Valley residents knew her from her years teaching French at Napa Valley College from 1953 to 1980.

However, she distinguished herself most dramatically in Paris at the age of 24 when she saved the lives of a French Resistance captain and his colleagues. Fontaine warned them away from a meeting place where French collaborators of the Nazis were waiting for them and as a result, she herself was captured and taken in a cattle car to Ravensbrück.

Ravensbrück was a secret, but now notorious, women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 56 miles north of Berlin near the village of Ravensbrück. The camp was constructed under the orders of the infamous SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was designed as a work camp primarily for women and children. But, "Simone always called it 'an extermination camp,'" said longtime friend and colleague Jan Molen, of St. Helena.

Incomplete Nazi records include the names of 25,028 women who were sent to the camp between 1939 and 1945. More rigorous estimates place the number much higher. Those estimates, created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, document that more than 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system. Around 40,000 were Polish women and 26,000 were Jewish. A smaller number of about 9,500 were French, according to extant records. The Nazi Gestapo categorized 87 percent of the inmates as "political," and Fontaine's offense would have placed her into that category.

Fontaine was put to work in the fields and also used as a subject for medical experiments. The German electrical engineering company Siemens & Halske is said to have also employed many of the inmates as slave labor. Ravensbrück prisoners were liberated by the Red Army on April 30, 1945, and according to Soviet liberation records, only between 15,000 and 32,000 of them survived.

When Fontaine was liberated she was taken to Sweden for rehabilitation. In 1946, she was awarded a silver medal by the French Minister of the Interior and authorized by President Charles de Gaulle. After the war, she told friends that her only desire was to flee all reminders of the conflict. She immigrated to America despite knowing no English.

Fontaine had previously earned a baccalaureate degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1939, and had been working as an elementary school teacher when captured. In the U.S. she gradually made her way to California where — because of her education and nationality — she was hired by Napa Valley College to teach her native language. In 1960, she earned a master's degree in French at UC Berkeley while on sabbatical.

Born just south of Paris in Auxerre, France, on April 12, 1920, to Amicy Chevalley and Edmond Fontaine, she outlived her four younger siblings: Jean, Edmond, Paule and Jacqueline. Both her marriages ended in divorce.

Molen — a colleague at Napa Valley College — was a fond friend of Fontaine. "She was the bravest person I ever met," she said. "In 2001, I helped her apply for and receive $7,500 in reparations from the German government for her year of slave labor."

Another friend, Reg Harris, said, "For me she was more than Simone. She symbolized another era, kind of a living window into an important part of our past, a part we need to honor and remember. Now I feel like that window has closed."

A lifelong supporter of good causes, she generously supported many worthwhile organizations, among them Doctors Without Borders, the Humane Society, Hospice of Napa Valley and the NVC Foundation.

Any contributions in her honor should be sent to NVC Foundation, 2277 Napa-Vallejo Highway, Napa, CA 94558. There will be no funeral services.

(Editor's note: This obituary originally ran in the St. Helena Star Nov. 28 by Tom Stockwell.)

Footnotes:

[1] New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, [AncestryImage], [AncestryRecord].

[2] Alton Evening Telegraph, Alton, Illinois, April 8, 1946, page 1, [NewspapersClip].

[3] Alton Evening Telegraph, Alton, Illinois, April 8, 1946, page 2, [NewspapersClip].

[4] Alton Evening Telegraph, June 21, 1946, p. 17, [NewspaperArchive].

[5] Alton Evening Telegraph, June 30, 1948, p. 10, [NewspaperArchive].

[6] Montana, U.S., Marriage Records, 1943-1988, [AncestryImage], [AncestryRecord].

[7] California, Divorce Index, 1966-1984, [AncestryImage], [AncestryRecord].

[8] The Napa Register, Tuesday, March 1, 1988, [URL].

[9] U.S., Obituary Collection, 1930-Current, [AncestryRecord].

[10] St. Helena Star, Nov 28, 2014, [URL].

[11] Napa Valley Register, Dec 10, 2014, [URL].

[12] Napa Valley Register, Dec 10, 2014, [URL].

[13] St. Helena Star, Thursday, November 27, 2014, p. 1, [URL].

[14] St. Helena Star, Thursday, November 27, 2014, p. 3, [URL].