Denise Frank, 88; French Instructor Survived WWII Adventure

Denise Frank, 88, a retired French instructor with the State Department who began her teaching career in wartime France, died Aug. 19 at Georgetown University Hospital after a heart attack. She was a Vienna resident.

In 1940, when the German occupation of Paris began, Dr. Frank was living with her parents and sister in a suburb of the French capital and teaching disabled elementary school students. She and her students evacuated to the south of France.

"It was really awful in the beginning," she recalled in a 1966 interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I herded 25 children when we were fleeing from Paris. I never saw so many dead horses and other animals as I did then in the small towns."

The children were transported on military trucks and slept in churches until accommodations could be found for them. Dr. Frank's parents had no idea where she was and were distressed by rumors that a young teacher had been killed. She returned to Paris after a month.

"We later discovered ways to keep ourselves from being shipped to Germany to work in munitions factories," she recalled in the 1966 interview. "There were over 300 of us in a choir that sang in Notre Dame when the Allied troops marched in. We had been choir members for a long time -- and were paid one franc a month. Whenever we were asked to show our 'work cards,' we could show our choir card."

Shortly after the war, Dr. Frank was working for the Red Cross in France when she met an American GI, married him and moved to Cleveland. From 1947 to 1980, she taught French in Cleveland public and private schools and at Case Western Reserve University.

From 1980 to 1984, she taught French language and literature at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. She moved to Vienna in 1984 and for the next 10 years taught French at Northern Virginia Community College. She also taught at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute from 1984 to 1994.

She was born Denise Jeanne Francour in Paris and received a bachelor's degree from a school in Vincennes, France, in 1942 and a teaching certificate in English literature and American civilization from the University of Paris in 1946.

She received another bachelor's degree in French language and literature in 1950, a master's degree in French literature in 1974 and a doctorate in French literature in 1978, all from Case Western Reserve University.

Her memberships included the American Association of University Women, the Alliance Française, the Vienna Choral Society and Andrew Chapel United Methodist Church in Vienna, where she sang in the choir.

Her husband, Lloyd K. Frank, died in 1973.

Survivors include a daughter, Brenda J. Frank of McLean; a sister; and two grandchildren.

-- Joe Holley