Madeleine Marguerite Nelson

She passed away peacefully early morning on Friday, June 26 with her husband Merle and faithful dog Pepper at her bedside. After many years of struggling with medical problems, including heart surgery, hip and knee replacements, breast cancer and spine surgery, she succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease at the age of 79, two months shy of 80 years.

Madeleine began her life journey on September 7, 1929, in Tientsin, China. Her father, Fernand Quarez, was a Belgian citizen and was manager of the Tientsin branch of the Belgian Bank of the Far East. Her mother, Gerda Overin Quarez, who was from the far eastern area of Russia, fled to China during the Russian Revolution. Madeleine, her brother George, and her mother were on vacation in Italy when the Japanese invaded China during the mid-thirties. They remained in Genoa when George developed symptoms of polio, but Madeleine's father was imprisoned in a Japanese prison camp during all of WWII, and died in Hong Kong after the war.

Madeleine moved to Cannes in the Provence region of southern France with her mother and brother after her brother was successfully cured of polio, and lived there during the German occupation. In 1943, with the Nazis anticipating a possible Allied invasion through southern France, the family was forced to go to Belgium since they had Belgian passports. They lived with relatives in Lige, Belgium, during the famous Battle of the Bulge, surviving bombardments of German rockets as well as bombing raids by the Allied Air Forces.

After the Allied victory, Madeleine pursued her studies in linguistics and consular studies and received her BA degree from the University of Lige. She won a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the U.S. and attended the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. While in Utah she applied for U.S. Citizenship, but the INS classified her as "Chinese White Race", the quota for which was oversubscribed by many years. Influential friends interceded with their Senator, who attached a rider to a bill in Congress in 1951 changing her birthplace from China to Belgium. She then was admitted under the Belgian quota and became a U.S. citizen.

After completing her M.A. degree in 1955, she was retained by the University of Utah as instructor in French and French literature. After five years on the faculty at Utah, she was sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, under contract as a language specialist at the U.S. Army Pacific Headquarters, where she developed and taught methodology of language instruction to Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino and Thai teachers hired to teach military personnel. She traveled throughout the Pacific conducting seminars in language methodology.

In 1963 she met and married an Air Force pilot, Merle A. Nelson, a former resident of Michigan. They were married on December 28, 1963, at St. Augustine Church in Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii. Following his re-assignment to the Special Air Missions Wing at Andrew Air Force Base, Maryland, she was employed by the Defense Language Institute in Washington, D.C. She gave birth to two sons during their six years in Washington, which was followed by assignments to Guam, Alabama, California, Germany and New Jersey. At each location she continued to fulfill her passion for education by teaching French at all instructional levels.

After her husband's retirement from the Air Force in 1985, they returned to Washington where she spent the next 13 years as a French language instructor at the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State. She retired from the government in 1998. They moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 2005, to be near their three granddaughters whose father, an Air Force doctor, was then assigned to Brooks City-Base.

Madeleine and her husband were members of Nativity Episcopal Church in Camp Springs, Maryland, for many years. She loved to sing in the choir, and served on the vestry. On moving to San Antonio, they transferred to Reconciliation Episcopal Church in the Mary Mont neighborhood.

Madeleine loved to travel, and in retirement she and Merle toured France, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Turkey and China. They took cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean and Panama Canal, cruised the rivers and lakes from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and made the Norwegian costal voyage.

Madeleine will be remembered by her family and friends for her joie de vivre, her passion for teaching the French language, her incredibly generous spirit, and her devotion to her family and adopted country.

She is survived by her husband, Col. Merle, A. Nelson, USAF Ret.; her son, Col. Dr. Eric A. Nelson, USAF, his wife Lenora and their three children Rita, Allison and Emily, presently living in Japan; her son, Evan S. Nelson of Denver, Colorado; and her brother George Quarez and wife Nancy of Rexburg, Idaho.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer's Association, 7400 Louis Pasteur, #200, San Antonio, TX 78229.

The family is grateful to the caring staffs of Colonial Gardens and Alamo Hospice for the excellent care given to Madeleine.