CUNDY’S HARBOR — Simone La Gloahec Hoffman, 87, died in Portland on Thursday, September 15, 2016. Mrs. Hoffman was born in Marseille, France on November 17, 1928 and was a long-time resident of Cundy’s Harbor, Maine.

Mrs. Hoffman’s father, Captain Jules La Gloahec, served as master aboard the four masted sailing vessel ANTONIN. In February of 1917, Captain Gloahec’s ship was boarded and later sunk by Felix Graf Von Luckner, an incident described in Lowell Thomas’s book The Sea Devil. Fortunately, Count Von Luckner rescued Captain La Gloahec and his crew.

As a young girl, Simone and her family were forced to leave Marseille when it was invaded and occupied by Germany in 1942, and to relocate to the rural farming community of Vinezac. After enduring a primitive and difficult existence in the country, they were able to return home again following the war.

Simone received her baccalaureate degree and went on to study Italian at the University in Aix. She also studied Italian in Florence, Italy, living with a Countess whose husband introduced Simone to his chess playing companion, Waldo Hoffman. Waldo, a young, handsome American had worked as a code breaker in North Africa and Italy during the war. Although he was fluent in many languages, their courtship was carried on in Italian. They married in Marseille in 1948 and moved to New York City later that year.

Simone and Waldo initially resided in New York and spent their summers in Cundy’s Harbor with their two boys. Later, they happily made Harpswell their year round home.

Simone substituted at a Quaker school in New York and, after the death of her husband in 1985, worked as a nurse’s aid at Midcoast Hospital.

She was an avid reader in both French and English, and participated in a French reading group for many years. She kept up with both US and French politics, and was known by her friends for her wonderful sense of humor, terrific memory, and lovely accent.

She is predeceased by her husband, Waldo, her two sons, Robert François and Michel Andre, and her sister Giselle. She is survived by her grandson, John François Hoffman, and his three young children Lillian, Wyatt, and Abigail, of Newcastle, Delaware, and by nieces and nephews Penelope Patch, Nabby Patch, Isaac Patch, Nicholas Patch, Martha Sowerwine, and by cousins Barbara Hoffman Mann and George Hoffman.

Donations in Mrs. Hoffman’s memory may be made to the Coastal Humane Society in Brunswick, Maine, https:// www.coastalhumanesociety.org/.