Page 48 - Bulletin, Vol.78 No.2, June 2019

In 1955, she had a second son from her marriage to Paul Lawton, a British citizen who
also followed a path as an international civil servant, first at the UN, then WHO.

Based first in Ferney-Voltaire on the French border, the family moved in the mid-sixties
to Colovrex, a hamlet close to Grand Saconnex in the Geneva canton. Catherine
maintained close friendships with UN colleagues, interpreters like herself such as Jean
Halpérin, Anya Berger, Dina Léveillé and Alexandre Bloch.

While holding a full-time job, Catherine managed to pass her masters in English at the
University Paris VII and started teaching in Paris part-time. She was committed to the
cause of women and many deep friendships were born at that time, such as the one
with Christine Cornwell, civil servant at ILO.

In 1975, shortly after losing her mother, she felt a need for freedom, a ‘back to earth’
feeling. A project involving agriculture took shape, which she realized in the south-west
of France (Aveyron) by purchasing of a farm, Lacombe, and taking early retirement from
the UN. Her new life as a farmer in the Rouergue area combined raising sheep, living
outdoors in a preserved natural area and creative weaving and tapestry-making. An
avid reader, she discovered Judaism and the work of young French Jewish
philosophers. She then fully involved herself in a research project of writing a book
about her father Pierre Lévy, a relatively unknown publisher. Her comprehensive work
resulted in her book Du colportage à l’édition – BIFUR et les éditions du Carrefour -
Pierre Lévy, un éditeur au temps des avant-gardes, published in 2004 at Métropolis
Publishing House in Geneva. This book sought to rehabilitate a man whose name is
generally absent from art history. It won the prize for French language literature in the
Berne Canton in 2005.

Our mother initiated us to the music that she loved (from J.S. Bach to the Rolling
Stones), had us sing in choirs and play the piano, and urged us to read. Possessing a
wide culture, she was curious about everything, discovering young German cinema or
modern dance from the USA to France. A great traveler, she helped us discover
England, Greece and the Mediterranean, through several stays on the Riviera, in
addition to skiing with us in the nearby Alps. Aged 70, she learned to use a computer
since her book required it. Independent, bold, willful, demanding, possessing great
intelligence, she impressed all those who met her, notably her six grand-children who
admired her in her farm, listening to her bedtime stories or riding her tractor with her
driving, in order to deliver hay to the sheep, with her faithful and efficient dog following.
Appreciative of modern art, she had painters as close-by friends and was a member of
the board of the Beaulieu-en-Rouergue abbey, an outstanding regional historical
monument, which is also a contemporary art center, located not far from her house and
whose director she knew well.

Catherine suffered a stroke in December, 2011. Living in a home near Paris since that
date, she died on May 30th at the age of 96.

46 AAFI-AFICS BULLETIN, Vol. 78 No. 2, 2019-06