Served Bulgarian-American community
There was no greater champion for the BulgarianAmerican community than Patricia French.
A “passionate” advocate, and “a giving mentor and true friend,” according to her friends and colleagues, Ms. French traveled to the former Soviet bloc nation 46 times to assist with adoptions, work as a translator and serve as an honorary consul.
Back at home, she led a Bulgarian ethnic club, served with the Tamburitzans and became a goodwill ambassador who helped immigrants and students get settled in the Pittsburgh area, even if that meant offering them a bed in her home.
Ms. French, 88, died Saturday at her home in Mt. Lebanon after a long battle with lung cancer.
Born Paina Jordanoff in West Homestead to immigrant parents, Ms. French changed her name to Patricia to fit in better in grade school, said her daughter Dianne Melodia of New York City.
“Everyone made fun of her,” Mrs. Melodia said. “She didn’t speak English when she first started going to school.”
The family lived across from what is now the Bulgarian-Macedonian National Educational & Cultural Center, a club formed by Bulgarian immigrants in 1929 and a favorite gathering place for the community.
Growing up, Ms. French spent every day after school learning about her native culture and language — including the Cyrillic alphabet.
She graduated from Homestead High School in 1946 and went on to Duquesne University, where she studied education and joined the Tamburitzans, a dance and singing troupe that performs mostly Eastern European folk music.
After she earned her bachelor’s degree in 1952, Ms. French married Army Lt. Col. William French.
For the next 14 years, they moved around the globe with their growing family as he was stationed at bases in Germany, Texas, Wisconsin and Ohio.
In 1964, they landed in West Mifflin, where Ms. French put her years of Bulgarian language lessons to use by working as an interpreter for the U.S. State Department and for private industry.
She traveled to Bulgaria dozens of times when it was still a communist country for trade fairs and other matters, her daughter said.
“It was a way for the State Department to get into communist countries,” Mrs. Melodia said about the trade fairs in the late 1960s. “They needed native speaking people to come in and demonstrate products and talk to people.”
She was also called upon when dignitaries from Bulgaria visited the U.S. She was once asked to travel with the Bulgarian agriculture secretary to visit farms in Iowa, her daughter recalled.
Ms. French was “very well-respected and very wellknown” by the Bulgarian government, which recognized her with several prestigious awards, said Elena Poptodorova, retired Bulgarian ambassador to the U.S.
“For her contribution to education and culture between the countries, our government was so appreciative of her,” said Ms. Poptodorova, who met Ms. French on a visit to the U.S. in 1979.
In 1973, Ms. French was working as an event coordinator for Duquesne University when she was asked to take over as the promotional director of the Tamburitzans, which was associated with the university for decades.
During her time with the group, Ms. French visited every continent except Antarctica, and she organized and helped raise funding for tours to Latin America, the Soviet Union and Paris.
Political infighting between a new university president and the troupe cost Ms. French and several other employees their jobs in 1987.
“There was a lot of ugliness at that time,” remembered Mrs. Melodia, who also was a member of the Tamburitzans as a Duquesne student years before. “My mother was holding press conferences in her kitchen, calling television stations. It was really bad.”
Her time with the Tamburitzans was memorable for other reasons, too. Ms. French met fellow student Walter Kolar when she was with the troupe and the two became a couple after Mr. French died in 1988. Mr. Kolar died in 2016.
Close friend Dana Spiardi met Ms. French after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when she was trying to find a consultant to help her navigate the waters of the burgeoning republic.
“In the early days after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was very difficult for American companies to make inroads there,” said Ms. Spiardi of Homestead, who was working for Westinghouse at the time.
She met Ms. French in June 1992 after members of the American embassy suggested that she seek out Ms. French.
“It was love at first sight,” Ms. Spiardi said. “I set my eyes upon a beautiful, glowing, statuesque woman sporting fabulous clothes and a chic haircut and flashing a warm smile.”
The two became fast friends and Ms. Spiardi later joined Ms. French on the board of directors for the Bulgarian-Macedonian National Educational & Cultural Center, of which Ms. French became president in 1995.
Ms. French helped to implement changes that would expand the club’s membership by opening it to people of all ethnic backgrounds and turning it into a nonprofit organization.
“A lot of people were interested in the dancing but not of Bulgarian descent,” Ms. Spiardi said. “And the Bulgarian dancers were always the highlight of the Pittsburgh Folk Festival, so it attracted a lot of new people to the club.”
“She was just a person who inspired people,” Ms. Spiardi said. “She was very much a champion of the underdog and the disenfranchised.”
Along with her daughter, Ms. French is survived by another daughter, Deborah French Gorman of Mt. Lebanon; a son, David French of Robinson; six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her brother Nick Jordanoff and her granddaughter Kayla Dianne Gorman.
Visitation at the SavolskisWasik-Glenn Funeral Home Inc., 3501 Main Street, in Munhall is from 2 to 4 and 6 to 9 p.m. Friday. The funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Bernard Church, 311 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions to the BMNECC, 449 West 8th Ave., West Homestead, PA 15120, for the establishment of the Patricia Jordanoff French Memorial Library.