Micheline Tierce Contiguglia

Micheline Tierce Contiguglia died on Friday, September 15, 2023, at age 92, after a brief illness.

Born on March 11, 1931 to Raymond Tierce and Marie Louise Lagarde Tierce in Bordeaux, France, the 3rd of 6 children. Micheline spent most of her youth in Saintes, Southwestern France. She spoke often of her attachment to Saintes where she managed to spend many summers with her own children, allowing them to have strong ties with their French cousins.

Shortly after graduating from high school, she went to England where she worked as an au pair to become proficient in English. This led to her working for the United States Army in Poitiers, France where she met and married her husband, Robert A. Contiguglia of Auburn, NY, in 1958.

Micheline left France to follow her husband and begin her life in Auburn NY. She discovered the challenge of becoming a true American and fitting in the Auburn community, which was welcoming as well as very different from the one she knew in southwestern France. But she was determined to bring her love for learning and teaching to this community. So, while raising her children, Myriam and Robert II, Micheline studied to earn a Master of Science in Education and taught French at Port Byron Central School. A dedicated student and a hard worker with an independent mind, she worked also at the Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles, NY, while completing her degrees.  She then became an adjunct professor of French at SUNY Cortland and then at Ithaca College until she retired in 1998.

Upon settling in Ithaca in 1993, Micheline became a member of the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca. She joined several local groups supporting social and environmental advocacy, as she had done throughout her life.

Micheline will be remembered by her friends, colleagues and neighbors for her talented art-crafting, her English Country Dancing, her signing in the Choir, and above all for her love of gardening. She also enjoyed traveling to destinations close to home and as far away as Vietnam and Ulan Bator in Mongolia where she went, in her eighties, to visit her son and his family.

She often talked of what an interesting and wonderful life she had.

Micheline was predeceased by her parents, Raymond and Marie Louise La Garde Tierce, her husband Robert A. Contiguglia, her brothers and sisters Henri, Huguette Minot, Claude, and André Tierce, her brothers-in-law Jacques Favret, William Contiguglia, Louis P. Contiguglia, her sisters-in-law Françoise Tierce, Sonya Tierce and Liliana King, and her very dear friend Jean Sadrant, of Saintes.

Micheline is survived by her daughter, Myriam T. Contiguglia and Frank J. Sinicropi; her son, Robert A. Contiguglia, II and his wife Kathleen M. Dennison, and her grandchildren Robert A. Contiguglia, III and Madeline H. Contiguglia.

She is also survived by Françoise Tierce Favret, her younger sister, and Eda Contiguglia Holt her sister-in-law, Richard and John Contiguglia, her brothers-in-laws, as well as several nieces and nephews, and many dear friends overseas and at home.

The family would like to express its sincere thanks to the many caregivers who attended Micheline during her recent illness.

A memorial service will be held at the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca, 306 North Aurora Street, Ithaca, NY on Saturday, September 30, 2023  at 11:00 AM

Donations in Micheline’s memory may be made to Hospicare of Ithaca, the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, or you may plant a tree in her honor.

Online condolences may be made to Micheline’s family at www.bangsfuneralhome.com.