Aline Irvine

Aline Irvine, former Director of the Council on Aging in Port Huron, dies at 100

Aline Irvine, beloved mother and grandmother, friend to many, and former Executive Director of the Council on Aging, Inc – St. Clair County, died on Tuesday, December 6, at Woodlawn Meadows Assisted Living and Memory Care in Hastings, Michigan. She was 100.

Aline (Hékimian) Irvine was born Feb. 10, 1922, to an Armenian Roman Catholic family in Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, Turkey. Her life history encapsulates many major events of the 20 ^th century. Aline had many formative experiences before moving to Michigan where she spent half her life in her home overlooking the St. Clair River in Algonac.

Aline's family emigrated from Turkey to Paris when she was 9 months old, following threats to Armenians in Constantinople, and repeated gnocides of Armenians in Turkey. She had a Nansen passport for decades, issued by the League of Nations to stateless people wrested from their homes by cataclysmic events.

In Constantinople, her father worked for American Express, which enabled him to transfer to their offices in France. He died in 1936 of tuberculosis, leaving Aline and her mother on their own in Paris.

Recently graduated at age 17 at the beginning of World War II, Aline and her mother became stranded in the unoccupied south of France. To support themselves Aline started a school in their dining room.  She had been tutoring in Sanary-sur-Mer and parents offered to pay her to educate local children when they were unable to travel safely to Toulon for high school.  She was proud that, at the end of the war, all her students passed their baccalaureate exam.  After the Nazis occupied Vichy France in November 1942, she and her mother continued to survive bombings and food shortages, and later the threat of deportation to concentration camps because they were stateless.

Following liberation, Aline worked for the U.S. Army in the south of France. She earned a university degree in Aix-en-Provence.  After moving back to Paris, she

met her husband, M. Keith Irvine, a Scotsman who had also recently moved there to be a writer. They eventually married in England, had two children, and moved to the United States in 1952, where she had two more children.

She earned a Master's degree in Interior Design while living in New York State.

After living for 21 years in Manhattan, Croton-on-Hudson, NY, and Lake Bluff, IL, the Irvines settled in Algonac, MI in 1973.

In Algonac, Aline volunteered at the Council on Aging (COA), and quickly joined their staff. After a few years, she was appointed Executive Director of the COA, serving from 1976 until she retired in 1991. "Single handedly, she created in the City of Algonac, what would become a county-wide vehicle for providing many, many services for senior citizens, a model for the entire state," said Gary Tuzinowski, a former Algonac City Manager and City Council Member, who worked with Aline to forward many of these programs.  Some of these programs became models in other parts of the United States, said her daughter, Nickie Irvine.

"Under Aline's leadership, the agency expanded from one senior center with a small handful of programs to an agency that included in-home services and senior transportation for the entire county as well as additional senior centers," said Scott Crawford, the current Executive Director of the COA, in an appreciation posted for Aline's 100 ^th birthday.  "She was instrumental in helping to establish the first county senior services millage in the state of Michigan to fund the expansion of these services.  We are thankful for her visionary leadership."

Aline received numerous awards for her work, from the State of Michigan, the COA and more. Her son, David Irvine, noted that "...one of the most impactful contributions made by Aline Irvine was the development of the successful reciprocal working relationship with the Area Agency on Aging, which gave the council access to state funding."

After retirement, Aline became more involved with Our Lady on the River Parish (St. Catherine's Catholic Church) in Algonac.  Her faith, and her involvement with the Catholic Church, were motivating forces in her life.

One of her joys in the natural world was to go riding in her 1957 Cuthbertson Craft wooden boat, a part of the history of Algonac's influential boating industries, including the legacies of Chris Craft and Gar Wood boats.

Her love of nature became more evident over time. Her descriptions of the river, in emails to her daughter, Madeline Irvine, were striking. Aline was ever grateful for the squirrel-proof bird feeders that allowed her to better enjoy feeding birds throughout her life, from Croton-on-Hudson to Algonac to Woodlawn Meadows.

Aline's kindness, calm and stoicism generated love and appreciation from others. She had a strong, resourceful, yet quiet personality. She was intelligent, caring, generous, compassionate, playful, supportive, and beautiful, inside, and out. She had the quality of inspiring the support and admiration of others, which helped many when she worked for the COA.  The strongest part of her was her love for others, and this was evident every moment of her life. These qualities made her memorable to those that came to know her.

Aline was predeceased by her husband M. Keith Irvine in 1994, and by her eldest daughter, Lilian (Lilou) Irvine, who died in 2002.  Aline is survived by two daughters, Dominique (Nickie) Irvine and her spouse, John Dorfman, of San Mateo, CA; Madeline Irvine and her spouse, Neil Kamil, of Austin, TX; her son, David Irvine, and his spouse, Joyce, of Shelbyville, MI, and two grandchildren, Camille, of Anchorage, AK and Spencer, of Grand Rapids, MI, and by her eldest daughter's partner, Elizabeth Ocskay, who called Aline her Other Mother.

The family will hold two Celebrations;

First: June 10, 2023, at 4:00 pm a Mass Intentions for Aline Irvine at SS Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church, 159-131 ^st Street, Wayland, MI 49348. June 11, 2023, an open house will be held immediately following the normal Sunday Mass at SS Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church on June 11, 2023 from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon.  Light refreshments will be provided.

Second: June 15, 2023, Aline's Funeral Mass will be at 11:00 am with visitation at 10:30 am at Our Lady on the River Parish, aka: St. Catherine's Catholic Church 1103 Washington St. Algonac MI 48001 with a "Celebration of Life" Luncheon immediately following the Mass at the church hall next door.

Memorials in Aline Irvine's name may be made to either "The Council on Aging, Inc. - Serving St. Clair County", 600 Grand River Avenue, Port Huron, MI 48060 or to "Our Lady on the River Parish" (St. Catherine's Catholic Church), 610 South Water Street, Marine City, MI 48039.