We remember Stéphanie Jean-Charles...

Please send your thoughts and memories of Stéphanie to Sage Grubbs

() and we will post them here.

***It's been a difficult time for us to intake this sad news, especially for me as Stephanie's camarade de chambre à la Maison Française. She was such a light and such a great roommate. I remember her helping on my FREN 332 essays during Fall 08, and I helped her with her economic problem sets from the Batton School. We became a good study pair since then, and last year we shared the only 2-single suite dans la Maison together. Although both of us had very busy schedules, we spent a great moment in our cozy suite holding cheerful conversations, talking about our dreams, home countries, and encouraging each other during the overwhelming final period. Stephanie was a great singer, and I could always hear pop musics and laughters coming out from her room, lighting up our late-night spirits. Her broad smiles and sincere willingness to help others have greatly impressed me. Whenever undertaking a homework, problem set, or writing project, she always made her greatest effort, trying her best to get things done perfectly. Stephanie told me about her visiting of family members back home on the first day of last semester, and I could deeply feel that she was so happy to go back to Haiti for the break. It's just too hard to bear the shock and sadness at the news of her death right before this last semester (for both of us at UVa), and too hard to believe that she would never come back with her friendliest smiles, her warm laughters, beautiful voice and great sense of humor to brighten up our house again. I will be missing her deeply and praying for her great spirits. RIP, ma chérie.

Betty Xiong
Economics & Mathematics

University of Virginia, Class of 2010

***I lived in the French House with Stephanie, but I never ran into her as often as I would have liked.  Fortunately, I knew her outside of the house as well.  She was an intern at a refugee office I volunteer at regularly.  She gave me great advice about people in the office, the work we did, and ideas for the future.  She saw things so clearly, so calmly, and yet she was so filled with passion!  As much as she was involved in, Stephanie never hesitated to take at least a few minutes to say hello, and was always genuinely interested in the people around her.  She had the purest heart of anyone I know in Charlottesville.  I always expected her to leave- she had such incredible goals in mind and plans in the making!- I just never expected the leaving to be so finite.  The world has lost something really beautiful in her death.  I will miss knowing that she is, because it was always a hopeful thought.

Carolyn Yohn
University of Virginia
CLAS 2010
French and Foreign Affairs

Stéphanie is the third student from the right in this photo.

***Stéphanie contributed tremendously to the life of the French House. It was always a great pleasure to see her when I worked as cultural activities coordinator of the French House in 2007-08.

She participated in many activities in French and was always eager to share her culture with the residents. She once made an awesome presentation on Haiti with her friend Elodie. They even had brought Caribbean food for the residents!

I will always remember the great conversations we had during dinners about Haiti, her past there and her plans for the future. I learnt a lot from Stéphanie. I was very impressed by her personality and social skills, her multiple interests and commitments, her maturity and her generosity. She is dearly missed.

Isabelle Choquet

Here Stéphanie navigates tangled cords to set up her Power Point for a class presentation.

***It was with great sadness that I heard the news about Stéphanie. She was truly a great person, kind, warm to everybody and full of life. As you may remember, she was the MC at the Talent Show this fall.

Marie Kunztmann
ENS 2009-2010 Exchange Student

***Stéphanie was enrolled in my French Literature and Film course in spring of 2008.  I liked to call her "Pierrette", which is the given that appears on official documents. She indulged me, saying that many members of her family would approve. Stéphanie was bright and kind, a thoughtful student who showed grace and maturity beyond her years.  I feel fortunate to have known her.

Cheryl Krueger
Associate Professor of French
Chair, Department of French Language and Literature