Andree Bognar
- Published: September 10, 2026
Andree Bognar passed away peacefully on Aug. 29, 2026, at Friends Care Community Assisted Living, surrounded by family and friends, one month before her 97th birthday. She lived a life of purpose and action. For 50 years in Greene County and 30 years in Yellow Springs, Andree Bognar worked to improve the lives of older adults, through the jobs she held and in how she lived her life. She believed we can all help make the world better, each in our own way, and that we must.
She was born Andrée Alice Marie Josèphe Vandermotte in Leuven, Belgium in September 1929, the fifth of six children, to her mother Mathilde Eekhaut and her father Jean Vandermotte. The doctor was running late, so Andree’s father helped her mother deliver baby Andree. She was born at home, behind the family shoe store, Vandermotte-Eekhaut, which their parents owned and ran on Melchelse street, in the city center.
In May 1940, when Andree was 10, the Nazi army invaded Belgium. Andree’s parents told their six kids to grab their bicycles. The family fled Leuven on bike, heading south to the border with France, where they hoped to cross. But as they approached the French border, the lines were so long, Andree’s parents turned the six kids around and headed back to Leuven. They stayed in a friend’s basement until the fighting ended, and the four-year Nazi occupation of Belgium began. With Nazis ensconced in town, the family reopened the shoe store, and the kids returned to school. Andree and her siblings were told to not look at the Nazis patrolling the streets.
Four years later, as D-Day approached, Allies bombed the Nazi infrastructure in Belgium, including targets in Leuven city center, near Andree’s family home. Fire spread from the bombing, and soon Andree’s family home and shoe store were on fire. The family fled in the night, again on bicycles, and headed out to the countryside. Their house and store were destroyed.
The family took shelter in a farm house near the rural village of Lovenjoel, eight kilometers from Leuven. A few months later, Andree’s father Jean developed an infection, growing quite sick. But all penicillin had been given to the military. Andree’s father died in September 1944, on the farm where they were sheltering.
Andree’s mother Mathilde, having lost her husband, home and business, took her six children back to Leuven and began rebuilding. Young Andree had seen war, bombing and the loss of a beloved parent before she was old enough to start high school.
As a teenager, Andree attended the Institute Paridaens for her secondary education, and graduated in classic humanities. In 1951, Andree graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work from the Catholic School of Social Work in Brussels. That same year she became a social work case manager in Leuven. In 1956, Andree began working for the Red Cross, providing social services for the influx of Hungarian refugees fleeing their country, after the crushing of their revolution against the Soviet Union. Eventually she found herself working alongside a Hungarian who had started out as one such refugee, who was also studying social work in Leuven. In 1961, Andree married that Hungarian, Bela Bognar.
That summer, the young couple decided to spend a few months in New York City. They both got jobs at Stouffer’s Restaurant in Midtown. A few months later, Andree got a job offer from the International Institute of Milwaukee County, and they were on a bus to Wisconsin, with a stop in Niagara Falls on the way. Andree worked as a full-time caseworker assisting immigrant families. She continued her education, taking graduate level classes in social work at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She gave birth to two sons, Steven in 1963 and John in 1965, and kept working part-time as a caseworker.
Andree and her family moved to California in 1969, where Bela continued his studies in social work and gerontology at U.C. Berkeley. After a year on the West Coast, the family moved back to Wisconsin, this time to Madison, so Bela could pursue his Ph.D. at U.W. They lived in Eagle Heights, a modest apartment complex for international students with kids. Andree became manager of the Eagle Heights Food Co-op.
In 1974, the family moved to Beavercreek, Ohio, where Bela began teaching at Wright State University and Andree worked part-time managing the distribution hub for the Beavercreek Daily News, helping the paperboys and girls fill their bags with rolled-up newspapers. She continued taking workshops on aging, social work, long term care, administration, policy and racial awareness in social work.
Living in Greene County, Andree saw a need to prevent older adults from experiencing isolation at home. In 1975, she co-founded and became the first director of the Today Center for Adults in Xenia, one of the first adult daycares in Ohio. Andree would direct the Today Center for 14 years, along the way mentoring many younger social workers, including her friends Kristy Fickert and Lynda Passaretti. During this work, she also met a nurse named Barbara Brookshire, who would become a lifelong friend.
Retiring in 1989 at age 60 from the Today Center, Andree quickly realized she wasn’t done working. In 1991, she became a social worker at the Area Agency on Aging in Dayton, where she befriended a young social worker named Amy Crawford, who became a dear friend. Andree worked all over Dayton, visiting senior citizens and helping them find resources so they could stay in their homes.
Andree moved to Yellow Springs in 1994, following her divorce from Bela. She found a new home at the Twin Coach apartments, where she would live for the next 30 years. And she found a vibrant new community of friends and colleagues in Yellow Springs.
In 1998, Andree started the Home Assistance Program of the Friends Care Community, based at the Yellow Springs Senior Center, which she ran until her retirement (again) at age 75, in 2004.
Andree was also a driving force in the creation of the Greene County Council on Aging, and served on its board for years. She was a core member of the local nonprofit Sowelo, which offered end-of-life support in Yellow Springs. She also served on the boards of Catholic Social Services, the Greene Metropolitan Housing Authority, the Yellow Springs Senior Center,and the Ohio Association of Adult Daycares, among others.
Andree always seemed uncomfortable with praise and accolades. Nevertheless, she received them. In 1997 she was honored for her service by the Miami Valley Gerontological Council. In the early 2000s she was inducted into the Greene County Women’s Hall of Fame for her senior care and community advocacy. In 2005, she was awarded the Outstanding Senior Citizen Award by the Greene County Council on Aging. In 2007, Andree was awarded the Founder’s Award of the James A. McKee Association for her community service and volunteerism. In 2018, she was awarded the Community Peacemaker Award by the Dr. Martin Luther King Day Committee.
In 2025, along with friends Helen Eier and Suzanne Patterson, Andree was awarded the Tony Bent Award by Home, Inc. for her work in co-founding the Senior Housing Working Group to support affordable senior housing in Yellow Springs. Their efforts directly helped in the creation of the Cascades, the new affordable senior housing development in Yellow Springs.
To her chagrin, the Ohio Association of Adult Day Services created the annual “Andree Bognar Award” in 1994 and made her its first recipient, a fact she did not tell her children or friends.
From ages 75 to 95, Andree continued her life’s work, helping others lead lives of independence, security and dignity. She was often seen walking across the Village of Yellow Springs, making daily rounds to check on friends and neighbors. By now, many of the seniors she helped were younger than her.
Andree found great joy in time with her family, and especially in the birth and childhoods of her granddaughter Lola and great-grandchildren Beau and Dory.
In January 2025, Andree announced her intention to move into Friends Care Community’s assisted living facility. The transition was challenging, but soon she began making new friends, building new relationships with other residents.
In July 2026, Andree decided to enter hospice care. As she had done with her move to Friends Care, Andree directed her own path and led her family to understand and support her decision. Six weeks later, after a lifetime of giving, surrounded by family and friends, Andree passed peacefully from this world.
Andree’s family is deeply grateful for the excellent care she received at the end of her life from the team at Friends Care Assisted Living and Ohio’s Hospice.
Andree was preceded in death by her parents, Mathilde Eekhaut and Jean Vandermotte; her brothers, Freddie, Jean and Paul Vandermotte; her sister, Therese Vandermotte; her daughter-in-law, Julia Reichert; and many close friends from her life in Yellow Springs. She is survived by her her sister, Mimi Wolfs; her son, Steven Bognar, and his partner, Anna Lavatelli; her son, John Bognar, and daughter-in-law, Jenniffer Bognar; her granddaughter, Lola Andree Bognar; her granddaughter, Lela Klein, and Lela’s husband, Robert Holt; her great-grandchildren, Beau and Dory Kleinholt; and many beloved nieces and nephews in Belgium. Andree is also survived by her surrogate daughters, who include Amy Crawford, Lin Wood, Kristy Fickert and Lisa Luczek, and by many dear, close friends.
A memorial service for Andree will be held on Saturday, Sept. 12 at 3 p.m. at the Foundry Theater, 920 Corry Street on the campus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs. At a later date, a funeral mass at St. Paul’s Catholic Church will be held. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in honor of Andree Bognar be made to the Yellow Springs Senior Center and Friends Care Community.
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