SOPHIE PARKER

Sophie Leocadie Wilczek Parker, the founder of the Saratoga County restaurant Chez Sophie, died Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001 at her home after a long illness.

Born in Billy-Montigny, France, in 1927, Mrs. Parker was orphaned just after World War II and reared at the Convent St. Agnes in northern France. She met her husband of 51 years, Joseph Parker, in 1947 while he was studying art with Fernand Leger in Paris on the G.I. bill.

Their first child, Ellen Parker, was born in Paris, and the same year the family moved to New York. While Joseph worked as a commercial artist in New York City, Sophie competed as a fencer, becoming the 7th-ranked in the United States.

In 1962, Sophie gave birth to a son, Paul. In 1969, the family moved to Hadley, N.Y., and opened Chez Sophie, a French restaurant that in several incarnations and locations became a part of the Saratoga landscape for three decades. Sophie touched the lives of her customers, friends and colleagues with her perfectionism and her passion for both food and life.

In 1995, Paul joined his parents in business in a restored stainless steel diner on Route 9 in Malta they called Chez Sophie Bistro. The New York Times' William Grimes described the meals he was served there as "the kind of deceptively simple food that for the French, makes life worth living.

Sophie continued to work in the kitchen of Chez Sophie Bistro until the spring of 2000, when she handed the reins to Paul so she could fight her illness.

She spent her last months surrounded by friends and family.

In addition to her husband and two children, she is survived by a granddaughter, Annarose Parker Lipkin. She was predeceased by a brother, Paul Wilczek.