Evelyne Fortin "The Apollon Family"

Evelyne Fortin was born on October 13, 1934 in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. She was the daughter of Joseph Fortin and Laurence Bastien. Evelyne’s Mother passed away when Evelyne was only 10 years old. She therefore went to live with her dad’s sisters, Leonie and Marie Fortin, who raised her until she became an adult. Evelyne attended Ecole Elie Dubois in Port-au-Prince, a vocational school for girls, where she met her lifetime and best friend, Marie Francoise Boyer (aka Doudounne). Evelyne was a school teacher for several years in the Port-Au-Prince school system and later proceeded to worked at Haiti’s National Bank Letters of Credit Department.

In December of 1957, she married Rene F. Apollon, a bookkeeper in Haiti’s Census Bureau. To this union, four children were born, sons Ronald, Jean-Rene (J.R) and Harry, and daughter Sabine. In 1971, the entire family relocated to Brooklyn, NY where Evelyne worked various jobs to support her children. She eventually landed a job in her field of expertise at Allied Bank in New York, NY. She then moved on to Israel Discount Bank’s Letter of Credit Department where she retired in October 1999. In 1990, Evelyne, relocated from Queens, NY to Edison, NJ to be close to her son, JR and daughter, Sabine and their families. In 2006, she again followed Sabine and her family to Georgia where her sons, Ronald and Harry had moved to several years prior.

Evelyne was a woman of tremendous faith and religiously read her bible daily. She loved cooking, music, gardening, sewing, watching CNN, Oprah, and The View and playing Sequence (board game). However, her joy in life was to tend to her children and to nurture/spoil her six grandchildren. She was the most caring, giving, selfless and humble mother one would ever know, and one who always made ultimate sacrifices for the good of her children. She was known by several nicknames to her friends and her children’s friends (Mrs. Apollon, Madam Rene, Madam “Ti Popo”), however she will forever be remembered as “Mom” to mostly everyone she met. She was a very self-sacrificing person who had the incredible ability to make everyone feel at home.

In October of 2013, Evelyne had a car accident resulting to two open heart surgeries in 24 hours. She made a remarkable recovery as if she had a body of a 35-year-old. However, a few weeks later in November, she fell, hit her head and eventually had a brain hemorrhage and a debilitating stroke. Although she wasonly given a 10% chance of recovery, she went on to live almost 6 years at Ross Memorial Healthcare in Kennesaw. Despite being completely dependent and the loss of mobility, she never gave up. She never lost her fighting spirit. Evelyne fought till the very end.

Evelyne is survived by her children, Ron Apollon, Jean-Rene Apollon, Harry Apollon, and Sabine Apollon-Lopez , her six grandchildren, and her brother Lionel Fortin.

“And walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephisians 5:2