Samia Abi-Merched

Samia Abi-Merched of Fredericksburg passed away Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at Mary Washington Hospital.

Samia was born August 22, 1938 to Adele and Mahmoud Safa. She enrolled in Lebanon into a private British missionary school until graduation. Samia and Wassim were married in Beirut, Lebanon on October 10, 1966 and immigrated to the USA to arrive on November 11, 1967 after having been sponsored by Wassim’s late aunt Nouhad Solomon and her husband Joseph A Solomon. Samia and Wassim became US citizens on the bicentennial year in 1976. Wassim took over the Knotty Pine Grill from his aunt’s husband and then converted it to Sheharazad’s candlelight restaurant at 715 Caroline St, across from the visitor’s center that was established a few years later. At the restaurant, Samia excelled in introducing the homemade Lebanese cuisine to the area for the first time in the early seventies and her cooking was featured in more than one national Food and Tourism magazine as well as the Free Lance-Star.

After the Restaurant was sold along with the building in the mid-eighties to the late Dr. Sam Emory (Sammy T), Samia accepted with the greatest pleasure the job of Paraprofessional at Grafton Village Elementary where she immensely enjoyed 27 years of happiness and touched with her shiny smile and warm heart the lives of hundreds of children and was touched by theirs. She was greatly loved by the teachers, the staff, the children and their parents. Samia fought with great courage to recover from her fall and hip surgery but complications due to heart failure took her away from us, to our great dismay, on the night of March 14, 2017.

Samia is survived by her husband of 51 years, Wassim Abi-Merched; her two daughters Zena and Deena Abi-Merched; two grandchildren Tommy and Aniston; a brother Salim Safa in Lebanon; a sister Munira Safa Salha, in Australia; and cousin Samir Abimourched in Reston, VA.

A service will be held at noon on Saturday, March 25 at Covenant Funeral Service, Fredericksburg. Burial will follow in Sunset Memorial Gardens where a Lebanese religious person will pray on her soul according to our Druze religion.

In lieu of flowers, it is preferable that gestures of sympathy manifest in donations to a non-profit heart organization of your choice such as the American Heart Association.