Author Archive | Ven Suresh

The obituary below was written by Charles North, Jeanne North’s son:

My mother, Jeanne Foote North, passed away last Wednesday, July 8. She was 90 years old.

On June 28, while in the hospital, she had decided – with her usual perfect clarity of reason and determination – that it was time to let her body go. She spent the next ten days at home in hospice care enjoying visits and calls from family and friends reminiscing about the wonderful times they had had together. She had calls from Vietnam, Mexico, Liberia, Louisiana, and California. She charmed and built friendships with the hospice nurses and nursing aides who took care of her – as she did with everyone all her life: telling stories, sharing a laugh, and caring for those who cared for her.

From an early age, mom was a fierce advocate for racial and gender equality – from a speaking tour on racial equality in 1930s Alabama, her home state, to advocating in the early 1970s for the rights of women divorced or widowed by their Foreign Service husbands. She had an adventurous spirit that led her to teach school in post-war Hawaii (Kauai).

She later traveled with her husband/my father, Haven North, on his assignments with Point Four and USAID to Ethiopia (1952-1957), Nigeria (1961-1965), and Ghana (1970-1975). My sister was two years old when they went to Ethiopia; my brother was born in Ethiopia; and I was less than a year old when we moved to Nigeria. To ensure we had good schools to attend, she was a founding board member of the American International School of Lagos and Chair of the Board of the Lincoln Community School in Accra. She also served on the boards of the Opportunities Industrialization Centers and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She applied her Masters in Medical Social Work (Columbia U.) to many issues: working as a social worker in Presbyterian Hospital in NYC, introducing social work concepts to nursing students in Ethiopia, conducting one of the first Women in Development studies for USAID in Ghana, working with young women in the Job Corps program in Washington, D.C., and, through NAMI, counseling families dealing with mental illness.

She joined USAID in 1976 as a Civil Service Social Scientist; rising to become a GS-15, she focused on institution building, development management. and policy reform. She designed and managed the Implementing Policy Change program, based on social work principles that emphasized the central role of the people and governments of developing countries in leading their own development, with donors and consultants playing a facilitative and supporting role. That project shaped, and continues to influence, the thinking of many development practitioners.

With retirement, she dedicated more time to social causes, to the church, and to her art. She studied painting at the Yellow Barn at Glen Echo Park and livened our walls with beautiful portraits and landscapes. She and my father had a wonderful, loving marriage that lasted almost 65 years. She was a devoted mother and grandmother and my mentor and role model. We will all miss her.

We will hold a memorial service for her at Bethesda United Methodist Church on July 26 at 2:00 for those who would like to attend.

Al Furman died peacefully on July 15, 2015 at the age of 83 in his home in Deerfield Beach, Florida after a long battle following multiple hip replacement surgeries.

He dedicated his life to helping others less fortunate than himself working first with the United States Agency for International Development and then with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. His postings included Dhaka Bangladesh, Port-au-Prince Haiti, Rome Italy, Kingston Jamaica and Sana’a Yemen.

He is survived by a loving wife Sharon to whom he was married for 35 years. He is also survived by eight children, Brad, Michelle, Allyson, Scott and Christopher, Susan Black, Amy Purcell, Sean Purcell, 11 grandchildren, his brothers Ed and Grant and his sister Marge and many nieces and nephews. He will be sorely missed for his sense of humor, his love for his wife and children and families and his passion for woodworking.*

Baudouin (Butch) F. de Marcken, 74 died Sunday, April 12, 2015. Born on October 21, 1940 in Louvain, Belgium as a U.S. citizen, Baudouin was the youngest of nine children of Alix de Kerchove d’Exarde and Gustave Richard Theodore de Marcken de Merken. He spent his early childhood during World War II in Belgium, and moved to the United States at the age of 12. He moved first to Brule, Wisconsin, then joined his family in 1953 at their home, Stonehouse, outside Lakeville, CT.

Baudouin earned a B.S. in Government in 1962 from Colby College, and a M.A. in Political Science in 1964 from the University of Michigan. After graduation, he joined as one of the first U.S. Peace Corps volunteers from 1964-1967 in Sarawak, Malaysia, where he worked as a teacher in the jungle towns of Saratok and Belaga, and where he met his wife Gail, a Peace Corps volunteer from Minnesota, when she traveled up-river to visit Belaga to buy food and supplies.

With deep commitment to economic development and improving the lives of people around the world, Baudouin served for 19 years with the Peace Corps, first as a volunteer, then as Deputy Peace Corps Director in Malaysia (1968-1971), and as Peace Corps Director in Chad (1972-1973), Mali (1977), Zaire (1978-1981), Morocco (1981-1982), Tunisia (1995) and the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (1996-1999). Early in his career, Baudouin and Gail bought property on Bear Island Lake between Babbitt and Ely, MN, and built a beloved home for their family in the woods “Up North.”

For many years, Baudouin managed programs for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From 1983-1987, he was the Regional Liaison Officer in Burkina Faso responsible for coordinating U.S. food assistance, disaster relief and rehabilitation programs. From 1988-1989, he was Mission Director in Madagascar, overseeing programs in agricultural policy reform and research, bio-diversity conservation, health and food assistance. From 1990-1991, he was Deputy Director in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and oversaw the restructuring of USAID’s programs in light of a deepening political and economic crisis. In 1992, Baudouin travelled to Russia as part of Operation Provide Hope, a U.S. effort to provide humanitarian assistance to the newly independent states after the fall of the Soviet Union. From 1993-1994, he covered Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania as USAID’s representative to the Baltics.

After his retirement, and as his health permitted, Baudouin continued to give time in community service, first in Latvia with an organization that supported street children. Subsequently, he and Gail moved home to Minnesota, where he volunteered with the North St. Louis County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and as a tutor for students at the Northeast Range School in Babbitt, MN.

Baudouin was a devout, generous person who changed the lives of many people. We will miss terribly his Belgian accent, his offbeat sense of humor, and the smell of his pipe.
Baudouin is survived by Gail de Marcken, his wife of 46 years, and their three children: Carl de Marcken, his wife Marina Meila-Predoviciu and their daughter Nina de Marcken of Seattle, WA; Natasha de Marcken, her husband Aaron Sampson and their two children Mia and Leo Sampson of Washington, D.C.; and Paya de Marcken of Washington D.C.; as well as by six of his brothers and sisters in the U.S. and Belgium.

Gerald A. Pagano, 83, who spent 28 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development before retiring in 1987 as executive secretary to the administrator, died Aug. 20 in Arlington, VA. The cause was complications from pneumonia.

Mr. Pagano was born in New York City and served in the Coast Guard before coming to Washington in 1959. After retiring from USAID, he became deputy director for the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance at Georgetown University. From 1995 until his retirement in 2005, he was director of personnel recruitment for Development Associates, an organization that bids on government contracts, primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Anita Lanigan, 96, a contract manager with the U.S. Agency for International Development from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, died Aug. 4 at a hospital in Gaithersburg, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a nephew, Vito Maggiolo.

Mrs. Lanigan, a resident of Gaithersburg, Md., was born Anita Maggiolo in the Bronx. She moved to the Washington area in 1940 and worked for the Census Bureau and the War Production Board. She later held positions with the Interior and State departments.

Tom Donnelly was born July 28, 1941, in Pittsburgh, PA. He passed away Saturday, September 26, 2015, after a courageous battle with cancer. Tom grew up in Lebanon, PA, and then moved to Winter Park, FL where he did his undergraduate work at Rollins College.

Following a year with the U.S. Latin American Co-op, Tom began a 30-year career with the USAID, serving in Ecuador, Mexico and Costa Rica, retiring as USAID Mission Director to Mexico.

Following his retirement, he resided in Winter Park and has been active in leadership positions with Rotary Club of Winter Park (Service Above Self Award 2010), Rollins College Alumni Association (Alumni of The Year 2008), and co-founded SHARES International (now Sharing Smiles), a program of Florida Hospital Foundation that provides free cleft lip and palate surgeries and pediatric dentistry to disadvantaged children in Latin America.

Tom is preceded in death by his parents and brother, Bill Donnelly. He is survived by brother, John Donnelly, of Dunellen, Florida, two nieces, a nephew, and two grandnieces.

Frederic C. Thomas of Berkeley, CA, an artist and author aged 87, died Sept 16.

He and his wife, Xandra Loud, married 62 years, lived abroad most of this time because his life-long interest and employment was in developing countries. He served as Peace Corps country director in Morocco and Somalia, USAID director in Jordan, and UNDP resident representative in Saudi Arabia and Haiti. He wrote “Calcutta Poor” 1997; “To the Mouths of the Ganges” 2004; and “Slavery and Jihad in the Sudan” 2009.

He was born in New York City, graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, studied Arabic at Harvard and received his doctorate in social anthropology from University of London. He cared for dogs and cats and over the years. He loved music and sang with the Berkeley chorus and amused himself in quiet moments by playing an oboe. With acrylics, he painted scenes from his travels.

Robert Stone McClusky was born on Feb. 4, 1934, in Washington, D.C., to George Nesbitt and Janet Stone McClusky. His father’s jobs took the family to Oregon, California, Berlin (Germany), and finally back to the D.C. area. Bob studied at Oberlin College in Ohio and the Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs, Princeton, N.J.

Helping people and communities around the world was of great importance to Bob. He worked for CARE, the brand new Peace Corps, and finally, the Agency for International Development. In the early 60s, he was assistant director of the Peace Corps staff in Afghanistan. The period was a much different, promising time for the country, when women as well as men, were honored and given education and teaching responsibilities.

At AID, Bob worked with the Center for Human Capacity Development. He contributed much time and energy to the design and development of a National Research Council-sponsored workshop called “The Transition to Democracy.” He also worked to strengthen workforce development. He saw how important community colleges were in the US, and he strove to implement policy dialogue about them in other countries.

After overseas travel in the 1960s, Bob met Nancy Dixon, whom he married in 1968. They lived in Chevy Chase and then in Bethesda, Md., for 41 years before retirement and a move to Kendal at Oberlin in Ohio. At Kendal he was an active resident. Bob served for two years as vice president of KORA, the residents’ organization, and participated as an actor and/or director of several public play-reading events.

Bob leaves his wife, Nancy; brother, Campbell; and two daughters, Maryanne (Mrs. T. E. O’Connor Jr.) and Lauren (Mrs. F. P. Hudson). The O’Connor family includes 11-year-old Jay and nine-year-old Alaina; the Hudsons have 12-year-old Robert and nine-year-old Kathryn. Cam has one adult son, Graham.

Family vacations and holidays have been highlights in Bob’s life. When Maryanne and Laurie were teenagers, school friends would often join the family for fun at Bethany Beach, Del. Bob loved the ocean waves and the beach! Often Thanksgiving or Christmas family reunions happened.

Bob was curious about his genealogy and he discovered that he had a living relative in South Africa and a cousin (many generations removed) living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bob and Nancy made several trips to Scotland and the cousins became good friends.*