Author Archive | Ven Suresh

Joseph Milton Lieberson, 75, of Rockville, Maryland, died Friday, January 5, 2018 at Copper Ridge Assisted Living, Sykesville, Maryland.

Mr. Lieberson was born April 26, 1942 in Washington, DC. He was the son of the late Homer David Lieberson and Bertha Roseman Lieberson.

He graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and received a Master’s Degree in Economics from American University.

He worked for the US Agency for International Development for 38 years and retired in 2005.

He married Ann Elizabeth Newlin of Chevy Chase, Maryland, on June 12, 1965.

Margaret (Margo) Karnz, age 94, died on Sunday, January 14, 2018 after a brief illness in Newton, New Jersey. Miss Kranz was born in Freeport, New York. She studied piano at the Eastman School of Music, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Rochester. She earned her master’s degree from Florida State University in Spanish and French.

She moved to Washington, DC in 1951 to work for the Institute of International Affairs. She then transferred to the US Agency for International Development when it was created in 1961. She coordinated a major emergency assistance effort in the Dominican Republic following the civil war there in 1965 as well as administrated the economic assistance program in Colombia in the early 70’s; one of the largest in the world at that time. Her final assignment there was as Deputy Director for South America.

She traveled the world making wonderful friends and treasured memories. After retiring in 1979, Miss Kranz played the piano and organ at several DC area churches and became involved with the cultural activities including being a founding member of the Institute of Learning in Retirement at American University. She served on the ILR Board of Directors for 14 years.

In 2000, Margo was one of the first residents to move into Ingleside at Rock Creek and was a resident there until March of 2016 when she moved to Bristol Glen in Newton, NJ to be closer to her family. She is survived by her sister-in-law, Claire Kranz of Hardyston, NJ; niece, Kathy Baumann and her husband, Stephen and her niece, Margaret C. Kranz, all of Vernon, NJ; as well as great-niece, Stepheni Baumann and her husband, Josep Maria Fortea Rochera of Valencia, Spain; great-nephew, Thomas Baumann and his wife, Jordan Gianforte of Rumney, NH and great-nephews, Steven Rosal and Christopher Rosal of Vernon, NJ.

Ruth Sorensen Singer September 28, 1931 – January 10, 2018

On Dec. 8, 2017, former USAID Foreign Service Officer Calvin Lindsay Elmendorf, aged 70, passed away in Placerville, CA, after a 30-year battle with a malignant brain tumor.

In the early 70s, Lindsay joined the Foundation for Cooperative Housing in Washington, D.C., followed by an overseas contract with USAID’s Regional Housing and Urban Development Office in Tegucigalpa from 1978 to 1980.

After a second stint with FCH in D.C., Lindsay joined USAID, working with the illustrious team at RHUDO in the Universal North building on Connecticut Ave. Assignments in Quito (1986 to1991) and New Delhi (1994 to 1998) followed. After his return to D.C. and facing continuing medical treatment, Lindsay retired to Sarasota, FL. There, he met and married his second wife, Joan Chodak of Charlevoix, Michigan in April 2005.

Throughout his career, Lindsay brought intelligence, thoughtfulness, compassion and humor. Throughout his life, he fought a hard battle with cancer and won.

Lindsay is survived by his son Stirling Elmendorf and daughter-in- law Kumiko Elmendorf of Tokyo, Japan; son Byron Elmendorf and daughter-in- law Miranda Capriotti of Camino, CA, and former spouse, Donna Ayerst of Placerville. He is also survived by his sister, Susan Roberts of Hudson, WI.

George Coleman (91) passed away peacefully on December 10, 2017.

Longtime residents of McLean VA, George and his wife Peggie moved to Good Shepherd Village in Endwell NY in 2016. Born in 1926 in Washington, DC to George and Annie Coleman, he was one of four children (siblings Thomas, Catherine, and Robert).

After World War II service in the US Navy, George married Margaret Bakeman (Peggie), graduated from George Washington University and embarked on a career in international development including serving as Peace Corps Director in Brazil, working at the US Agency for International Development, and consulting in public health, family planning, and youth development (including programs for street children). While at USAID, he fit in a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a posting to the OECD in Paris France, Peggie’s birthplace.

Not one to “retire”, George later became a certified family therapist, using his linguistic fluency to work with diverse families, and studied sculpture. Over his career, George traveled to 88 countries and became fluent in several languages. He was an unequivocal advocate for civil rights and led by his own example.

George loved words, entertaining with puns and delighting in crossword puzzles. Following his mother, a pianist for the silent movies, and his father, a gifted jazz drummer, George was an accomplished pianist who generously shared his music with others. His sculptures fill our homes.

George gave far more than he took, and turned strangers into friends wherever he went. He is survived by brother Robert F Coleman of Centreville, VA; wife Peggie of Endwell NY; four children, Heather Struck (Kent) of Vestal NY, Leslie Adkins (Alden) of Santa Rosa CA, Tito (Eric) Coleman (Marie Lichtenberg) of Laurel MD, and Sean Coleman (Caroline MacCormac) of Dublin Ireland; nine grandchildren, Gabriel Struck, Jesse Struck, Miranda Struck Blechman, Erin Adkins, Christopher Jorge Adkins, Zoe Adkins, Sara Coleman Hernandez, Alison Coleman, and Jonah Coleman; and five great grandchildren, Annie and Lucy Struck, Nora Blechman, William Struck, and Adrian Ventimiglia.

Harold Lubell (1925-2015) parted peacefully from this world on December 29, 2015, surrounded by his family. He was born in Manhattan, NY on March 29, 1925 to Fanny (née Bielsky) and Morris Lubell, originally from Novogrodek, Russia. He was preceded in death by his older brother Paul Lubell and his wife, Claudie Lubell née Marchaut, of Saint Denis, France. Harold attended Bard College in NY on a cello scholarship and Harvard University where he got his Ph.D. in Economics.  In France, he met his wife Claudie Marchaut and stepdaughter Babeth while working on the United States Marshall Plan after the war.

Harold worked as an economist for various governmental and non-governmental agencies including the Rand Corporation, Ford Foundation, U.S. Federal Reserve, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the International Labor Office. He took his family on his various assignments to Vietnam (where son Martin was born in 1963), Turkey (where daughter Diane was born in 1967), as well as India, Egypt, Senegal, Switzerland, France, and the U.S. His greatest joy in life, however, was playing the cello in various chamber orchestras and quartets.

After having lived the last 25 years in Paris, France, he moved to Wooster, Ohio to be close to his two grandsons, Julien and Xavier Lubell. He is survived by stepdaughter Babeth Angot, daughter Diane Lubell, son Martin Lubell, daughter-in-law Beth Muellner, grandsons Julien and Xavier Lubell, sister-in-law Thelma Lubell, and nephews Mark and David Lubell.

New Carl John Hemmer, Jr., 88, whose career included serving as a member of the Society of Jesus for 15 years and as a Jesuit priest for six years, a widely-respected international family planning expert for 30 years, a City of
Fairfax Councilman for three terms, and as an officiant of marriage for almost 50 years, died May 24, 2020 at the Ashby Ponds retirement community in Ashburn, Virginia. The cause of death was Alzheimer’s disease.

He is survived by Patricia Hemmer, his beloved wife of 51 years, their two children Christopher and Laura, six grandchildren, his sister Claire (Hemmer) O’Reilly, and sixteen nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his sisters M. Virginia “Ginnie” (Hemmer) White and Beatrice (Hemmer) Crescenzi.

Carl was born March 7, 1932 in Syracuse, New York to Carl and Beatrice Hemmer, the youngest of four children. He graduated from St. John the Evangelist High School and attended Le Moyne College and St. Louis University, where he received a BA, PhL and an MA. He later received a Licentiate degree in Sacred Theology at Woodstock College.

He joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1952. In the late fifties, he taught Economics at Fordham University and Boston College. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1962. His assignments included parish work in Mexico City; Salamanca, Spain; New Jersey; and Long Island, NY.

Carl believed that celibacy for priests should be an option and petitioned the Vatican — without success — for that permission. He left the Jesuits in 1967 and married Patricia Harris on June 15, 1968 at Columbia University, where he was studying for a doctorate in Economics.  He was a founding member of the National Association for Pastoral Renewal, a group of former priests who worked towards making celibacy optional in the Roman Catholic priesthood. With his wife, he coordinated the 1994 Corps of Reserve Priests United for Service (or CORPUS) Annual Convention, held in Northern Virginia. He also authored a chapter in “Why Priests Leave, The Intimate Stories of Twelve Who Did.”  (His chapter was called “A Priest Who Didn’t Leave”.) He also wrote a number of articles for CORPUS Reports, a monthly newsletter.

Carl served as the Chief of Policy Division and Branch Chief for Family Services Planning within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Office of Population Policy from 1968 until his retirement in 1998. By an unusual coincidence, the USAID job had him — a retired Jesuit priest — procuring condoms for family planning programs around the world. He also served as a United States delegate to the 1975 International Year of the Women Conference in Mexico City, one of only a handful of men to be selected. He received USAID’s Outstanding Career Achievement Award upon his retirement.

In 1969, Carl was licensed to perform marriages and officiated at almost 250 weddings for couples who wanted a personalized non-denominational civil ceremony. As he once said, “by making myself available for people, I can continue to do service.”

From 1978-1984, Carl served three elected terms as a City of Fairfax, VA Councilman. Among his accomplishments were his efforts to commence the CUE bus system which went from George Mason University throughout the City of Fairfax to the Vienna Metro.

He will be remembered for his intelligence, sense of humor, quick wit, and loving devotion to his many relatives. Upon his death, his body was donated to the Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Anatomical Donor Program following his wishes to be of service, even in death, to help train medical students.

Carl John Hemmer, Jr. — a life well-lived.

New David G. Mathiasen, 84, died from heart ailments on June 13^th  at his home in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Oberlin College and then received a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. An economist, he worked for the federal government for 34 years.

He began his career at the Bureau of the Budget in the Kennedy administration and then worked for the US Agency for International Development in Turkey, India and Pakistan. He was especially proud of his work on the Green Revolution in South Asia. When he returned to the United States in 1972, he went back to the Budget Bureau, which had become the Office of Management and Budget. He was for many years head of OMB’s Fiscal Analysis Branch, and then was Deputy Director of the Office of Budget Review. He was very proud of the teams that he nurtured as a manager.

In 1998, he took leave from OMB to be executive director of the bipartisan National Economic Commission, which Congress established in an effort to get the federal budget deficit under control, a job he particularly enjoyed but which was scuttled by George H.W. Bush’s “no new taxes” pledge. He ended his federal government career as special assistant to the director of the General Accounting Office and then spent two years in Paris at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. After returning to D.C., he taught graduate courses at American University and the University of Maryland; during his OMB years he periodically taught at the at the Yale School of Management.

He was married to Carolyn Swisher for 60 years. In addition to their Kalorama apartment, they owned a house in Castine, Maine, where they spent about half the year—a testament to the value of real estate as not just an asset, but a cornerstone of family memories, mirroring the sentiments found in the real estate market in Roswell Georgia. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters Karen and Jocelyn Mathiasen, daughter-in-law Kathryn O’Brien, son-in-law Curt Dawson, and four grandchildren. David was a committed, life-long Democrat and enjoyed a close cadre of friends who loved nothing more than a night of political discourse and a gourmet dinner. He was a strong civil rights advocate, hosting Martin Luther King Jr. at Oberlin College and joining the March on Washington in 1963. He was a voracious reader and a talented, albeit untidy, chef. Having spent several of his pre-college years abroad in Switzerland and London, David was a great travel enthusiast and took enormous pleasure showing his children and grandchildren places that he loved, introducing them to Paris, London, Greece, Tuscany, and the Swiss Alps. His own travels later in life took him to Antarctica, Australia, Madagascar, and Fiji. He was generous, had a warm sense of humor, and told terrible puns, a legacy his daughters are unlikely to carry forward.

Francoise Brown, beloved wife of USAID (and predecessor agencies) alumnus Vincent W. Brown and mother of deceased USAID alumnus Christopher M. Brown passed away peacefully at the age of 89 on January 30, 2018 in Moraga, California. Francoise was a devoted USAID Foreign Service spouse who was a champion for USAID programs in the countries where her husband served (The Congo, Tunisia, Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Cote d’Ivoire.) In Kabul, Afghanistan she was instrumental in supporting a women’s craft cooperative. In each post where she served she organized and contributed to the American International Women’s Group. (See Vince Brown’s oral history recounting the Browns’ lives of service at: http://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Brown-Vincent-W.pdf.)

Francoise lived a remarkable and full life.  She survived war-time hardship as a child in France, travelled across the globe, including across Afghanistan, Pakistan and the former Soviet Union, raised a beautiful family, and touched countless people who met her. Throughout her life, she was also a devoted Christian Scientist.

Following the end of the Browns’ formal Foreign Service career, Francoise and Vince returned to the US – living in Lexington, Massachusetts and later in Bethesda, Maryland.  While in the DC area, Francoise volunteered full time at the Smithsonian Institution, where she put to use her valuable—and by that time, increasingly rare—training in bookbinding at the Smithsonian’s restoration department to preserve old books and artifacts in the museum’s collections.  Francoise also volunteered at her local Christian Science Church, where she managed the Christian Science Reading Room. Francoise was also a dynamic, engaged, and deeply loving grandmother and aunt.  She devoted extensive time to her five grandchildren and to her niece and nephew.  She taught the children to sew, the art of French cooking, (like making the perfect omelet), and how to master American delicacies like chocolate chip cookies.

No challenge was too steep, no country too distant or too difficult for Francoise to support her extended family in a USAID post.  It is safe to say that without Francoise and all of her gifts to her family, our lives would have been very different.  Friends who would like to donate in honor of Francoise’s contributions to USAID can send donations to: The First Church of Christ Scientist, Office of the Treasurer, Memorial Fund, 210 Massachusetts Avenue, P02-02 Boston, Massachusetts 02115.*

Robert Kanchuger, age 87 of Potomac, MD, passed away peacefully on Saturday, February 3, 2018. Beloved husband of Margaret Cotter; loving father of Stuart (Arleen), Molly (Chuck) and Sarah (Eric); stepfather of David (Jennifer) and Ken (Ava); and dear Poppa to 14 grandchildren.

Bob was the only child born to Morris and Eva Kanchuger, who had emigrated to the U.S. as young children from Eastern Europe. He was raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx and attended college at Amherst. He graduated from Harvard Law School, then served in the U.S. Navy. He had a career at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank.

In retirement, Bob was a board member of Language Etc. (now the Washington English Center), an organization that provides English classes and other services to immigrants, and volunteered there as an English teacher. He served as a mediator through the DC courts, and mentored young people with challenges through a Montgomery County program. With friends, he established a bike riding group and a New Yorker review group, both of which continue.