FALL 2013:
Laurence V. Benét and Thomas C. Benét: Two Generations and a Century of AFS Service 2 Trailblazing Women of AFS: Blaikie Forsyth Worth 6 100 Years! AFS Gets Ready to Celebrate Its Centennial 8 New Documentary Tells the Story of Three Generations of AFS Drivers for Peace 10 Letter from the AFS International President 12 A World War I American Field Service Ambulance Is Brought Back to Life 12 AFS WWII Ambulance Drivers Last Post 14 A WWII Ambulance Driver Visits the Past and Present in the AFS Archives 16
Laurence V. Benét and Thomas C. Benét: Two Generations and a Century of AFS Service
Dear AFS Friend, Our centennial year is just around the corner. We will be celebrating the founding of AFS 100 years ago and AFS’s successful evolution through radically different historical eras and into the future. This issue’s feature article illustrates AFS’s ability to adapt through the story of two members of the same family, Laurence V. and Thomas C. Benét, who supported AFS in very different ways during both World Wars. The article also reveals some interesting AFS history that will probably be new to most of you. The theme of AFS’s successful evolution is continued with “New Documentary Tells the Story of Three Generations of AFS Drivers for Peace,” where you will learn about an upcoming film that shows how the work of AFS has continued to break new ground from World War II to the present, and with “A World War I American Field Service Ambulance Is Brought Back to Life,” which describes a project that uses a reconstruction of a 1916 AFS ambulance to communicate the value of volunteering to today’s audiences. Our “Trailblazing Women of AFS” series continues in this issue with a profile of Blaikie Forsyth Worth, who found working at AFS to be the perfect channel for putting into action her desire, and the desire of many members of her generation who came of age after World War II, to make the world a better place. We plan to celebrate the past and future of AFS through a variety of events and activities beginning in 2014 that you can read about in “100 Years! AFS Gets Ready to Celebrate Its Centennial.” We extend to you a heartfelt invitation to participate in the events associated with our Centennial. As always, we thank you for your support of AFS and its programs.
Carlos Porro, Editor carlos.porro@afs.org
AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc. 71 West 23rd Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10010-4102 USA tel: +1.212.807.8686 fax: +1.212.807.1001 www.afs.org
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“ . . . it was so marvelous that Steve Galatti and some of the veterans got together and did the ‘swords into plowshares’ thing. So I support it [AFS] not only sentimentally but because I think it’s a fine cause.”
As World War II was winding down, 18-year-old Yale student Thomas Carr Benét tried to join the U.S. Army, but was turned down because he was nearsighted. Undeterred, he volunteered for the American Field Service (AFS) in May 1945. He still remembers his encounter with Stephen Galatti in the AFS office on Beaver Street. “There was a great deal of humanity in him that you recognized right away. Even though I was really way down in the AFS, you got the feeling that he was interested and concerned about you.” Because he was sent overseas just ten days before Japan surrendered, Tom served in the AFS for only about four months. He and his unit (IB 60) traveled to England on the Queen Mary and were sent to a British army installation at Southend-on-Sea. With hostilities over, his duties were minimal, but as a newly minted adult with no military experience, he found that simply being connected to the British army and travelling back and forth on a troop ship was “maturing.” Tom spent his time in England with a cohort of AFS volunteers, among whom he discerned a commonality. Even though the US military had turned most of them down for various reasons, they didn’t give up. “We all wanted to get involved in some
Laurence Benét (second from left) with Dr. Edmund Gros inspecting a field hospital set up at Bois de Boulogne, Paris, June 1915. Photographer unknown.
Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Benét on the American Ambulance Hospital grounds, circa 1914-1917. Photographer unknown.
On the cover: Background picture: Front court of the American Ambulance Hospital with newly-arrived supplementary ambulances lined up for inspection, 1916. Photographer unknown. Top picture: Laurence V. Benét, undated. Photographer unknown. Bottom picture: Tom Benét on the Yale campus, 1949. Photograph courtesy of Tom Benét.
helpful way and the AFS was a very positive avenue to pursue.” Timing prevented Tom from doing active duty with the AFS; nevertheless, he had the rare opportunity to live through a transition from war to peace. He spent a good deal of time on leave in London, which was “still pretty battered,” though he could perceive that “there was very definitely a sense of lifting of spirits.” He recalled that on VJ Day, the official end of the war, “I joined the swirling crowds around Piccadilly and went down to Buckingham Palace and saw Churchill come out on the balcony.” The experience was “immensely exciting and really kind of incomparable. You rarely get a chance to be a small observer of a pretty epic day.” A Great-Uncle Lays the Foundation Tom experienced the AFS at the conclusion of its manifestation as a volunteer ambulance service. In an interesting twist of history, one of Tom’s
relatives had played a significant role in the AFS at its very beginning. His great-uncle, Laurence Vincent Benét, was living in France when World War I broke out in 1914. He had been born in West Point, NY, in 1863 and had graduated from Yale in 1884 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He moved to France the following year to work for the Hotchkiss Company, manufacturers of the Hotchkiss machine gun. After serving as an ensign with the US Navy in the SpanishAmerican War in 1898, he returned to France to resume his work with the Hotchkiss Company. By 1914, Laurence was a prominent member of the American expatriate community, which was mobilizing in a humanitarian effort to serve their adopted country. He served on the Board of Governors and the Transportation Committee of the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly from its inception in August 1914 until it was dissolved in July 1917.
A Clash of Titans Due to his position on the Hospital’s Transportation Committee, Laurence initially worked closely with A. Piatt Andrew and the American Ambulance Field Service (AAFS), which had been established in April 1915 after Andrew negotiated with the French military to have ambulance sections work closer to the front lines. However, Laurence cut ties with Andrew and the AAFS after it became independent from the American Ambulance Hospital in July 1916, in large part because the two men had different priorities for how the ambulances should be used. Laurence’s energy was directed toward the hospital itself and toward transporting the wounded in and around Paris, whereas Andrew wanted the ambulances to serve on the front lines. Andrew’s ambulance organization eventually became known as the AFS. Tom knew his great-uncle “Larry,” though he did not see him often, since Laurence lived most of his life in Paris.
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He remembers his great-uncle as a very elegant man who stayed at the Plaza Hotel when he came to New York City, and has a memory of him opening a bottle of champagne in his hotel room and sending the cork out the window into Central Park. Tom had absorbed enough knowledge about the AFS through his family ties to be aware of it as an alternative to the Army, but he never had the opportunity to talk to Laurence about his wartime experiences in Paris. Although Laurence corresponded frequently with Tom’s mother, Tom has not found any references to the AFS in his letters. “He Was the Bridge” Fortunately, Bill Foley can fill in some of the details of history that didn’t get passed down through the Benét generations. Foley is a long-time student and collector of artifacts of the American Ambulance Hospital and the AFS. He was an active volunteer at the AFS Archives and personally knew and collected oral histories of some of the WWI AFS Drivers. The AFS Janus spoke to Foley and learned that Laurence’s short-lived direct involvement with Andrew and the AFS obscures the crucial groundwork he laid for the AFS’s capacity to save so many lives throughout the war. His contributions were conceptual and technical. First, he understood early on that it was important to replace horse-drawn ambulances with motorized vehicles and advocated for that transition to happen in Paris. He was also instrumental, along with his good friend Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, who had helped found the American Hospital in Neuilly and donated motor transport, in organizing the Hospital’s first ambulance corps service. Having helped create the ambulance corps, Laurence then used his expertise as a design engineer to make it more efficient. Although he is primarily associated with his design refinements to the Hotchkiss machine gun, the improved version of which was used by the French during World
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Tom Benét at his desk at the San Francisco Chronicle, 1962. Photograph courtesy of Tom Benét.
War I, he also helped reconfigure motorized ambulances to enable them to pick up greater numbers of casualties. His contributions included a device that could either be lowered to create seats or flipped up to make room for stretcher cases. Foley believes that it is fair to say that without Laurence’s breakthroughs, the AFS would not have gotten off to the start that it did and Andrew may have had to start from scratch: “If it wasn’t for him, they [the AFS] would’ve been in trouble.” In strengthening what became the AFS, Laurence also helped the Allied cause. When the United States Army entered the war in 1917 and took over ambulance-related duties, the AFS was able to turn over to them a perfectly running operation: “All the Army had to do was put their own drivers in and go,” Foley noted. Until this point, the AFS volunteers
had evacuated more than 500,000 casualties. After he broke with Andrew and the AFS, Laurence remained with the American Ambulance Unit until the United States entered the war in July 1917. He was also active at the political level, working closely with US ambassadors to France and raising funds for the American Ambulance Unit, as well as for the AFS. His wife, Margaret Benét, served on the American Hospital’s Women’s Committee and volunteered as a nurse, a fundraiser, and a spokesperson. Margaret also worked for refugees in the devastated regions of wartorn France until 1919. The Benéts continued to be be active members of the American expatriate community for decades. Laurence worked for the Hotchkiss Company for more than fifty years, rising to vice president and director, and was made a Grand Officer
of the French Legion of Honor and awarded the French Medal of Honor, among many other commendations. The Next Generation After finishing his time with the AFS, Tom finally got his wish to join the US Army. The Army had eased its entry requirements, so he was almost immediately drafted to spend a year in the peacetime army. He found the experience “pretty boring,” but it earned him the GI Bill, which paid for him to finish his studies at Yale, where he majored in English. While still at Yale, he worked for a summer at the New York Times, which told him that if he got some experience elsewhere he could come back. Before he graduated he wrote to newspapers all over the country, but he only got one reply. That was from the San Francisco Chronicle, which offered him a three-month tryout period. “By God, it was the best decision I ever made. I liked the Chronicle a lot, and I was a young reporter, and it was a town of four newspapers. I was a great way to learn the business.” He took the job in 1949 and stayed until he retired in 1997. A Literate and Military Family Tom’s father was the writer Stephen Vincent Benét. His best-known work is John Brown’s Body, a long narrative poem about the American Civil War that earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, but he also won an O. Henry Award for his 1936 short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for an unfinished narrative poem about the settling of the United States. The movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was adapted from Benét’s adaptation of the Roman myth of the rape of the Sabine Women. Tom recalled that his father “ . . . was an army brat, and heard these stories almost first-hand about the Civil War; that got him a great deal of background. I think what he did really was bring a lot of these major characters to life through poetry.” Stephen Vincent Benét was by no means the only member of the Benét
Tom Benét looking at an exhibit of his father’s papers at Yale’s Sterling library, 1949. Photograph courtesy of Tom Benét.
family to intertwine the military life with a life of letters. Tom’s great-grandfather, Brigadier General Stephen V. Benét, wrote A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial in 1834 during his tenure as a professor of ethics at West Point (and went on to become a chief of ordnance of the US Army during the Civil War and an advisor to President Lincoln). His uncle, William Rose Benét, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1942. Laurence Benét also found time for literature. Tom remembers him as “a very literate connoisseur of the arts” and still has a lot of his books. Although Tom is modest about the extent to which he carried on the family’s literary tradition, saying he “took the easy way out” by going into journalism, he rose to become the editor of the editorial page of the San Francisco Chronicle. At the time, the Chronicle was the second biggest newspaper west of the Mississippi River and had a million readers on Sunday and 500,000 readers daily. The paper’s
subtitle was “The Voice of the West.” “I thought that was pretty good for a kid who grew up in Paris and New York,” Tom acknowledged. By generously supporting AFS exchange programs for many years, Tom is extending his great uncle Laurence’s contributions to the AFS into nearly a century of Benét involvement. His motivation is a combination of having taken part in the AFS himself and his belief that “ . . . it was so marvelous that Steve Galatti and some of the veterans got together and did the ‘swords into plowshares’ thing. So I support it [AFS] not only sentimentally but because I think it’s a fine cause.” It is impossible to know what Laurence Benét would have thought of AFS today. Given his penchant for figuring out how to improve things and his decades of living in a different culture, however, it is very possible that would have agreed with his great-nephew.
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Trailblazing Women of AFS:
Blaikie Forsyth Worth Blaikie in Berlin in 1952 with a German AFS Returnee from the United States. Photograph courtesy of Blaikie Forsyth Worth.
Blaikie Forsyth Worth began her AFS career in 1951, when she was a recent graduate of Bryn Mawr. As a freshman in college, Blaikie had travelled to Europe as a participant of the first student tour of the US National Student Association and later studied in France. These early travels further inspired in her an interest in the world outside the United States, an interest that had begun in childhood thanks to reading about Heidi, Mowgli, and Ping the Duck! Blaikie was motivated by idealism, like many in her generation, coming of age so soon after World War II. “We wanted to save the world,” she said, “and AFS seemed a likely place to start. I am still inspired today by AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 6
young people with the courage and vision to leave their homes and adapt to other people and cultures. The reward very often is their emotional and intellectual growth tied to an international experience, so that there is a dimension to them that not everyone has—and a very valuable one for them, and for their future.” As for Galatti, Blaikie recalled, “Many people found out about AFS through networking. Galatti was eager to have young people right out of school. Partly that was because he didn’t have to pay them very much, but also he wanted us to learn how to do our jobs from him and from Dorothy Field, George Edgell, and Sachi Kuwamoto, senior staff members and extraordinary people whom some AFS Returnees will still remember. He was very skeptical of academic institutions and degrees—I don’t know why, but he had a real prejudice against them. So if he thought you were coming in with a string of master’s degrees or something, he would not want that; he wanted you to start fresh. We would learn on the job, as indeed we had to do.” Galatti must have seen something
special in Blaikie’s potential as an AFS employee, and he was not mistaken—“once I had acquired a work ethic,” she clarified. Blaikie’s contributions to AFS through her tenure as staff member and later as a member of the Board of Trustees were outstanding.
“...Women were one of the engines of building the organization without a doubt, and the magic key was that the volunteers, like the staff, loved the students.” Blaikie candidly described the early AFS office environment: “The office on 30th Street was in a grungy little building. Some of the ambulance drivers would sleep upstairs. One of them more or less lived there; I recall one of these drivers as a very gallant man whom I am afraid we used to laugh at. There was always lots of laughter at AFS. There were not very many of us on staff, seven or eight people, and the budget was often in the red. Mr. Galatti wrote to all of his high school and college
Blaikie travelling with AFS students in 1955. Photograph courtesy of Blaikie Forsyth Worth.
friends begging for money for the program. The ambulance drivers would sometimes have get-togethers there and the board would have their meetings there as well. It was a oneman show; I mean, there was a board, but it pretty much went along with Galatti’s decisions.” Blaikie recalled that Galatti “ . . . was a very charming and charismatic person.” As for his preference for engaging women as both staff and volunteers, she said, “People were eager to be active in the workplace. A lot of women in that era were at home and didn’t have the opportunities that exist now, and in many cases didn’t have the economic need that drives couples into dual careers. Lots of intelligent, able women were sitting at home and had energy to spare along with raising their children. This was perfect for AFS because it gave these women a window to the great world, an opportunity to use their energies and smarts, and we were lucky to have them. Women were, without a doubt, one of the engines in building the organization; the magic key was that the volunteers, like the staff, loved the students. The programs boomed: Chapters! Overseas offices! Jets
Blaikie with her grandchildren Jojo and Owen. Photograph courtesy of Blaikie Forsyth Worth.
replacing the old ships that used to lumber across the Atlantic! Students from many new countries!” Blaikie became a staff assistant, then head of the Northeast Division, and eventually became head of student and family counseling. Of her work with AFS she said, ‘There were challenges when one felt inadequate to a particular demand. But most of us were well equipped. We were educated young women who wanted to do a good job. People like Dot Field taught us how to deal with challenges. We learned not to be frightened of other people’s reactions and how to talk to them in a way that would make them realize that we sympathized with their particular situation.” Blaikie left AFS in 1964 when her first baby was imminent, but remained active on a part-time basis as a selection and placement specialist. In 1966 she was invited to become a trustee. “It was so interesting to go from being staff to being on the Board. I think a person in my position was able to be helpful because I knew how AFS worked. During my tenure I chaired the Diversity Committee, which was charged with diversifying the
population of AFS Participants both abroad and in the United States. At the time, AFS Participants were fairly homogeneous. We worked hard to persuade the Board that there had to be much more done in terms of diversity. I’ve always been very pleased that we did that because it was something that needed to be done.” Blaikie left the Board of Trustees in 1975. “I didn’t leave because of lack of interest; I had enjoyed my work hugely. But I heard a little voice that told me that it was time to move on, that new people were needed.” Of her experience with the organization Blaikie said, “I have never lost my passion for AFS. I have remained connected to the organization. AFS is a part of my life that I value very much; I made a lot of friends and had many wonderful experiences during my time there. AFS was a great benefit both to me and to my family.” In November 2009, Blaikie was honored with the AFS International President’s Award for her contributions to the organization and her role in shaping the organization we are today. Her record of service and her exceptional support of the mission and the values of AFS are deeply appreciated. AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 7
100 Years! AFS Gets Ready to Celebrate Its Centennial
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he AFS Network will celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the American Field Service starting in July 2014 through 2015. AFS will observe its Centennial in geographic locations as diverse as Kansas City, MO, and Paris, France, and in institutional locations ranging from museums to UNESCO, from European battlefields to cyberspace. In this article, we highlight a number of the events and initiatives associated with the Centennial. It will be a very exciting celebration, and we hope you will join us. AFS Returns to Paris in Its Centennial Year In November 2014 the leadership of the AFS Network will come together in Paris for its AFS World Congress and to celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the American Field Service. In the year of the Centennial, Paris was the only logical venue. After all, it was in this city a century ago that A. Piatt Andrew transformed the informal association of ambulance corps based at the American Hospital in Neuilly into the highly organized American Field Service, which participated in every major French battle of World War I and carried more AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 8
than 500,000 wounded. After the AFS World Congress, several Centennial events will provide occasions for festivity and observance. World Congress host AFS Vivre Sans Frontière (AFS France), AFS Interculturele Programma’s vzw (AFS Belgium-Flanders), AFS Programmes Interculturels asbl (AFS BelgiumFrench), and the European Federation for Intercultural Learning (EFIL) will offer the opportunity to visit several places in France and Belgium that are steeped in AFS history. There will be a visit to Verdun, the site of an epic World War I battle between France and Germany that resulted in almost three-quarters of a million casualties, and in which several AFS units were active. A four-day field trip to the north of France and the west of Flanders will retrace the footsteps of the first AFS Ambulance Drivers; a specially designed walking tour of Paris will do the same. Centennial events in Paris will not just focus on the origins of AFS. Immediately following the World Congress, the AFS Global Intercultural Education Symposium will be convened at the UNESCO Paris headquarters. Luminaries from around the world who have made significant
achievements in education and promoting peace will discuss the rights and responsibilities of individuals versus institutions in the creation of global citizenship education. These panel discussions will inspire the next 100 years of AFS programs. The AFS Story Told Through a Major Museum Exhibition World Congress attendees will not be the only audience for Centennialrelated events. AFS is organizing a major museum exhibition entitled, “The Volunteers: Americans Join World War I, 1914–1919.” “The Volunteers” explores the stories of Americans who chose to get involved in World War I years before the United States officially entered the conflict. The exhibition traces the little-known history of how volunteer groups affected World War I and pioneered models for later international humanitarian organizations, a story in which AFS plays a central role. The exhibition tells this story through a selection of artifacts that includes excerpts from private correspondence, diaries, and contemporary press cartoons. Silent movies, oral histories, and uniforms from different volunteer
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1. Artist rendering of one of the modules of “The Volunteers: Americans Join World War I, 1914– 1919” exhibition. Exhibit and graphic design by Peter Hyde Design. 2. Sample page from the American Field Service Centennial Book.
services illustrate the volunteers’ experiences near the front lines and around the hospitals. Many of the exhibition items are drawn from the AFS Archives, while others come from private collections and archives in the United States and abroad. Many have never been seen by the general public. “The Volunteers” will open at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO, on October 4, 2014, and then at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, in May 2015. In late 2015 the exhibition is expected to open in Strasbourg, France, at the Musée Würth France Erstein; additional venues in Europe and the United States are being scouted. A smaller, travelling version of the exhibition will focus almost exclusively on AFS and will be customizable for AFS Partners and Regions that wish to display it. The Centennial Global Changemakers Scholarship Program AFS will offer the Partners in the AFS Network the opportunity to participate in the Centennial Global Changemakers Scholarship Program—“100 Years, 100
Scholarships.” The goal for the program is to award at least 100 scholarships to deserving young women and men who have shown evidence of having the potential and motivation to make positive change in their countries. The scholarships will be awarded in 2015 for the 2015-16 school-year program. Multimedia Tributes to AFS on the Occasion of the Centennial Two very different books will commemorate the Centennial of the American Field Service. AFS International and AFS-USA have created the American Field Service Centennial Book (www. AFSCentennialBook.com), an online digital collection of personal histories that document and honor AFS Ambulance Drivers from both World Wars—including those who founded AFS Intercultural Programs in 1946—as well as people who donated ambulances during World War I. Some of the history presented in the American Field Service Centennial Book was unknown until its creation. AFS Drivers’ descendants as well as AFS friends and supporters will be invited to contribute comments, messages, and photos; the online
format allows the book’s content to evolve continually. In collaboration with Intercultura (AFS Italy), AFS will also publish a printed, illustrated book that recounts the history of the American Field Service and the founding and development of AFS Intercultural Programs. The book’s closing section will reflect on the present and future directions of AFS. It will be available for sale at the Gala events in Paris, and will also be available to AFS Partners to sell and present as VIP gifts. To make it more affordable, the book will be printed as a quality paperback. A short version of The Drivers will be screened at the 2014 AFS World Congress. The Drivers is a documentary about the World War II AFS Ambulance Drivers, the early days of the student exchange programs they created, and the role these programs continue to play in uniting young people from countries that have difficult relationships with each other. See page 10 to read more about this film. For more information about the Centennial events and to let us know that you would like to receive an invitation to participate in the events in Paris, please write to rsvp@afs.org. AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 9
New Documentary Tells the Story of Three Generations of AFS Drivers for Peace 1
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t is no secret among the AFS community that there has always been something very special about the work that AFS does. A forthcoming documentary about AFS called The Drivers will share the source of this pride with general audiences. The AFS Janus had the opportunity to interview the filmmaker, Tracy Christian, about her project. A Documentary Filmmaker Is Born Tracy grew up in New York City and studied acting at New York University. She did not set out to specialize in documentaries. This path was set in motion unexpectedly before a vacation to Kenya, when a friend asked her to personally deliver a donation to an orphanage in Nairobi that got street children involved in the performing arts. Tracy saw the children perform and was so moved that she decided to capture them on video. Her initial plan was to make a short fundraising trailer, “But by the time the twentieth person said to me, ‘are you sure you don’t want to make a documentary film?’ I thought, ‘that’s a provocative idea!’” As a first-time filmmaker, Tracy needed guidance. An AFS connection came to the rescue.
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Tracy’s husband is Hal Denton, who has served as general counsel of AFS International for 25 years. Denton suggested Ward Chamberlin, Jr., AFS Life Trustee and World War II AFS Ambulance Driver, who had played a major role in the creation of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), and had mentored Ken Burns. Chamberlin was very enthusiastic about Tracy’s ideas. Their collaboration resulted in Street Journeys, a film about the Nairobi orphanage that was chosen as an official selection at several film festivals. During one of Tracy’s many visits with Chamberlin over the years, she mentioned that it would be great for the AFS story to be preserved as a film. He replied, “You make it!” She followed his advice. Three Waves of Peacemakers In Tracy’s words, The Drivers tells the story “of a group of heroes that emerged from a volunteer corps of ambulance drivers called the American Field Service . . . and the lives they continue to change through their enduring legacy.” This story has three acts. In act one, viewers meet the World War II Drivers—visionary elders as
Tracy calls them—through archival materials as well as 2013 interviews with World War II AFS Ambulance Drivers Chamberlin, Art Howe, Jr., also an AFS Life Trustee, and Dr. Bayard Clarkson, who assisted in the evacuation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Act two covers the evolution of the AFS Drivers’ mission. Two early stories illustrate the unprecedented challenges AFS faced while trying to improve relations between countries that had been at war less than a decade before. Mary Grace Heller was a Jewish teenager who went on an AFS exchange to Germany to live with a family that had requested a non-Jewish exchange student. When her father expressed doubt, Heller countered, “If I don’t go, who will?” Hilde Schramm was the daughter of Hitler’s chief architect, Albert Speer, a lineage that could have defined her future. Instead, Schramm forged her own path by becoming an AFS Participant to the United States in spite of resistance from American public opinion and the US State Department. Act three is contemporary, chronicling the exchange experiences of students from different countries who come to study in the United
States. Setting the context through news footage of post9/11 incidents of mutual animosity between countries, Tracy makes the case that students of today serve as ambassadors—contemporary incarnations of the peacemakers profiled in the first two acts. Past and present AFS-related sources yielded almost all of Tracy’s material. She conducted months of research in the AFS Archives, which yielded unique artifacts such as an AFS Driver’s personal film documenting the evacuation of Bergen-Belsen. Head Archivist Nicole Milano not only served as Tracy’s guide to the collections, she also provided leads to interview subjects
The Drivers tells the story “of a group of heroes that emerged from a volunteer corps of ambulance drivers called the American Field Service . . . and the lives they continue to change through their enduring legacy.” and AFS anecdotes, such as the one Art Howe recounted in 2013 about arranging with a dying German soldier to send his personal effects to his family. Inspired by AFS, Inspiring to AFS Tracy is simultaneously fundraising and completing filming (in November 2013 she and her film crew travelled to Germany at Hilde Schramm’s invitation to follow up on her AFS experience). Her ultimate goal is to have the film air on cable channels such as HBO or the History Channel, in addition to a theatrical release. She plans to make The Drivers available to the AFS community as soon as possible, and sees great
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potential in showing the film to AFS Participants before their departures to remind them of the work they are carrying on. This potential was affirmed during a recent interview Tracy conducted with an AFS Participant from the United States who was leaving for Turkey. Tracy described the message of The Drivers for the young woman, adding that she considered the student to be a peacemaker in the same vein as the film’s characters. The young woman was surprised but also very moved by this characterization. Other AFS Participants Tracy interviewed “asked me so many questions about the drivers . . . hearing about them as individuals instead of as a broad group was so inspiring to them.” Drivers for Peace It would be reasonable to assume that the film’s title refers exclusively to the AFS Ambulance Drivers. Preserving their legacy is one of Tracy’s goals, but her definition of drivers is much broader, referring to drivers for peace across the generations. In 1963 President Kennedy addressed AFS Participants at the White House and urged them to remember the big picture: “This
effort . . . has been made because a judgment has been reached . . . that you will stand in your community, in your state, and in your country for those principles which motivate us all: A chance for everyone, a fair chance, and also for a world in which we have some hope for peace.” President Kennedy did not use the words drivers for peace, but it is clear that, separated by fifty years, he and Tracy understand the significance of the AFS experience in exactly the same way. For more information about Tracy Christian’s work, including The Drivers, please visit http://www.sandgrainproductions. com.
1. AFS Ambulance Drivers Ward Chamberlin, Jr. (left) and Art Howe, Jr. (center), being filmed by cinematographer Graham Willoughby (right). Willoughby’s father, Alan Willoughby, was also an AFS Ambulance Driver. 2. Mary Grace Heller (left) and Tracy Christian (right). Photographs courtesy of Tracy Christian.
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Letter from the AFS International President Jan Eliasson (left), Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, AFS Returnee and keynote speaker at the Annual Dinner of the US Council on International Business, September 18, 2013. He is pictured with Dr. Vincenzo Morlini (center) and Peter Robinson (right), President and CEO of the US Council for International Business and AFS Returnee.
These are exciting times for AFS. The AFS Centennial celebrations, which will begin next summer and continue throughout 2015, are being developed by AFS International and are sparking creative ideas among AFS Partners. The Centennial events around the world will unite the AFS community in honoring the legacy of our founders and provide a once-in-a-century opportunity for visibility, increasing affiliation, and fundraising. They will also allow us to reflect on how we can continue to evolve as one of the most respected intercultural education organizations in the world. I invite you to get involved and celebrate with us. You may join us in Paris in November 2014 to attend the Centennial Gala, participate in tours of World War I battlefields, or follow in the footsteps of the AFS Ambulance Drivers on a walking tour. We hope you will attend the AFS Global Intercultural Education Symposium at the UNESCO Headquarters for a discussion with world leaders and education luminaries about educating global citizens in the 21st century. You will have the opportunity to attend a museum exhibition called, “The Volunteers: Americans Join World War I, 1914-1919,” opening on October 4, 2014, at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO, and then travelling to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, and the Musée Würth in Erstein, France, later in 2015. The exhibition will explore the role of American volunteers during World War I and how their efforts laid the foundation for the international humanitarian movements that developed during the twentieth century. A smaller, customizable travelling exhibition about the history of AFS will be available to AFS Partners for presentation in their countries and languages. We are creating an online book, the American Field Service Centennial Book, which presents the history of many of the AFS Ambulance Drivers. You are invited to contribute material to help celebrate the gallant individuals who served during the twentieth century’s two greatest conflicts. Please see the article on page 8 for more information or visit the Centennial Celebrations Network group on the AFS World Café at community.afsworldcafe.org. The main thing I ask of you is not to stay on the sidelines. Please join us in celebrating this Centennial in any way you can. I know that with your support, we will make it a celebration to remember for many years to come.
Vincenzo Morlini President and CEO AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc.
AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 12
A World War I American Field Service Ambulance Is Brought Back to Life George King III loves Model T Fords. He got his first Model T fifty years ago when he was in high school and eventually his passion led him to restore them professionally. While researching one of his restoration projects, King stumbled upon the story of the World War I American Field Service (AFS) Ambulance Drivers. These volunteers drove Model T Fords that had been donated by Americans who wanted to help France even though the United States remained neutral at the time. As a historian, King was amazed that he had not already known about this unique chapter of American history. He realized there must be many others who also didn’t know and decided that the best way to spread the word was to build an AFS World War I Ambulance. Three years of research ensued, including many hours spent in the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs (AFS Archives). From his home in Connecticut, King contacted a Frenchman whose commitment to accuracy rivaled his own. Rémi Thevenin had gone to the Musée de la Voiture in France every Tuesday for three years in order to sketch the parts of what was at the time the only AFS Ambulance left in existence in Europe. King had been unsuccessful in convincing Thevenin to sell him a copy of his drawings, so during a trip to France to see the AFS Ambulance, he went to Thevenin’s house to make an appeal in person. After a four-hour conversation, King got what he had come for. King and his team started building AFS Ambulance 255 in September 2009, using information from the
George King III driving AFS Ambulance 255 in President Obama’s inauguration parade, January 2013. Photo courtesy of George King III.
AFS Ambulance Drivers’ diaries and letters to guide them and an original 1916 Model T Ford chassis. The finished ambulance was officially dedicated on May 5, 2012, the date in 1916 when the original AFS Ambulance 255 went into service for the first time.
“Without the ambulance, I would just be another guy telling a story.” He now uses AFS Ambulance 255 as the centerpiece of a presentation he makes regularly in schools, museums, and historical societies. His presentation not only describes the restoration project, but also urges people to volunteer in their community. King uses the spirit and accomplishments of the AFS Ambulance Drivers as his model. “Think about it.” he says. “AFS had close to 2,500 ambulance and camion drivers during World War I— most of whom were college students or recent graduates—paying their own way to France, paying for their own uniforms, etc. These volunteers
evacuated 500,000 casualties in three years. If only half of the 500,000 went on to have a family of two children each, and you project that through the generations since the war, it would account for four million persons who otherwise would not exist today.” Almost a century after the original
AFS Ambulance 255 was picking up casualties on the battlefields of France, King was selected to drive its reincarnation in President Barack H. Obama’s second inaugural parade in January 2013. In a letter to Michelle Obama thanking her for her work promoting volunteerism, King had written that he looked forward to waving to her from the seat of AFS Ambulance 255. Someone in the White House took careful notes; as King drove by the president’s reviewing stand, she waved directly at him. King’s future plans include returning to France, this time with the ambulance. He hopes to be there in 2014 to help AFS kick off its centennial celebration and to attend the centennial observance of the first battle of the Marne. AFS Ambulance 255 even has a retirement plan. When he gets “too tired to crank it to life anymore,” King plans to donate it to a national museum. In the meantime, King considers the ambulance to be a “living history event.” “That’s why I built it. Without the ambulance, I would just be another guy telling a story.” For more information on the Ambulance 255 Project, please visit http://www.ambulance255.org
George King III in France in 2009 conducting research at the Musée de la Voiture before beginning construction of Ambulance 255. The ambulance pictured is the only existing original AFS ambulance. Photo by Jean-Claude Emond.
AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 13
AFS WWII Ambulance Drivers Last Post Norman C. Eddy
Walter J. Brethauer
William S. Drew
(ME 4, CM 88)
(ME 19, CM 94, and IB 59-T)
(ME 4, IB 4)
Reverend Norman Cooley Eddy passed away on June 21, 2013, at age 93. He was born on February 9, 1920, in New Britain, CT. In 1940 Eddy went to Cuba for two months with the American Friends Service Committee and in 1942 he joined AFS, serving in the African Campaign in the Western Desert and the Italian Campaign until his repatriation in 1945. In the summer of 1943 Eddy had a spiritual experience on the road to Damascus, leading him to study many religions and attend the Union Theological seminary (after already having graduated from Yale University.) He and his wife, Peg, raised their three children in East Harlem, and were heavily involved in community activism throughout their lives. This activism continues at the New York Theological Seminary with the Margaret and Norman Eddy Program Center for Spiritual Coordination and Community Wellbeing. Eddy also served as an AFS Life Trustee. An article on Eddy appeared in the May 2010 AFS Janus, available at www.afs.org.
Alan G. Willoughby
Walter J. Brethauer died on November 6, 2013, at age 92. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1920. He became an AFS Ambulance Driver in 1942 and served for three years in Africa, as well as in Italy and India. After the war he started a lumber company in Pittsburgh and then became a designer of sound and closed circuit television systems. Brethauer and his wife Martha were very active with AFS; he eventually became president of the Pittsburgh AFS North Hills chapter. In 1999, at the age of 78, he was featured in the Pittsburgh PostGazette for his role in supporting AFSUSA’s successful efforts to increase the diversity of Pittsburgh’s AFS Participants. Through their AFS chapter work in the 1960s and their travels to AFS anniversary events in the 1990s and beyond, Walter and Martha developed friendships with AFS staff and other AFS Drivers and their spouses. Those friendships were a source of enormous pleasure for both of them. He was also a major donor to AFS-USA and AFS International since 1976. He is survived by his wife Martha, and their three children, Jill, Charles, and Janet. An article on Brethauer appeared in the Fall 2012 AFS Janus, available at www.afs.org.
Alan Graham Willoughby passed away on January 11, 2013, at age 88. He was born on May 23, 1924, in Baltimore, MD. (CM 92) Willoughby was a student at the University of Wisconsin when he volunteered for AFS on August 24, 1944. He was sent overseas in October 1944 and took part in the Italian and France-Germany Campaigns before being honorably discharged on July 7, 1945. Willoughby was also present at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the evacuation of the camp in 1945. After the war he married and spent many years as the Public Information Officer for the State of Wisconsin. Owena and Alan Willoughby had three sons, Mark, Kurt, and Graham, and four grandchildren. AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 14
William Sinclair Drew passed away on April 28, 2013, at age 93. He was born on January 25, 1920, in Flushing, New York. He volunteered twice for AFS, going overseas in February 1942 and again in July 1943. After the war he spent most of his career at First National Citibank (now Citigroup), serving as a building designer for the company’s major downtown building in New York City. He was also an active volunteer for Meals on Wheels and a supporter of the Mashomack Preserve in Long Island. Drew is survived by his wife, Maxine Kass, sons Christopher and Timothy, step-sons David and Neal Kass, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Richard A. Yarnall (CM 52)
Richard Ashbridge Yarnall passed away on September 15, 2013, at age 91. He was born on August 9, 1922, in Philadelphia, PA. Yarnall was a Quaker and volunteered for AFS on August 16, 1943, serving alongside the Fifth Army in Italy. Yarnall held a B.A. from Colgate University and an M.A. in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He served on the boards of Quaker schools and was a member of the Carpenter’s Company. Yarnall is survived by his second wife, Margaret, children from his first marriage with Jean Landenberger, Jonathan, George, and Barbara, and grandchildren.
Oliver E. Shefloe
Stephen H. Rowan
William Weaver
(CM 92, IB 60-T)
(CM 40)
(ME 37)
Oliver “Ollie” Eugene Shefloe passed away on January 30, 2006, at age 82. He was born on August 13, 1923 in Minneapolis, MN. Shefloe was a truck driver with A.O. Smith Corporation when he volunteered for AFS on July 11, 1944. He was sent overseas in October of that same year and took part in the Italian and France-Germany Campaigns before being transferred to India for duty with the Southeast Asia Command in July 1945. Shefloe was repatriated in November 1945 due to demobilization. Shefloe was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy, and brother, Roger. He is survived by sisters Esther, Lorraine, Delores, and Janet, and nieces and nephews.
Stephen Hamilton Rowan passed away on February 17, 2013, at age 89. He was born on September 2, 1923 in Bletchingley, England, and moved to the United States shortly after the invasion of Poland in 1939. Rowan was sent overseas with AFS in February 1943, serving in the Italian and France-Germany Campaigns until his repatriation in August 1945. After the war, Rowan began a lifelong career in education. He became a Canadian citizen and was an active volunteer in Fort Simpson, a village in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, including serving as the founding member of the village’s historical society. Rowan is survived by a sisterin-law and eight nieces and nephews.
William F. Weaver passed away on November 12, 2013, at age 90. He was born on July 24, 1923, in the Washington, DC area. He served as an AFS Ambulance Driver in Syria and then in Italy from 1943 to 1944. After graduating from Princeton, he taught for a year at the University of Virginia and then moved back to Italy, where he spent much of his adult life. Weaver became a well-known translator of modern Italian literature into English. The authors he translated included Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, and Primo Levi. He returned to the United States in the 1990s and taught at Bard College. He was predeceased by his partner, Kazuo Nakajima, who died in May 2013.
In Memoriam MARTHA BIGLIANI
Martha Verdejo de Bigliani passed away on July 10, 2013. Ms. Bigliani was one of the first six AFS-sponsored exchange students who went to the United States from Argentina in 1955. During her program she had the chance to meet Stephen Galatti, who later personally asked her to start an official AFS program in Argentina. She first became an overseas representative and then the national director of AFS Argentina, a position that she held from 1959 to 1977. After her work experience with AFS, she continued spreading the benefits of students’ exchanges by becoming the head of Youth for Understanding (YFU) in Argentina in the early 1980’s.
ALICE GERLACH
Alice Gerlach passed away on July 16, 2013, in Indianapolis at the age of 80. She was born on June 16, 1933. Ms. Gerlach was hired by Stephen Galatti as a secretary in 1955 and for two decades held a number of staff positions at AFS. When she left her job in 1975 she was programs and operations director at AFS USA. After leaving AFS, she held various executive positions in organizations such as the Business and Professional Women’s Association, WETA Public Radio, and the Day Nursery. AFS JANUS • FALL 2013 • 15
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A WWII Ambulance Driver Visits the Past and Present in the AFS Archives In August 2013, World War II AFS Ambulance Driver Robert (Bob) Dodds visited the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc. (AFS Archives), along with his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Bob, who lives in Vancouver, WA, was inspired to reacquaint himself with AFS after he read the article about the “Reconnect with AFS Project” in the summer 2013 edition of the AFS Janus. It turned out that the AFS Archives was the perfect location. More than seventy years earlier, Bob had volunteered for the American Field Service (AFS), serving in the Burma Campaign with Unit IB 1. Lieutenant Dodds was repatriated in September 1945 and received the British Empire Medal for his service with the AFS. At the AFS Archives the Dodds family had the moving experience of
looking through Bob’s AFS file, which included his original application and the citation for his British Empire Medal. The citation described two incidents in which Bob had exhibited exemplary behavior as an ambulance driver, and noted that on both occasions, “‘Volunteer’ Dodds’ superb coolness, devotion to duty and contempt of danger was an inspiration to all ranks with whom he came in contact.” A timely coincidence allowed the Dodds family to also see the AFS of 2013. A group of AFS Participants from the US Department of Stateadministered–Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Abroad Program
(YES Program) who were in New York for their summer orientation happened to be in the AFS building, so Head Archivist Nicole Milano arranged for them to stop by the AFS Archives. The YES Participants asked Bob about his AFS experience and gave a short presentation about their program, which provides scholarships for secondary school students from countries with significant Muslim populations. The students were excited to meet an actual AFS Ambulance Driver and Bob, who was only 18 when he joined the AFS, was very interested to hear the experiences of some of today’s adventurous young people.
Robert Dodds with YES Participants from the Philippines and Indonesia in August 2013.