Administrative Information
Historical Note
Collection Overview
List of Countries
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Bellows, Benjamin W., 1997-2000
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Ben Bellows, who grew up on a diary farm in Michigan, earned a degree in Economics and History at the University of Michigan. He joined the Peace Corps in 1997 to work in an animal production project in Ecuador. He trained in country concentrating on language with field training in agriculture. He was assigned to a village near the Amazon Basin. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, September 18, 2005. |
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Chambers, Billie Jean (Ellsworth), 1962-1964
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Billie Jean Chambers was a Peace Corps Volunteer along with her husband Dave in a Peace Corps Héifer Project in Ecuador from 1962 to 1964. Chambers, who comes from a farm background, joined the Peace Corps before completing the degree program at Western Illinois University. She trained at Montana State University, Bozeman in intensive language, tropical agriculture, and home economics. In the second stage of her training she worked in Puerto Rico because the training camp was full. She worked four weeks in a small village with a local extension agent. In her first year she was assigned to Guayaquil to work with an Ecuadorian extension agent. In her second year, with her husband Dave, she was assigned to a more remote area where she worked more extensively and intensively on her own. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, July 27, 2004. |
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Collins, Robert M., 1998-2000
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Robert Collins entered the Peace Corps after graduating from college. He was chosen for an agricultural project in Ecuador. After three months of in country training, he was assigned to work in the town of Zamora in southern Ecuador, but a conflict with the NGO in that community over training for natural agricultural methods rather than chemical solutions resulted in reassignment after the first two months. He was then sent to the town of Maldonado on the northern coast. Here he became very involved with a farming cooperative. Among other things he provided leadership in the cooperative's weekly meetings, helped start a pig raising project, and arranged for the farmers to visit other farming communities to research new projects. |
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Two tapes. Interviewed by Barbara Hodgdon, July 18, 2004. |
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Mehrer, Julia, 1963-1964
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Although Julia Mehrer only served four months in Ecuador, her accounts of training are very descriptive. Mehrer began training in November 1963, with a month in Puerto Rico at an Outward Bound school. The group then was split into Urban and Rural. The Urban group spent a week in San Antonio. The Rural group spent the same period in UNESCO school, "CREFAL" in Patzcuaro, Mexico. Stationed in Saraguro, Ecuador, Mehrer was engaged to a former PC trainee. She married in August of 1964 in Guayaquil and moved to Venezuela. |
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Box 70 Oral History Interview. 2 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, April 19, 2002. |
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M
ortenson, Heather, 1998-2000
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After having to evacuate her Peace Corps position in Sri Lanka, Heather rejoined the Peace Corps in 1998 to serve in Ecuador. She worked as a rural health educator in the mountainous area of Ecuador, near the Colombian border. She worked with World Vision and health promotion, including teaching classes on hand washing, teeth brushing and latrine usage. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Katie Langland October 14, 2006.
(See also Sri Lanka.)
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Nenn, Cheryl, 1995-1997
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Cheryl Nenn served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from February 1995 to June 1997 as a Forestry extension worker. Her interview includes observations on the Peace Corps experience, people, and situations she encountered and her thought on how the Peace Corps has affected her life and career. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Paul Kinsley, April 15, 2008. |
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Stadler, Judith St. John, 1967-1969
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Judith Stadler was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador in a community development project. She worked at the village level in an obstetric clinic, doing health education work. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Robert Klein, September 6, 2008 |
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Woolfe, Mari-Jo, 1964-1966
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Mari-Jo Woolfe began her Peace Corps experience with intensive language training (no technical skills) at UCLA, then four weeks in Puerto Rico, where she stayed with a family and practiced teaching. Her program was for TOEFL in secondary schools but the project was designed with the expectation that the Peace Corps volunteer would use that as a base for "community development." Her first year, Woolfe was assigned to a girls' high school, where she was minimally involved. She also worked as a nurse's aide in a local hospital, and tutored an evening program to adults in English. In her second year, Woolfe relocated, replacing a Peace Corps volunteer in a school for the blind, and supervised an AID funded school lunch program, as well as working with a local women's knitting group. |
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3 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, May 20, 2002. |
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Zaks, Laurel, 1997-2001
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Laurel Zaks served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador on a community health project. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Adrienne Fagler, July 24, 2005. |
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Shively, Ellen, 1968-1970
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An Army nurse (L.P.N.) with five years military experience who decided for personal reasons to shift from "the war corps" to the Peace Corps. Large Ethiopia-Eritrea training program, 1968. Stage in Philadelphia, 6 weeks in Virgin Islands, specialized training in Addis. Served as "dresser" educator for two years in Eritrea. Trained in Amharic but then had to learn Tigrina. After two years in Peace Corps, re-joined military and served in Vietnam. |
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2 Tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, January 14, 2003. |
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Peper, Gayle, 1971-1973
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Gayle Peper served in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1971-1973. She was originally assigned to teach home economics in the vocational education program but felt the need was really in English education, so she switched to teaching English. She served in the provincial capital of Mekelle, which at the time had a population of 10,000. She taught 9th grade using British supplied books. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Nova Maack, April 19, 2008
(See also Ethiopia)
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Ladewig, Roy D.
, 1994-1996 |
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Roy D. Ladewig served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tapa, Estonia working on small enterprise development. During his tour he also served in the Air Force Reserve. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Joanne Roll, May 4, 2006. |
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Murray, Sue, 1999-2000
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Sue Murray worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Estonia on social program development. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Ruth Calligan, May 7, 2004. |
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Bell, Joseph, 1969-1971
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Joseph Bell was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1969 to 1971, serving as a seventh and eight grade teacher of math and science and “guest teaching” as an English teacher to the lower grades in the elementary school in Alamata where he was stationed. This interview includes a number of details about that period in American and Ethiopian history. Unusually, Joe trained in three places: Manhattan (Barnard College), Washington, D.C. (practice teaching and living with a family in a ghetto) and Ethiopia itself (language training). Also, he was stranded in Paris for five days when the charter he was on departed without him. Other aspects of this interview include discussion of the high attrition in his group and examples of “American ingenuity” (rigging up a shower and arranging for mail delivery) that he and his roommate put into practice. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Susan Luccini, May 20, 2008. |
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Curtis, Gloria Gieseke, 1963-1965
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Gloria Curtis was a Peace Corps volunteer (Secondary Education) in Ehtiopia II. Holding only a high school diploma and four years secretarial experience, Curtis trained at UCLA in the Secondary Education Project and was among the top three in learning Amharic. Assigned as a part of a special team of volunteers who were to establish a university evening school affiliated with Hailie Selassie University in Addis. The new school was in Asmba, Eritrea. Served as administrator of program with three Peace Corps teachers and one Ethiopian administrator. She continued in this role during the second year and added teaching 8th grade English in a nearby school |
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3 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, May 5, 2003. |
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Ferris, George, 1963-1965
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George Ferris was a teacher in Ethiopia from 1963 to 1965. He trained at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ferris taught Chemistry to High School students to encourage them to become teachers. He taught Algebra in night school mostly to women. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Ernest Zaremba, August 20, 2004. |
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Kennard, Margot, 1967-1969
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Margot Kennard served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia in an English as a Second Language teaching project. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Robert Klein, September 14, 2008 |
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Kreiman, Charles, 1968-1970
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Charles Kreiman was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia X as part of a large group trained for secondary education, primarily English as a Second Language (ESL). This group was divided among sub-groups in St. Thomas, St. Croix, and Maine. After training in St. Thomas and in-country in Addis Ababa, he was assigned to a secondary school in Asella in what was then known as the Arusi province. In his interview Mr. Kreiman describes the history of placing large numbers of Peace Corps teachers at that school, an effort that began in 1965 to improve student performance by measuring passing grades on the national 12th grade examination. Mr. Kreiman first taught English and later took over seven 10th grade history classes when several Ethiopian Teachers were expelled as suspected instigators of student strikes. He served on the committee to select students for positions as elementary school teachers upon completion of a one-year program at teacher training institutes. At the end of the 1969-1970 school year, Mr. Kreiman was the only Peace Corps teacher remaining at that school. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Gloria Curtis, June 24, 2008. |
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Lilienthal, Lynn, 1965-1967
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A volunteer in Ethiopia in the mid 60s, Lilienthal accompanied her husband, who was recruited into a small (6 lawyers) project. They went as a married couple although Lilienthal developed her own community development project, made contacts and worked in three different programs, including a home for handicapped children, juvenile remand home (teaching English), and a mental hospital (social work). Lilienthal also accompanied her husband as a staff wife in two other services: the Philippines, 1972-1973; and Thailand, 1973-1974. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Robert Klein, March 25, 2003. |
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Mehary, Cynthia Ellison, 1965-1967
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Cynthia Mehary had just graduated from the University of Buffalo when she decided to join the Peace Corps rather than take a teaching position. She trained for the assignment in Salt Lake City, which she comments on as an African American woman in the 1960s. As the first woman teacher in a Jesuit co-ed school in Addis Ababa, Mehary taught mostly business subjects. While there, she met Haile Selassie. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Frieda Fairburn, July 20, 2006. |
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Peper, Gayle, 1971-1973-1964
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Gayle Peper served in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1971-1973. She was originally assigned to teach home economics in the vocational education program but felt the need was really in English education, so she switched to teaching English. She served in the provincial capital of Mekelle, which at the time had a population of 10,000. She taught 9th grade using British supplied books. |
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1 tape. Interviewed by Nova Maack, April 19, 2008
(See also Eritrea.)
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Rex, John, 1962-1964
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John Rex (Ethiopia I) joined the Peace Corps in 1961, applying in his senior year of college. He trained with about 300 others in Washington D.C, to teach English as a Second Language to secondary school students. Most of the 200 plus Peace Corps volunteers who went to Ethiopia with the first group taught and lived together in groups throughout the country. Rex’s school, Debra Berhan, became known for the student strike that was aimed, in part, at the Peace Corps volunteers stationed there. |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Frieda Fairburn, May 23, 2006.
(See also Namibia.)
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Scheublin, Kenneth, 1965-1967
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Oral History Interview, user's guide and transcript |
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Box 70 |
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Vann, Roberta, 1970-1971
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Roberta J. Vann entered the Peace Corps after completing a degree in English Literature at Indiana University. She was an English as a Foreign Language teacher at Gondar Public Health College, Ethiopia. In her interview she discusses how her Peace Corps service was a significant life experience, and lead her to complete a Ph.D. and have a career as a professor in English as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). |
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2 tapes. Interviewed by Leslie Bloom, May 2, 2008. |
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