Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2006-073-003
Cynthia Ellison Mehary served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1965 to 1967 as a teacher. She 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. Mehary was the first female teacher in a Jesuit co-ed school in Addis Ababa, where she taught mostly business subjects. While in Ethiopia, she met emperor Haile Selassie. Interviewed and recorded by Frieda Fairburn, July 20, 2006. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).