The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 87 nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the family wel- comes donations in Mr. Gildea’s name to Capital Caring, 2900 Telestar Court, Falls Church, VA 22042. n Loretta Blanche Johnston, 75, a retired member of the Foreign Service, died on July 11. She was a resident of Los Olivos and San Diego, Calif. Ms. Johnston was born in Manhat- tan, N.Y., in 1938 to Lecia Pearl and Leroy Johnston. The family moved to Torrance, Calif., when she was 4 years old; after graduating from Torrance High School, Ms. Johnston attended El Camino Junior College. In 1962 she joined the Foreign Service at the Department of State, and served overseas at 17 posts around the world, including Vienna, Dakar, Saigon, Jeru- salem, Capetown, Paris, Moscow and Brussels. Ms. Johnston worked under Secretary of State Madeline Albright, among other senior State Department officials. “I’ve had an unusual lifestyle, but I can’t imagine it otherwise,” she used to say. Though a rather private person, Ms. Johnston consistently showed a very kind heart. While in Saigon in 1971, she sponsored Bai, whose husband was killed by the Viet Cong, and her baby Tran for immigration to the U.S. In Dakar, she paid for the burial of the seventh child of her houseboy, Moussa. Family and friends remember Ms. Johnston as a determined and coura- geous woman. Ms. Johnston was preceded in death by her mother and father. She is survived by her sisters, Marilyn Johnston Bowman and Bonnie Johnston; bothers Kenneth Johnston, Thomas Johnston, and her twin, Roy Johnston; and several nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-neph- ews. n Karen J. Nurick, 62, died on July 7, 2012, at her home in Bethesda, Md., after a two-year battle with cancer. Ms. Nurick was born in Troy, N.Y., and graduated from the Emma Willard School in 1969. She had a passion for immersing herself in different cultures and always jumped at any opportunity to pursue change. While in high school, she com- pleted a year abroad in Argentina, where she met her husband, Eduardo Sainz. In 1976 Ms. Nurick earned a master’s degree in international economics and in 1984 a master of public health degree, both fromThe Johns Hopkins University. She entered the Foreign Service in 1977 as a project development officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Paraguay. She later held postings in Guatemala, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Washington, retiring in 2004 after serving as a team leader in USAID’s Global Health Bureau. In retirement, Ms. Nurick worked as an independent consultant on international health and nutrition programs. She also volunteered as a court-appointed special advocate and at her local humane society. She loved animals, particularly dogs, and rescued several throughout her life. Ms. Nurick is survived by her husband, Eduardo of Bethesda, Md.; her daughter, Susan Sainz Bond (and her husband, Doug) of Washington, D.C.; and a brother, Paul Nurick (and his wife, Jane) of Ellens- burg, Wash. n Eugene Sheldon (“Rocky”) Sta- ples , 91, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Oct. 4 at his beloved Snug Harbor, R.I., home, surrounded by his family. Mr. Staples left his railroad and farm- ing family in Kansas City, Mo., in 1942 to become a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II. His combat missions flying Corsairs in the Pacific theater ended on March 19, 1945, when a Japanese dive- bomber attacked his aircraft carrier, the USS Franklin , off the coast of Kyushu, killing 924 aboard (the highest number of casualties for any surviving U.S. warship). After the war, he worked as a United Press correspondent in Mexico. He joined the Foreign Service in 1951, serving with the State Department in Montevideo, Santiago, Washington and Moscow. He was first sent to Moscow in 1959 to help organize the great American National Exhibition, scene of the famous Nixon- Khrushchev “Kitchen Debate,” and returned to Moscow in 1961 to serve as cultural counselor at the height of the Cold War. Mr. Staples left State in 1964 to join the Ford Foundation, working in its policy and planning office and, later, in the Asia program. He served as the foundation’s representative in both Southeast Asia and South Asia, and lived in Bangkok and New Delhi throughout the 1970s. He left the foundation in 1981. Following his interest in the challenges of peacemaking and nationbuilding, Mr. Staples joined the U.S. Agency for Inter- national Development, serving as deputy assistant administrator in the Asia bureau and subsequently becoming USAID mission director in Islamabad during the Soviet conflict in Afghanistan. In 1992, he was asked to help create and run the Eurasia Foundation, from which he retired as president in 1997. In his 2006 memoir, Old Gods, New Nations , Mr. Staples reflected on his long career: “Working with colleagues and local people in information and cultural diplomacy, and in a later stage on institu- tion and nationbuilding, I enjoyed and puzzled over the endless varieties of the