The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2015

76 JANUARY FEBRUARY 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL n Harold J. Ashby Jr., 66, husband of retired FSO Edward McKeon, died peacefully on July 29, at his family home in Chevy Chase, Md. A native of Newark, N.J., Mr. Ashby graduated fromHarvard University with an undergraduate degree in international a airs. He later received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Penn- sylvania and anM.Ed. from the University of Hawaii. From the late 1970s until 1982, Mr. Ashby worked as the administrative director of Howard University’s Sickle Cell Center. With his partner, Edward, Mr. Ashby travelled the world, setting up his family’s overseas homes in Tokyo, Osaka, Guang- zhou, Tel Aviv and Mexico, as well as Honolulu and Washington, D.C. Mr. Ashby was a brave pioneer in creating a stable and loving same-sex household in sometimes unwelcoming cultures. Indeed, he created the rst such home that many foreigners had ever seen, thereby leaving a lasting and positive example. He became the second person to receive a U.S. diplomatic passport as a same-sex spouse. Mr. Ashby managed to nd jobs in each country, often as an English teacher or as an administrator, all the while plan- ning the family’s next move or adventure, not to mention innumerable diplomatic events. A lover of music, he was a disc jockey at a radio station in Tokyo, where he enjoyed some of the happiest times of his life. From 2007 to 2011, he worked in the administrative section of Embassy Mexico City. While on assignment in Guangzhou, Mr. Ashby and Mr. McKeon adopted a child. Although China frowned on adoptions by same-sex couples, the adoption of Max Albert Ashby McKeon was approved. Later, despite Japan’s reluctance to allow foreigners to adopt, IN MEMORY the adoption of Benjamin Makoto Ashby McKeon was also approved. On July 21, 2008, Mr. Ashby and Mr. McKeon married in California, shortly after same-sex marriages became legal there, with their sons present. e union, which began in 1980, lasted for 34 years, cut short only by Mr. Ashby’s passing. Since retirement in 2011 to Chevy Chase, Md., Mr. Ashby spent even more time caring for his two boys, who remained the loves of his life. He was also able to indulge a passion for gardening that had been put on hold while overseas, except for an ill-fated attempt to coax a rose garden to life in Osaka. Among the things that shaped him most was his lineage to Sergeant George Ashby, who fought in the Civil War and was with General Ulysses S. Grant when General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. His uncle, Albert Forsyth, was an African- American aviation pioneer and instructor to the Tuskegee Airmen. Mr. Ashby was also shaped by his experience as a 16-year-old selected to represent New Jersey at a national meeting of high school student body presidents. He was one of only two African-American selectees out of the 50 states. On arrival in Nashville, 48 student body presidents were placed with local families who arranged social events for them. However, Mr. Ashby and his fellow African-American student body president were simply dropped o at a motel for “coloreds.” Mr. Ashby’s father wanted him to come home, but he decided to stay, vowing never to let discrimination or prejudice steer him from his path. Mr. Ashby’s smile and warm personal- ity quickly helped himwin lasting friend- ships around the world. He will long be remembered as a loving husband, father, role model and friend. Mr. Ashby is survived by his husband, Edward, and sons, Max and Benjamin. n Stephanie Mathews Bell, 90, wife of the late Ambassador James Dunbar Bell, died on Aug. 8, 2014, in Davis, Calif. Prior to marriage, Mrs. Bell worked for the Department of State. From 1950 to 1952, she served in Munich with the High Commission for Occupied Germany in the O ce of the Land Commissioner for Bavaria. From 1952 to 1955, after postwar diplomatic relations were established between the United States and Germany, she worked in American Consulate Gen- eral Munich. On her return to Washington, D.C., she worked in the Bureau of Near East- ern, South Asian and African A airs. When the Bureau of African A airs was established as a separate entity, she transferred to it as an administrative o cer. Mrs. Bell received an Outstanding Performance Rating and a congratulatory letter from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for her work in establishing the new bureau. In 1960, she became an administra- tive o cer in the Bureau of Far Eastern A airs, where she met and married Mr. Bell. She accompanied him to the United Nations in 1961, and to Embassy Kuala Lumpur, where he served as ambassador from 1964 to 1969. In 1970, the couple relocated to California, where Amb. Bell served as diplomat in residence at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Mrs. Bell is predeceased by her son, Je erson M. Bell. Survivors include her daughter, Stephanie Susan Bell; son- in-law, Je ery Seiler; two grandsons: Samuel and John Bell Seiler; several nieces, including Ambassador Marianne M. Myles, and nephews.