The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2017 83 IN MEMORY n Lessie Marie “Cita” Brewton Bishop , 95, widow of the late Ambassador Max Waldo Schmidt Bishop, died peace- fully at Maxland, her home in Ailey, Ga., on Sept. 18. Jessie Marie was born Sept. 4, 1921, in Vidalia, Ga., a daughter of John Broadus Brewton and Ala Peterson Brewton. A 1938 graduate of Vidalia High School and a 1942 graduate of Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville, she served in the U.S. Navy as a WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) communications officer during World War II. Mrs. Bishop met her FSO husband in Japan, where he was serving as the politi- cal adviser to General MacArthur after the war. They were married on July 13, 1946, at the base chapel in Yokohama. Mr. Bishop’s Foreign Service career took them to many international destina- tions, including Saudi Arabia, and culmi- nated in his appointment as ambassador toThailand by President Dwight Eisen- hower in 1955. Following her husband’s retirement as executive director of the World Affairs Council in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1973, the couple settled in Ailey, where Mrs. Bishop was a gracious hostess and enjoyed the company of friends and family. She espe- cially loved arranging fresh flowers from her garden for her home. She was a member of the Ailey United Methodist Church, the American Foreign Service Association and DACOR. Mrs. Bishop was preceded in death by her husband, who died in 1994. She is survived by four children: Cecelia Marie Bishop of Oakland, Calif., Ala Joan (and her husband, Adrian) Jones of Tyrone, Ga., Nancy Caroline (and her husband, Bruce) Dutcher of Atlanta, Ga., and Max Brewton Bishop of Ailey; 10 grandchildren; two great-grandchil- dren; and many nieces, nephews and cousins. The family gratefully acknowledges the loving care Mrs. Bishop received from Elizabeth Cummings, Carolyn Snead, Melissa Nelms, Tye Ronnie Glasper and Mary Gasser. Memorial donations in Mrs. Bishop’s name may be made to the Peterson Cem- etery Fund, c/o Tom Peterson, P.O. Box 7, Ailey GA 30410. n Lesley Dorman, 95, the wife of FSO Philip Francis Dorman and a ground- breaking leader on behalf of Foreign Service families for nearly 50 years, died at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 26. From 1976 to 1981, she served as president of AAFSW (Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, then called Association of American For- eign Service Women). Lesley Tanburn was born on Nov. 17, 1920, in the town of Chalfont St. Giles in the county of Buckinghamshire, a beauti- ful and historic area near London. Her mother, a suffragette who raced automo- biles as a hobby, showed her daughter that if groups of women worked together, they could accomplish a great deal. Her parents frequently received distinguished guests, and Lesley learned early on to converse with well-informed people older than she about a variety of topics. These childhood experiences gave her strong confidence in her own abilities, which served her well in later interactions with senior management at the Depart- ment of State and elected representatives on Capitol Hill. During World War II she served as a WREN—Women’s Royal Naval Service, the women’s branch of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. She was stationed at Hyde Park in London, where she served as part of an anti-aircraft group whose task it was to shoot down German warplanes. In 1950, she married Philip Francis Dorman, an American FSO serving at Embassy London. The couple remained in London for four years. Postings to Cairo, Tehran, Lusaka, Khartoum and Bangkok followed. At post, Mrs. Dorman took an active interest in the local community, either by becoming involved in existing projects or creating new ones. In Lusaka, a coop- erative she organized and developed to encourage the production of local handi- crafts continued to function many years after she departed. The couple returned to Washington, D.C., in 1971, and Mrs. Dorman’s leader- ship on behalf of the Foreign Service community entered a new phase, one that would lead to the establishment of the Family Liaison Office at State and other pioneering achievements. Mrs. Dorman was elected president of AAFSW in 1976, her five-year term coin- ciding with the social movement sparked by the “’72 Directive”—which, for the first time, asserted the independence of Foreign Service wives. One of her first acts was to take the lead in creating the AAFSW FORUM, which became the association’s think tank. The FORUM sought to identify the major concerns people had begun to express about life in the Foreign Service. For the first time, clusters of issues were identified: (1) family life, including educa- tion of children and medical care; (2) the modern Foreign Service wife, including spousal employment, the formation of a skills bank and the representational func- tion; (3) orientation, including training for spouses; (4) re-entry issues; and (5) women in transition, through retirement, the death of a spouse or divorce. With Mrs. Dorman as chair, the