THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 73 IN MEMORY n Ingrid Mack Byers, 87, a Foreign Service spouse, passed away at home in the care of her husband, Bruce Byers, on June 20, 2024, after a struggle with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Ms. Byers was born in 1937 and grew up in Munich. She studied accounting and worked for several banks in their international affairs departments. She then studied English in London and French in Paris before becoming a financial correspondent for Privat Bank Merck Finck & Co. in Munich. She met her husband in 1962 on a weekend ski trip to the Bavarian Alps. In early 1972, Ms. Byers, her husband, and their children moved to Tehran for their first Foreign Service assignment. When they moved to Bombay in 1974, she engaged in many local and several long-distance trips and sightseeing adventures, including to her favorite vacation spot, Goa. In 1977 the family moved to Vienna. The assignment lasted only one year, and they were transferred to Kabul shortly after the overthrow of the Daoud government and the takeover by a proSoviet Marxist regime. She was responsible for most of the shopping at a time when the stability of the new government was shaky, and everyone had to observe a nightly curfew. Her children attended the American International School of Kabul. After the abduction and murder of Ambassador Adolph “Spike” Dubs on Valentine’s Day 1979, she packed up the family and prepared for evacuation. The family returned to Virginia, and Mr. Byers began his first Washington assignment. Ms. Byers went househunting and managed the logistics of receiving family household effects, a car, and the family pet from Kabul. She worked with a real estate agent to find a house where the family could settle and helped her children cope with reverse culture shock as they adjusted to local public schools after having lived seven years abroad. In 1982 they moved to Bonn. Ms. Byers joined other embassy wives in support of several charitable projects, including the monthly “Tea for the Elderly” that was held at the American Club in Plittersdorf, the residential community for embassy families. She was also much closer to home and her family; she enjoyed visiting them in Munich and going on skiing trips in Austria. She considered Bonn to be the best Foreign Service family post, a major change from the harrowing year in Kabul. In 1987 the family returned to Washington and their home in Reston, Va. Then, in 1989, Mr. and Ms. Byers began Polish language studies at FSI and moved, without children, to Warsaw in 1990, where Mr. Byers served as cultural affairs officer at the embassy. It was a difficult three-year assignment at a time when Poles were emerging from decades of communist oppression and the country lacked for almost everything, including food in the wintertime. Nevertheless, she and her husband enjoyed many cultural events—attending operas at the Opera Kameralna and concerts at the Teatr Wielki (Grand Theatre) that hosted international orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic. They went on excursions to Kraków, Gdansk, Szczecin, and Wroclaw. Ms. Byers was able to visit her family in Munich and accompany her youngest son, Robert, to begin studies at the University of Maryland–Munich Campus, where Mr. Byers had studied many years before. In 1993 they returned to Washington where Mr. Byers served as AFSA vice president for USIA. In 1996 they embarked on their last Foreign Service assignment, to Manila, where Mr. Byers served as embassy press officer. They returned to Washington in 1998, and Mr. Byers retired in 2000 to work part-time at the State Department. In the ensuing years, Ms. Byers and her husband went on several study tours to Italy, France, Greece, Hungary, and Germany. Their last excursion was a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam in 2015. She was an avid contributor to the Senior Living Foundation and to the Inova Loudoun Hospital Foundation. She underwent many treatments at the Inova Loudoun Hospital in Landsdowne, Va., where she received excellent care. Ms. Byers is survived by her spouse, Bruce K. Byers; their children, Christine, Alexander, and Robert Byers; and nieces in Germany. n Neal P. Cohen, PhD, 79, a retired USAID Foreign Service officer, died on Oct. 9, 2024, at the E.T. York Haven Hospice Center in Gainesville, Fla. Mr. Cohen was born March 9, 1945, to Aaron and Edna Cohen in Brooklyn, N.Y., and started to explore the world at age 10 when the family moved with the U.S. military to Ramstein. The family explored Europe, and Mr. Cohen was an eager learner. After graduating from the Kaiserslautern American High School in Germany, and then the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, he earned a PhD in development economics at the University of Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, he met Jan, his wife of 55 years. Mr. Cohen taught at Eastern Michigan University and St. Louis University, but he craved overseas work where he felt he could truly make a difference.
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