The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

Olive Holmes Blum , 89, wife of the late Melvin Blum, a Foreign Ser- vice officer with USIA, died on Oct. 19 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., of cardiovascular disease. Mrs. Blum was born in Buenos Aires to American parents working as Methodist missionaries. She grew up in New York City, where she graduat- ed from Barnard College and receiv- ed a master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University. She was proficient in French, Ger- man and Spanish. A world traveler, she also studied abroad, in Germany in the 1930s and Chile in the 1940s. She had an early career in New York as a foreign policy analyst at the Foreign Policy Association and the Voice of America. During this time, she met her husband at a Liberal Party meeting they both had been drawn to out of concern over Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s activities at the time. The Blums’ marriage began in New York City, in an apartment with a new baby named Danny and a cat named Gentle Jackie. In 1962, Mr. Blum accepted a job as labor attaché with the U.S. Information Agency in Bogota and then in Buenos Aires. The family spent nine happy years in South America. They explored the continent from top to bottom— from the warm beaches of Cartagena in the Carribean to the sheep farms of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip. They were active in the American community in Buenos Aires, includ- ing the Little League, church and many Foreign Service activities, through which they formed long-last- ing friendships. Returning to the U.S. in 1972, when Mr. Blum turned 60, they set- tled in Bethesda, Md. Mrs. Blum worked in several jobs during that period, as they put their son, Daniel, through school before retiring. Starting in the 1990s, she also par- ticipated in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study of hor- mone therapy, diet modification and other treatments for postmeno- pausal women that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. She also spent about 10 years translating health surveys into Spanish for the Westat Research Corporation in Rockville, Md., where she worked until the late 1990s. Mrs. Blum was an elder and a dea- con at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church in Rockville, and was active in local and international mission pro- grams, including Friends in Action. She went on numerous mission trips, including excursions to Greece, Ireland and Bangladesh, in addition to several journeys with her husband. The Blums also kept up with their Foreign Service friends from Buenos Aires, attending annual “Asado” bar- becues. Following her husband’s death in 1994 of complications from cancer, Mrs. Blum continued living in Beth- esda, where she participated actively in community life. In 2001, she mov- ed to the Ingleside at Rock Creek, a senior citizens’ home in Washington, D.C., where she spent her final years. Survivors include a son, Daniel Blum of Silver Spring, Md.; a sister, Leo Brown of Jamestown, R.I.; and two grandsons. David S. Burgess , 90, a retired Foreign Service officer with USAID, died on Oct. 21, in Vallejo, Calif., five days after suffering a heart attack. The Rev. Burgess was born on June 15, 1917, in New York City. His parents took him as an infant to China, where they were YMCA mis- sionaries. In 1927, newly returned to the U.S., he attended a Giants baseball game and became a lifelong fan of the team. As a teenager, he nearly died of rheumatic fever. From that ordeal and other illnesses he acquired another lasting passion: healthy living, including jogging. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1939 with a major in history, and married Alice Stevens in 1941 while J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 75 I N M EMORY