The Foreign Service Journal, February 2011

82 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 after three years, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in botany. She then worked at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and in Germany. She married Paul Donald McCusker, whom she had met at a dance in 1944 in San Francisco, in 1948. After her husband obtained his first law degree from Cornell University, a Fulbright scholarship took the couple to Rome for his second law degree (in Constitutional Law) from the Univer- sity of Rome. There he subsequently joined the Foreign Service. This ca- reer took them from Rome to Wash- ington (1954-1959), to Hamburg (1959-1964) and to a tumultuous time in Jakarta (1964-1969), where Mr. Mc- Cusker served as counselor for eco- nomic affairs and the family was evacuated twice. Mrs. McCusker raised four chil- dren, who were born in three different countries. Whenever possible, she tried to become acclimated to the local environment — whether it was engag- ing with household gods in Indonesia or “kaffee und kuchen” in Hamburg— and had the children educated in local schools. Her gift for languages stood her in good stead in all of their overseas postings. In 1969, when Mr. McCusker joined the United Nations, the family became long-time residents of Pelham, N.Y., their stay there interrupted only by several years in Vienna from 1973 to 1976. In addition to being an asset in her husband’s career, Mrs. Mc- Cuskey also worked in real estate while in Pelham. The couple moved to Durham in 1999. Friends and family members recall Mr. McCusker’s boundless energy and charm, her extraordinary intellectual curiosity and her unending generosity of spirit. Shemade friends wherever she went, participating in clubs and lan- guage circles. Her highly organized and outgoing personality enabled her to connect with people from all walks of life. Mrs. McCusker was predeceased by her youngest son, Ian Francis Mc- Cusker, who died on Sept. 16, 1985. She is survived by her husband, Paul, of Durham, N.C.; her daughters, Karen McCusker of Chevry, France, andMary McLoughney of Chapel Hill, N.C.; her son Paul Alexander McCusker of Ma- connex, France; five grandchildren: Claire McCusker, Tessa and Rory McLoughney, and Daniel and Samuel McCusker Alvarez; and two step-grand- children, Daragh and Niamh Mc- Loughney of Dublin, Ireland. Paul K. Stahnke , 87, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Nov. 19, 2010, at Inova Fairfax Hospital, in Fairfax, Va., of respiratory failure. Mr. Stahnke was born in Forest Park, Ill. He studied at the University of Colorado, received his master’s de- gree in international relations at the University of Chicago, and did further postgraduate work in advanced eco- nomic studies at the University of Cal- ifornia at Berkeley. He also studied at the University of Florence (Italy) and attended the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He served in the U.S. Air Force during WorldWar II, mostly in the Mediterranean theater. In 1951, he entered the United States Foreign Service, assigned as vice consul to Hamburg. From 1952 to 1954, he was political officer in resi- dence in Kiel. Following two brief consular assignments in Palermo and Venice, he returned to Washington in 1957 where he was assistant Italian desk officer until 1960. After a year at the University of Cal- ifornia, he was assigned to Tokyo as sec- ond secretary in the economic section, serving there until 1965, when he re- turned to Washington as deputy coun- try director for Japan. In 1969, he was assigned toMogadishu as first secretary in charge of the economic section and coordinator of USAID activities. In 1971, he was transferred to Copen- hagen, where he was counselor for eco- nomic and commercial affairs. From 1975 to 1979, he was State Department liaison officer with the U.S. Congress on economic and trade legislative matters. He then served as counselor at the U.S. Mission to the OECD in Paris from 1978 to 1982. His last assignment in the Foreign Service was in Bangkok, where he served concurrently as counselor for economic affairs and U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific from 1982 to 1987. Mr. Stahnke retired from the For- eign Service in April 1988 with the per- sonal rank of minister counselor. Subsequently, he worked on special projects for the Department of State and as an associate with Business En- vironment Risk Intelligence, a firm providing investment risk analyses, specializing in the United Kingdom, Germany and Thailand. He was also an associate with Global Business Ac- cess, Ltd., a consulting group. In 2002, he retired from these activ- ities and put together a daily news- letter. He also wrote a series of col- umns on money management for For- eign Service members that were pub- lished in the Foreign Service Journal . Mr. Stahnke’s wife, Bruna Maria Lucrezia Franceschi, died in 1988. He is survived by three children, Christo- I N M E M O R Y