The Foreign Service Journal, March 2014

66 MARCH 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL In 2012, they built a home on Lake Michigan north of Northport. Mrs. Wolcott was on the Board of the Leela- nau Historical Society and the Northport Area Historical Association. She wrote on local history for the Leelanau Enterprise , and was an active hiker, painter, writer and quilter. Her final wish was to become a blue spruce; she will do so in Leelanau. Mrs. Wolcott is survived by her hus- band of 41 years, Peter; four children: Lauren Asher, Joel Wolcott, Jennifer Wolcott-Michelson and Victoria Wolcott; and eight grandchildren: Adela, Nora, Maya, Reggie, Joelyz, Rex, Alexander and Elliot. Memorials may be directed to Leela- nau Conservancy, P.O. Box 1007, Leland MI 49654, or National Planned Parent- hood (www.plannedparenthood.org ). n Charles “Chuck” Greenwood Wootton , 89, a retired Foreign Service officer, died on Jan. 11 in San Diego, Calif. Mr. Wootton was born on a farm near Karber’s Ridge, Ill., which was home- steaded by his grandfather. He lost his father when he was 9 years old, and the family moved to Central City, Ky., to live with Mr. Wootton’s maternal grandfather, John Riley Greenwood, a local grocer. There Mr. Wootton attended public schools. He was co-valedictorian of his high school class, earning the scholarship prize, and received the highest grade on a competitive examination on European history among Kentucky high schools. Mr. Wootton attended the University of Kentucky, majoring in chemistry, but soon volunteered for the U.S. Army, where he trained as an infantryman. The army sent him back to college in the Army Specialized Training Program, where he studied engineering, pre- medicine and medicine at the University of Connecticut, Yale University and the New York Medical College. When mustered out of the U.S. Army, he decided to study for a career in the U.S. Foreign Service, which had been his dream since high school. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. While at Yale, Mr. Wootton married his University of Connecticut sweet- heart, Elizabeth Grechko. Joining him in Manhattan, where she earned a bach- elor’s degree at New York University, she was his strong support and partner throughout his various careers. After both had graduated from college in 1947, they moved to Mrs. Wootton’s hometown of Hartford, Conn., where Mr. Wootton worked as a life insurance risk appraiser in the Connecticut General Life Insur- ance Company. Mr. Wootton was commissioned as a Foreign Service officer in 1949 and served for 31 years, primarily abroad, in Stuttgart, Manila, Bordeaux, Brussels, Ottawa, Bonn and Paris, as well as at the Canadian National Defence College in Kingston, Ontario. During an assignment in the United States, he earned a master’s degree in economics from Stanford University. He served as minister-counselor for economic and commercial affairs in Bonn and, from 1974 to 1980, as senior deputy secretary general of the Organi- zation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, where he was accorded the assimilated rank of chief of diplomatic mission by the Government of France. While in Brussels, he received the State Department’s Superior Honor Award for his work in resolving the U.S.– European Common Market “Chicken War” of the late 1960s. Throughout his Foreign Service career, the couple volunteered in their local churches, usually of the Presby- terian denomination. Mr. Wootton was ordained as an elder of the Scottish Presbyterian Church in Brussels in May 1960. In Ottawa he was active as a Rotar- ian, working with disabled children, and he volunteered with Meals on Wheels in Bonn. On retiring from the Foreign Service in 1980, Mr. Wootton joined the Gulf Oil Corporation, and later the Chevron Cor- poration, as coordinator for international public affairs. He retired again in 1992, and he and his wife moved to San Diego. There Mr. Wootton began his service to the elderly and children of the com- munity. He served as ombudsman for long-term health care and president of the San Diego chapter of the Chevron Retirees Association. Later he worked for the Point Loma and La Jolla Parent Teacher Associa- tions and fought for resources for the Gifted and Talented Education program, earning the 1997 Parent of the Year Award of the GATE Parents and Teachers Associations of San Diego County. He also joined Mrs. Wootton as a volun- teer working with infants and toddlers at the Polinsky Center for Abused and Neglected Children. Mr. Wootton was a tutor in the after- school UPLIFT program organized by a number of San Diego churches and the Kids at Heart program of his own church, the Point Loma Community Presbyte- rian Church. For the past 11 years he tutored in the Oasis Reading program at the inner-city Washington Elementary school and in the Loma Portal Elemen- tary school, where he also earned $1,500 in classroommatching support from the Chevron Corporation. He was honored as “Volunteer of the Year” in 2011 by the city of San Diego.