The Foreign Service Journal, March 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2023 61 and Charlie; his daughter, Maria Cattell, of Longmont, Colo., and her children, Stian and Bjorn; as well as nieces and nephews, Bill and Cissie Williams, Sarah and Charles Holtman, Matthew and Jodie Williams, Stephen Williams, and their children. n Jeannette John, 91, a retired For- eign Service officer, passed away on Dec. 8, 2021. She was the daughter of the late Angele Magarian, who survived the Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1922. The family eventually immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Boston’s South End, where Ms. John grew up. At the urging of her mother and sister, she joined the Foreign Service and served as a diplomat for 23 years, receiving rec- ognition many times for service contribu- tions. Her first assignment was to Jordan, where she was taken under the wing of the small Armenian community there—an experience she always treasured. Subsequent postings included Wash- ington, D.C., Colombia, Vietnam, Italy, and Syria. In addition to Armenian, she spoke Greek, Spanish, Vietnamese, Italian, Arabic, and French. Ms. John retired in 1983 and moved to Watertown, Mass., where she pursued a passion to document her Armenian heritage. Her genealogy captured seven generations of her family in Armenia and features many photographs and docu- ments chronicling their history and move- ments. A copy is currently housed in the Library of Congress. Never one to sit still, Ms. John filled her retirement with caring for children, substitute teaching, volunteering with the elderly and assisting with tax returns, working with the visually impaired, and serving in the Armenian church, as her faith guided her life. She volunteered for a year in Armenia teaching English to orphans. She also maintained an active role in Armenian causes and provided financial support to organizations devoted to identify- ing, locating, and preserving Armenian culture. Those who knew her recall how proud she was of her heritage. Ms. John is survived by three nephews, two great-nephews, a great-niece, and seven great-great nieces and nephews. n Marilyn Priscilla Johnson, 100, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer and former ambassador, died on Sept. 19, 2022, at home in the 1790s farmhouse on Lewis Hill Road in Bethlehem, N.H., that her family had purchased in the 1850s. Ms. Johnson was born in Boston in 1922 to Sarah (née Allen) Johnson, who had come to the United States fromWales as a child. Sarah Johnson was an enter- prising woman who bought and fixed up houses to rent out. “She was advanced for her time. She was one of the first women to have her hair bobbed … and drove a car,” Ms. Johnson said in her 1986 oral history for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Her father was Curtis Clark Johnson, whose family came to America before the Revolutionary War. The son and grand- son of stagecoach owners and drivers, Johnson became an electrician and the first man in Boston licensed to operate a motion picture projector, then the latest technology. Ms. Johnson grew up in the suburbs of Boston and was a tomboy. Her parents and sister, Persis, who was 12 years older, stressed the need for her to get a good education. She attended the Woodward School and, at Persis’ insistence, went on to Radcliffe, the first in her immediate family to attend college. She graduated with honors in 1944. Joining the Navy WAVES, Ms. John- son was part of a special group, known as “code girls,” who worked to break the Japanese code. After the war, she used the G.I. Bill to pursue her education and trav- eled in Europe. Returning to the U.S., she earned an M.A. in French fromMiddle- bury College. In 1960 she received a U.S. State Department grant to teach English to French-speaking students in Guinea. It was the first of many assignments in Africa, where her adventures included taking a Land Rover through the Sahara to visit Timbuktu. Her work in Africa led her to join the U.S. Foreign Service with the U.S. Infor- mation Agency. She served overseas as a cultural affairs officer in Bamako, Tunis, Niamey, Islamabad, and Moscow. She also served in a number of assignments in Washington, D.C., including as deputy assistant director of the Information Centers Program from 1971 to 1974. Her assignment to Moscow, from 1976 to 1978, broke a Foreign Service barrier for single women. Until then, the State Department had refused to assign single women to Moscow, on the theory that they were likely to be easily compromised by KGB lotharios. Ms. Johnson objected, and because she was so well respected, the policy was changed. Decades later, Foreign Service women she had never met would say how her breakthrough allowed their careers to advance. In 1978 President Jimmy Carter nomi- nated Ms. Johnson ambassador to Togo, where she served until July 1981. Following her retirement from the For- eign Service, Ms. Johnson moved back to Bethlehem in 1987. There she was active in civic affairs, chairing the conservation commission, volunteering at the Colonial