The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

A P R I L 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 71 ed Ms. Tibbetts U.S. ambassador to Norway in 1964. There she was the ranking FSO in charge of negotiations on military bases and atomic weapons agreements, serving until 1969. As ambassador, she also escorted Dr. Mar- tin Luther King Jr. and his family when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1964. Amb. Tibbetts was made a career minister in 1969, and in 1971 received the State Department’s Distingished Honor Award. She retired from the Foreign Service in 1971, returning to Bethel to care for her elderly mother. For the next 40 years of her life, Amb. Tibbetts maintained a dynamic commitment to the Bethel community, working with the Gould Academy, the Bethel Library Association and as an officer and trustee of the Bethel His- torical Society. She often wrote arti- cles on the history of the region and was actively involved in the society’s programs and exhibits. In addition, she taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and was awarded an Honoris Causa Doctor of Laws degree in 1973. Family mem- bers recall that she was an avid reader, and say she would wish to be remem- bered for that interest especially. She was well known for her deep interest and abilities in natural history, wildlife, bird watching, gardening and north- western Maine history. Friends and family members also recall that Amb. Tibbetts was always a Maine girl at heart with a keen sense of humor. She considered hav- ing been sprayed by a skunk and hav- ing burned a hole in the seat of her wool pants from sitting on her mother’s wood-burning cook stove to have been honors equal to the others she had earned in her life. Margaret Tibbetts is survived by a nephew, F. Barrie Freeman (and his wife, Lois), and a grandniece, Mary Tibbetts Freeman, all of West Bath, Maine; a nephew, James Ashby Free- man; and a grandnephew, Matthew Scott Freeman. Donations in her memory may be made to the Bethel Library, the Bethel Historical Society or another Bethel charity. I N M E M O R Y