The Foreign Service Journal, May 2012

56 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 2 I N M EMORY Helga W. Bligh , 75, the wife of re- tired Senior Foreign Service officer JohnW. (Jack) Bligh Jr., died onMarch 25 in Manlius, N.Y. Born Helga Margarete Wollesen in 1937 in Revensdorf, Germany, Mrs. Bligh was a graduate gymnastics teach- er and taught in Bad Hermannsborn before emigrating to the United States in early adulthood. She worked for a year as an au pair in Philadelphia be- fore traveling to California, and then returned to live and work for another year in New York City. After returning to Europe, she tu- tored children in Paris andMadrid be- fore working as chief administrative assistant for a major trade association in Duesseldorf, where she met her fu- ture husband. The couple married in 1979. Accompanying her husband on his Foreign Service assignments in Spain, Canada, Germany and Australia, Mrs. Bligh worked for U.S. embassies and consulates in Barcelona, Madrid, Ot- tawa and Bonn. She received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award in 1990 for her success in ob- taining visas for the travel of American diplomatic and military personnel to sensitive regions of the world, espe- cially during the Persian Gulf War. In 1994, Mrs. Bligh received recog- nition for distinguished service from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations for her contri- butions to the pursuit of war criminals. Following Mr. Bligh’s retirement from the Foreign Service, the couple resided for three years in Germany, then moved to the U.S. for family rea- sons in 1999. Helga spoke French, Spanish and Russian, in addition to English and her native German, and she traveled widely throughout the United States and the world. In addition to her husband, who re- sides inManlius, Mrs. Bligh is survived by the children she loved as her own: Col. Edward W. (Christine) Bligh, USMC, of Stuttgart, Germany; Col. David J. (Mechelle) Bligh, USMC, of Chesapeake, Va.; and Juliana Bligh, of Saginaw, Mich.; and their children: William, Robert J., Chelsea, Sydnie, Zachary, Robert W. and Ryan. Richard Wood Boehm , 85, a re- tired Foreign Service officer and for- mer ambassador, died on Nov. 8, 2011, in Bethesda, Md., of chronic obstruc- tive pulmonary disease. Mr. Boehm was born on June 25, 1926, in Queens, N.Y., to Kathryn and Charles Boehm. He was valedictorian of the class of 1943 at Jamaica High School. He then served in the Third Armored Tank division of the U.S. Army during World War II and was in Germany on V-E Day. After the war, Mr. Boehm attended Adelphi College on the GI Bill and earned a bachelor’s degree in English. There he met Patricia Ann Lynch of Rockville Center, N.Y., whom he mar- ried in 1949. In 1955 Mr. Boehm started his ca- reer as a Foreign Service officer with an assignment at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. His first overseas tour was as vice consul in what was then the U.S. protectorate of Okinawa. He then served at the U.S. Mission in West Berlin during the Berlin Wall crisis. In Luxembourg, Mr. Boehm was deputy chief of mission to Ambassador Patricia Roberts Harris, who was later Secretary of Housing and Urban De- velopment during the Carter adminis- tration. Mr. Boehm went on to serve two tours in Ankara, as political coun- selor from 1971 to 1974 and, later, as DCM. He also served as political-mil- itary counselor in Bangkok and as DCM in Kathmandu. Mr. Boehm served as ambassador to Cyprus from 1984 through 1987, and as ambassador to Oman during the Persian Gulf War. On retiring from the Foreign Service in 1992, Amb. Boehm received the State Depart-