The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 73 Mr. Brooks’ wife, Claire, was his inde- fatigable partner par excellence through- out their long shared Foreign Service career. Upon his retirement in 1994, the couple returned to his beloved Wyoming, dividing their time between the family ranch in the Sierra Madre Range and homes in Saratoga and Laramie. Mr. Brooks took up geology and natu- ral resource conservation. But his main passion over his 29 years of retirement in southeastern Wyoming was working outdoors at his 1,900-acre mountain property near Saratoga. He expanded the acreage and placed the property under a conservation easement, protecting it for future generations. Mr. Brooks loved to tell an anec- dote about his “double life” as a retired Foreign Service officer living in a small town in Wyoming. One day while waiting in a local insurance office, he noticed two other customers looking at him. He overheard one lady say to the other, “Him over there? He used to be some kind of ambassador. Now he’s a hermit back in the hills.” Laughing, Mr. Brooks would say they didn’t miss the mark by much in either characterization. Mr. Brooks is survived by his wife, Claire Stevenson, of Malden, Mass.; his four children, David, John, Susan, and Jeffrey; and six grandchildren, Oliver, Madeline, Nicolas, Isabella, Lucas, and Whitney. Condolences and reminiscences about Mr. Brooks may be sent to the fam- ily at P.O. Box 770, Saratoga, Wyoming, 82331. n Candis Cunningham, 73, a retired Foreign Service officer, died Jan. 15, 2023, at Stone Springs Hospital in Aldie, Va. Born to Foreign Service parents in Germany, Ms. Cunningham spent her childhood in South Africa, Turkey, Italy, and Washington, D.C. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and a mas- ter’s in journalism from Ohio University. Ms. Cunningham spent her early professional years as a beat reporter for newspapers in Rome and in the U.S. (Ohio, Florida, and South Carolina) before joining the U.S. Information Agency as a writer and editor in 1975. Ms. Cunningham served in various positions at USIA and the Department of State, including as press attaché in Bogotá and press officer at the U.S. Con- gressional Helsinki Accords Commission, where she founded and edited the CSCE (Commission on Security and Coopera- tion in Europe) Digest . At the State Department, her assign- ments included director of the narcotics assistance unit in Panama City and in Lima, as well as numerous assignments in Washington, D.C. In late 2022, Ms. Cunningham came out of retirement and returned to the department to work on winding down Afghanistan programs and to reprogram funding for those now-defunct efforts. Ms. Cunninghamoften said that she was born in the wrong century. She devoured 19th-century English and Ameri- can literature; and, as a confirmed Anglo- phile, she was addicted to Britbox TV. But she never lost her affinity for Italy: She made a mean Bolognese, and the quickest way to gain her affection was through timely gifts of Baci chocolates. She doted on her family, but espe- cially granddaughter Paige, and their bottle and reading time were treats for them equally. Although in later years she no longer rode, she was an experienced equestrian, who once almost turned a ragged little Colombian pony into a hunter-jumper. Quick with a joke and a sometimes- caustic sense of humor, Ms. Cunningham is remembered by colleagues and friends for her courage, kindness, straightfor- ward manner, and willingness to tell truth to power. She is survived by her husband, retired Senior Foreign Service Officer and Middleburg Town Council Member Morris “Bud” Jacobs; daughter Julia (and spouse Daniel Rossi); daughter Leigh Jacobs (and spouse Daniel Wilkinson); granddaughter (and light of Ms. Cun- ningham’s life) Paige Evelyn Rossi; and canines Rosie and Cooper. A celebration of this remarkable woman’s life will be planned later. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ms. Cunningham’s favorite charities, the American Cancer Society and the Com- mittee to Protect Journalists. n Zandra Iona Flemister, 71, a retired Senior Foreign Service officer, died Feb. 21, 2023, at Arden Courts in Kensington, Md., after a long battle with dementia. Ms. Flemister was born on Nov. 21, 1951, in Frankfurt, Germany, to parents serving in the U.S. Army and the U.S. High Commission. She spent her child- hood in Germany, France, and Con- necticut before moving to Boston, where she earned a B.A. from Northeastern University. In August 1974, she was sworn in as the first Black woman Secret Service agent. Her tenure was short and rocky in an organization that barely tolerated women and was unprepared for a Black woman. From Seoul in 2001, she gave testimony in support of the Black Secret Service officers class action suit, which was settled in 2017. While in the Secret Service, during the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter adminis- trations, Ms. Flemister guarded then–first daughter Susan Ford, discreetly, on her