The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

74 MAY 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL dates; later she protected first daughter Amy Carter at the Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School. She laughed that there were lots of agent-to-agent calls of “she’s moving from the swings to the jungle gym.” She deeply respected President Ger- ald Ford, whose intelligence she always judged as underappreciated. She had a wry fondness for Lady Bird Johnson, who asked for her as an escort to “visit the critters” at the National Zoo after Smithsonian Board discussions of new zoo additions. In June 1978, she left the Secret Service to join the State Department as a consular officer, fulfilling a lifelong ambi- tion for service and travel. She retired as a Senior Foreign Service officer in April 2011 after serving in Argentina, Spain, Pakistan (twice), the United Kingdom, South Korea, and many Washington, D.C., assignments. Ms. Flemister earned a master’s degree at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 2003, spent two years as a consular inspector in the Office of Inspector General, and two years as the senior State Department officer at the Terrorist Screening Center in Washing- ton, D.C. She juggled a tandem career while raising her autistic son, Sam, for whom she was a fierce and persistent advocate. In London, she reconstructed his school- ing when the special needs school she had visited and prepped failed him. In Seoul, after her year of careful groundwork fell apart, she tactfully per- suaded a reluctant Defense Department bureaucracy to let the State Department fund an aide, who made the program work. Today, Sam thrives as an adult working at Walter Reed. She loved the Foreign Service and consular work. In 2005 she attained her career goal, becoming consul general in Islamabad, responsible for all consular services in Pakistan. She assisted Ameri- can spouses and the Pakistani human rights activist Mukhtar Mai. She dealt with the aftermath of the October 2005 earthquake and the murder of FSO David Foy in Karachi. Her accomplishments earned her a promotion into the Senior Foreign Service in 2006. In an earlier Islamabad tour, she met Joyce Barr, who would become her closest friend. Ambassador Barr recalls marveling at Ms. Flemister’s poise, her willingness to take on emotionally dif- ficult disaster task force work, and her skill in managing inexperienced junior officers and challenging senior managers. Ms. Flemister excelled in a crisis: In Seoul, on Sept. 11, 2001, she defused near panic in her section fueled by a young officer’s fears for her boyfriend, who was working in one of the World Trade Center towers. While also in Seoul, she was instrumental in breaking a visa fraud ring led by a fellow FSO, who later pled guilty. In Argentina in 1979, she was slyly amused at the reactions of South African travelers who requested Vice Consul Flemister expecting a German American. She didn’t flinch when attacked in retali- ation for U.S. human rights pressure on the Argentine dictatorship, becoming the subject of a diplomatic incident. Ms. Flemister met John Collinge when they entered the Foreign Service together. During difficult first tours, they conducted a long-distance romance by snail mail while she served in Buenos Aries and he in Karachi, and then again after she transferred to Madrid and he to Khartoum. Deciding to risk an interracial mar- riage, she flew to Khartoum, as Spain would not waive residency requirements for Mr. Collinge. Married in September 1981, they were separated for the first 15 months of their marriage. It was a com- plementary union that strengthened both as they surmounted many professional and health challenges along the way. Their son, Samuel Collinge, was born in November 1983 and diagnosed as autistic in 1987, prompting Ms. Flemister to curtail her first Islamabad tour. Ms. Flemister is survived by her spouse, John, and their son, Sam, both of Bethesda, Md. n Jane Catherine Gaffney, 75, a retired Foreign Service officer, died of stomach cancer on Dec. 7, 2022, at her home in Bethesda, Md. Ms. Gaffney was born on July 30, 1947, while her father was serving in the Navy in Norfolk, Va. She spent her childhood in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., and graduated from high school at Ursuline Academy in Bethesda, Md. The film “Lawrence of Arabia” sparked her interest in the Middle East, includ- ing its visual and media cultures. She devoted her life to interpreting Middle Eastern politics and cultures, especially via Arabic-language television drama serials, and was an invaluable resource for diplomats and scholars interested in Arab culture. Ms. Gaffney studied Arabic at George- town University and earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations of the Middle East at American University in 1968. While pursuing an M.A. (1970) in applied linguistics at the American Uni- versity in Cairo, Ms. Gaffney formed life- long friendships with Arabist colleagues and notables like film director Youssef Chahine and architect Hassan Fathy. In 1970 she joined the faculty at Haigazian College in Lebanon, where she