The Foreign Service Journal, June 2009

J U N E 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 79 — was as director of the USAID pro- gram in Afghanistan. Upon retirement, Mr. Brown led a special initiative to globalize the oper- ations of the worldwide headquarters of the Christian Science Church in Boston, Mass. He then completed an- other decade of international develop- ment consulting before retiring to his home in Laguna Woods, Calif. Mr. Brown is survived by his loving wife Francoise; a daughter, Valerie, and son-in-law John; a son Gregory and daughter-in-law Daphne; a son, Chris- topher, and daughter-in-law, Betsy, both retired Foreign Service officers; and five grandchildren (Michael, Dani- elle, Andre, Melissa and Gabriel). The Brown family requests that any memorial donations be made to the American Foreign Service Association Scholarship Fund. Checks can be made payable and mailed to “AFSA Scholarship Fund,” 2101 E Street NW, Washington DC 20037, or individuals can visit www.afsa.org/scholar/ and click on “Form to Make a Donation.” Charles W. Grover , 80, a retired FSO, died on Feb. 26 at Charleston Hospice Center in Charleston, S.C., while visiting his son and family. Mr. Grover was born in Waltham, Mass. During the Great Depression, the family lived in several states in New England before settling in Gloversville, N.Y., in 1935. That is where he grew up, so he always considered it his home. Mr. Grover graduated from high school at Worcester Academy in Wor- cester, Mass., then spent a year at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md. He received a B.A. in history fromAntioch College in 1951 and an M.A. in Amer- ican history at the University of Ore- gon in 1953. At the University of Oregon, Mr. Grover was president of the Young Democrats chapter. At a campaign event at the Eugene train station in September 1952, he was gaffed by an elephant hook during a turbulent whis- tle-stop visit by vice presidential candi- date Richard M. Nixon. He was also a charter member of the university’s Na- tional Association for the Advance- ment of Colored People chapter, an organization and issue that created a stir at the time. After serving in the U.S. Army for two years, Mr. Grover entered the For- eign Service in 1956. Although a member of the political cone, he en- joyed the variety of activities that the Foreign Service offered. In Spain, he was vice consul at a two-man post (Va- lencia); in Rio de Janeiro, a commer- cial officer; in Bolivia, chief of the political section; in Medellin and Guayaquil, he was consul and consul general, respectively; and in Santiago, he was deputy chief of mission. In Washington, D.C., he served in the Exchange of Persons Program, in the Bureau of African and Near East Affairs, as deputy executive director of Latin American Affairs, and in the Per- sonnel Bureau. During two years of postgraduate education, he pursued Latin American studies at Tulane Uni- versity and took senior training at Stan- ford. Each new posting offered new horizons, but the personnel apparatus itself sometimes also qualified as an ad- venture. In 1963, the department as- signed Mr. Grover to Mozambique as the assistant consul general. Unbe- knownst toMr. Grover, the Portuguese government refused to issue the nec- essary diplomatic visas — thereby leav- ing him in the awkward position of a persona non grata on the eve of his scheduled departure for post (and on the day he had sold his house in Bethesda, Md.). Lisbon apparently undertook this rarest of actions to ex- press disagreement with U.S. policy on Africa. The U.S. government chose not to protest this usurpation of the as- signment process and the Gro- vers, freshly trained in metropolitan Portuguese, were reassigned to Brazil — even though the language was markedly different. Both prior to and after retirement in 1985, Mr. Grover also performed ex- tended temporary duty in Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, and Antigua &Barbuda. In retirement, the Grovers settled in Bethesda, Md. Mr. Grover worked for many years in the program division of Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C. He was also an am- ateur genealogist and a longtime mem- ber of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, the NewHamp- shire Historical Society and the Hamp- stead Historical Society, to which he bequeathed his Civil War library. Mr. Grover wrote a study, “Sons of Edmund,” tracing various Grover lines back to an immigrant forebear. He also wrote a book, Company E , based on letters to and from his great-grand- father and others. In it, Grover tells the adventures of 24 Hampstead boys who formed a subunit of the Eleventh NewHampshire Volunteers during the Civil War. Mr. Grover’s wife of 48 years, Janet Halsten Grover, died in 2005. The couple had met when he was a junior officer and she an executive secretary at the Department of State. He is survived by four children: Marisa Grover Mofford of Altadena, Calif.; Charles Halsten Grover, also a I N M E M O R Y