The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

clearly had a happy childhood and cherished his family’s Wyoming roots. Mr. Willems joined the Foreign Service in 1963. His postings inclu- ded Kingston, the Cayman Islands, Montreal, Hong Kong, Lagos, Edin- burgh, Moscow and Monrovia, as well as assignments in Soviet affairs in the department. He was acclaimed for initiating the practice of “accelerated third-country pro- cessing,” which enabled Soviet Jews and other minorities to reduce their time spent in holding camps in Italy before proceeding on to the USA. He assiduously followed reciprocity issues, which he enforced rigorously. As the supervisory consular officer in Hong Kong, he prided himself on issuing more nonimmigrant visas than the rest of his large staff com- bined — setting the tone that “our doors” needed to be more open to China. In Lagos, Mr. Willems served as labor attaché and also ran the politi- cal section for long periods between the assignment of new occupants to that office. As in his work on Soviet affairs, he demonstrated the versatil- ity and managerial acumen that moved him to the top of the consular ranks. He retired as consul general in Ottawa in 1991, subsequently crossing Wellington Street to advise a number of prominent members of Parliament on immigration issues. Friends recall Mr. Willems for his insight, integrity and candor. He was also known for his ready wit and skill in telling a revealing story. Mr. Willems is survived by his wife, Alice, manager of the Canada Marine Discovery Centre/HMCS Haida in Hamilton, Ontario; their daughter, Rebecca, a student at Aca- dia University in Nova Scotia; and two sons by his first marriage, John of New York City, and Jim of Seattle, Wash. Stephen Winship , 85, a retired FSO, died on March 11 in Charlottes- ville, Va., after a brief illness. Born in Charles River, Mass., Mr. Winship attended Phillips Academy and was a 1941 graduate of Harvard College. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 and, after aviation training, became a flight instructor and also flew sea planes in the Caribbean. After World War II, he worked briefly as a commercial airline pilot before joining the Foreign Service in 1947. Mr. Winship served in Kingston, Buenos Aires, Perth, Stockholm, Washington, D.C., and as consul in Peshawar. He spent the later years of his career doing political-military work in Saigon and Bangkok, and with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Office of Mili- tary Assistance in Washington, D.C. His last assignment before retiring in 1977 was as a member of a Foreign Service inspection team in France. His favorite assignments were as the American consul in Perth in the mid-1950s and in Peshawar in the late 1960s, where being in charge of small diplomatic outposts left him relatively free from bureaucratic burdens. He took these opportunities to travel extensively through the vast consular districts, using his vibrant style of per- sonal diplomacy to win friends and increase understanding for the people of the United States. Upon retirement, Mr. Winship and his wife, Ronnie (Norinne), fulfilled a long-deferred dream by relocating aboard a 45-foot ketch, Marith II. The boat was named after the schooner they had lived on with their young family in Florida and on the Potomac River during the shortage of postwar housing in the 1940s. They cruised the Caribbean, the East Coast of the U.S., and made a voyage to the Galapagos Islands before settling in Fort Lauder- dale, Fla., in 1987. There Mr. Winship was an active volunteer for the Sailboat Bend Civic Association and Recordings for the Blind. The couple moved to the West- minster-Canterbury retirement com- munity in Charlottesville, Va., in 1995. In addition to his love of sailing, Mr. Winship had a lifelong association with the mountains of New Hamp- shire. He spent many summers in North Sandwich in his early and later life hiking, cutting firewood, garden- ing and relaxing in the wood-fired sauna he built by a mountain brook. Until his health failed in his final years, Mr. Winship was a dynamo — “indestructible,” in the words of an old family friend. He never shirked a new construction or renovation pro- ject, and enjoyed reading and reciting poetry or prose aloud and making woodcuts and wooden toys for his grandchildren. Survivors include his wife of 63 years, Norrine Hayford Winship; four children, Peter Winship of Dallas, Texas, and London, Rebecca More- house of Corte Madera, Calif., Mich- ael Winship of Austin, Texas, and Nathaniel Winship of Leominster, Mass.; eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Irena O. Yost , 91, widow of the late Ambassador Charles W. Yost, passed away in her sleep in Bethesda, Md., on March 25. Mrs. Yost was born in 1915 in Lodz, Poland, and grew up in Radom, where her father was director of the govern- ment-owned arms factory. Having already acquired proficiency in four languages, she was attending the École des Sciences Politiques when she met her future husband, then a young diplomat in Warsaw. They married in 1934, then moved to the United States. With little knowledge of English or the ways of the State Department, 62 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 I N M E M O R Y