The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2013

48 JULY-AUGUST 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Grew also tried to prepare Atcherson for the assignment. When he met with her before she left Washington, he advised her to take a chaperone with her to Bern. But Atcherson demurred: “I lived in France, most of the time in the wicked city of Paris, four-and-one- half years by myself. I didn’t have a chaperone there. ... You know I worked up at the front in France. I really think I can protect myself from the Swiss.” Atcherson arrived in Bern in the summer of 1925 and was welcomed at her new post. “The Swiss were very kind to me,” she recalled. “They never made me feel [like] an outcast. …They treated me just like any other colleague.” Her relationship with Gibson was cordial and professional, but mostly distant. Dur- ing much of her assignment in Bern, the minister was in Geneva attending a League of Nations disarmament conference. When Gibson also required First Secretary Alan Winslow to accompany him to Geneva, Atcherson was left in charge of the legation. She was nervous at first, but was determined that she would “do my best not to disturb them.” She had learned that a previous secretary, who had been left in charge when both Win- slow and Gibson were away, had “called them for instructions and advice all the time and that they were bothered almost to death.” Atcherson was determined to make a better impression. She developed more confidence once she observed that “the people here seemed extremely amused that I am left in charge, and rather glad, too, which I think is nice of them.” She also believed that the State Department’s willingness to “leave a woman in charge of its affairs in Switzerland, even if only for a few weeks,” only “helps to prove my own point that a woman can do diplomatic work; and moreover, it proves that I can do it.” Meanwhile, Atcherson received the news that a second woman, Pattie Field, had passed the 1925 Foreign Service exami- nation, “with flying colors.” She seemed relieved that another woman would be entering the Service. “It was discouraging to think that after so much effort to open the door for women in a new field, none had proved herself qualified to enter,” she wrote to her family. “I feel that now the task is almost done; a little field work, and it will be really over; for with another woman, I think the department is really committed to equality of opportunity for women as a policy.” Time passed pleasantly in Bern, a quiet post, and Atcherson enjoyed a full social life and satisfactory working conditions. Except for occasional busy periods when everyone else was away, Atcherson spent much of her time reading French and German newspapers, reporting on local political conditions, dealing with regular passport work and taking care of routine legation corre- spondence. Her duties also included, as they did for any Foreign Service officer, the “social work” associated with diplomatic representa- tion: the teas, golf outings, dinners and parties, as well as calls on and from colleagues at other legations, the local elite and the American expatriate community. In the midst of this social whirl, Atcherson met Dr. George Morris Curtis, a young surgeon from Chicago doing a two-year postgraduate medical tour of Europe to observe the latest surgical techniques. By early 1927, they were making plans for the future. Resignation and Marriage By this time Atcherson had become increasingly frustrated because the Personnel Board repeatedly passed her over for promotion. In 1927 the board transferred her to the U.S. legation in Panama City. By the time she sailed for Panama, Atcherson and Curtis had decided to marry, and she made plans for her resigna- tion and return to the United States. She later admitted that she would have liked to remain in the diplomatic service, but there was no way to reconcile marriage to Curtis, a surgeon in Chicago, with life abroad in the Foreign Service. Atcherson was eager to start her new life with Curtis, but she was also determined to delay her resignation until the department announced the next round of promotions. So she bided her time in Panama for a fewmonths. She wanted to earn the promotion she believed she deserved, and to show that it was possible for a woman to succeed in the Foreign Service. Shortly after receiving the disappointing news that the Person- nel Board had once again failed to recommend her for promotion, however, she submitted her resignation to the State Department on Sept. 19, 1927. Several weeks later, she announced her engage- ment to Curtis. They were married on Jan. 16, 1928. While raising two daughters, Lucile Atcherson Curtis engaged in numerous philanthropic activities. The State Department hon- ored her for her achievements in 1978, eight years before she died in Columbus, Ohio, on May 9, 1986, at the age of 91. n She encouraged women’s groups and others to continue to pressure the administration on her behalf, and took her case for the value of women diplomats to the public.