The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

74 JULY-AUGUST 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL grandchildren: Ryan, Kathleen, Erin, Veronica and Ronald III. Memorial contributions can be made to scholarship funds of the American Studies Program of the Salzburg Global Seminar and Stetson University. n William “Bill” T. Crocker , 90, a retired Foreign Service officer, died peacefully on Feb. 11 in Framingham, Mass., due to COVID-related complica- tions. Mr. Crocker was born in 1930 in Boston to Rev. John Crocker and Mary Hallowell Crocker. After attending St. Paul’s School, he graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1954. In 1955 Mr. Crocker entered the Foreign Service. During a career with the United States Information Agency that spanned more than 30 years, he was posted to Austria (Vienna and Graz), Germany (Bonn and Kiel) and Denmark (Copenhagen), and spent more than 10 years in Japan (Tokyo and Nagoya). He was tasked with promoting cul- tural and educational exchanges as the head of various regional cultural centers and as cultural attaché. He became highly proficient in each language. It was during his posting to Graz that he met and married his wife, Aki Maria. Their daughter was born in Kiel. After retiring to Washington, D.C., in 1986, Mr. Crocker became a docent at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (later renamed the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art), where he led tours for many years. He especially enjoyed introducing school children to the wonders and beauty of Asian art. He also acted as a hospice volunteer at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade. In 2001, following the death of his wife, Mr. Crocker moved to Cambridge, Mass. There he reconnected with old friends and with his large extended fam- ily. He played chamber music regularly, attended the Boston Symphony weekly, and went to virtually every opera per- formed in the Boston area right up until the COVID-19 shutdowns began. He was a great lover of all classi- cal music, in particular the Germanic repertoire. An avid amateur violist, he searched out and found in each posting abroad local string quartets and chamber ensembles with which to play. He was also a skilled sailor and spent virtually every summer at North Haven, an island in Maine, with his extended family. There he developed his passion for collecting rocks and driftwood, creat- ing inspirational natural sculptures that he was encouraged to exhibit. Mr. Crocker’s generosity, kindness, curiosity and interest in people, and his great enthusiasm for life, touched many all over the world. The friendships he forged while in the Foreign Service became friendships for life. Once COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted, half of his ashes will be strewn in Penobscot Bay, Maine, and the other half will be interred with his wife’s in Salz- burg, Austria. Mr. Crocker was predeceased in 1998 by his wife, Aki. He is survived by daugh- ter Martina Crocker of Bethesda, Md., his youngest sister Mary Strang of Meeker, Colo., and 17 nieces and nephews. n Samuel Charles Fromowitz , 78, ¡¡a retired Foreign Service officer, died on April 7 at his home in Yountville, Calif. Born on June 10, 1942, in the Bronx, Mr. Fromowitz was the son of career edu- cultural attaché and director of the American Cultural Center in Brussels until 1987; and cultural attaché and director of the American Cultural Center in London until 1991. Before retiring from the Foreign Service in 1994, he served as deputy director of the Office of Cultural Centers and Resources in USIA and the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs in Wash- ington, D.C. A career diplomat, he achieved the rank of Counselor in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. Returning to Florida after retirement, Mr. Clifton was appointed by Salzburg Seminar President Olin Robison as direc- tor of the American Studies Center at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg. Revitalizing the American Studies Program with Salzburg colleagues and its president, he chaired or co-chaired as many as 30 two-week programs and seminars with participants frommore than 20 countries under a substantial grant from the U.S. government until 1997. He continued his work at the Salz- burg Seminar’s yearly American studies programs, planning and chairing numer- ous seminars until 2019. At the behest of President Douglas Lee of Stetson University, Mr. Clifton became involved in the university’s founding of a new and third campus in Celebration, Fla. From 1997 to 2005, he served as director and associate vice president of the Stetson University Center in Celebra- tion, overseeing the groundbreaking for the physical building and assisting in planning the curriculum. He received the university’s prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award in 2018. Mr. Clifton is survived by his wife of 57 years, Gwili, who traveled all his steps with him; their sons, Ronald Jr. and Daniel; daughter-in-law Mindi; and five