The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

taught English in South Korea and kindergarten and first grade in both Ethiopia and Nigeria. In Addis Ababa, she also fulfilled the informal social and American community responsibilities of the spouse of the chief of mission. In 1990, she joined the State Department as an instructor in computer applications. In that capacity she traveled to China, Tur- key, El Salvador, Swaziland, Switzer- land, South Korea, Namibia, Israel and South Africa to train staff. During her husband’s posting to South Africa as U.S. ambassador (1992-1995), she witnessed the transi- tion from the apartheid regime to the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela. Her account of her first meeting with Mandela was published in the Foreign Service Journal (May, 2004). Back in the United States, Mrs. Lyman volunteered for Common Cause, various Democratic Party campaigns and for the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md. She wrote an account of her overseas experiences, emphasizing the human side of diplo- matic life, which will be published in the coming year. Her most cherished activities, however, were those with her family. Helen Lyman is survived by her husband, Princeton Lyman; daugh- ters Tova Brinn, Sheri Laigle and Lori Bruun; 11 grandchildren; her brother Donald Ermann, sisters-in-law Joan Ermann and Sylvia Lyman; brother- in-law Harvard Lyman; and several nieces and nephews. Donations in her memory can be made to the Colorectal Cancer Network at P.O. Box 182, Kensington MD 20895; the American Cancer Society at 11331 Amherst Avenue, Silver Spring MD 20904; or the Nature Conservancy at 4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington VA 22203. Vera Frances McFall , 75, a retired Foreign Service member, died on Aug. 5 in Florence, Ala. A 1951 graduate of Coffee High School in Florence, Ms. McFall began her career with the FBI in Washington, D.C. After two years, she returned to Florence, where she was employed by the First National Bank until moving again to Washing- ton to join the State Department. Ms. McFall was first assigned to the Bureau of Economic Affairs and then to the Near East Bureau. In the late 1960s, she joined the Foreign Service, and served in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Yugoslavia, Peru and Portugal. Ms. McFall had a wide net- work of Foreign Service friends, with whom she stayed in touch in retire- ment. In the late 1980s, after 35 years of government service, she retired from the State Department and returned to Florence, Ala., to live in the family home. She worked for several years with her brother David in his real estate appraisal business. Ms. McFall was a member of the Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church, the Coffee High School Alumni Scholarship Committee and the Christian Women’s Club. She also served on the National Advisory Committee of the Teddy’s Star Foun- dation of Anniston, Ala. She was preceded in death by her parents, Parker D. McFall and Selma McFall; a sister, Annie Lee Seaton; a brother, Fred McFall; a niece, Ann McFall Belew; and nephews, Chad Barber, Glenn Hale and Edward Mallory (Teddy) McLaughlin, to whom she was especially close. Ms. McFall is survived by a broth- er, David S. McFall and his wife, Rose Marie; sisters Ola Barber, Lena Hale and Grace Lawson, all of Florence, and Mary McLaughlin and her hus- band, Edward McLaughlin Jr., of Anniston; and a number of nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. David H. Popper , 95, a retired FSO and former ambassador, died on July 24 in Washington, D.C., from the effects of a fall. Born in New York City on Oct. 3, 1912, Mr. Popper was raised in White Plains, N.Y. He enrolled in Harvard University at the age of 15 and was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1932. He received a master’s degree in government there in 1934. His first job, in 1933, was with the newly founded Foreign Policy Association. There he authored popular pam- phlets on various parts of the world, the best known of which was The Puzzle of Palestine (1938). In 1941, Mr. Popper traveled on a fellowship in Latin America to assess German and Japanese penetration. He returned home after Pearl Harbor to volunteer for the U.S. Army. Disqualified from combat by near- sightedness, he was assigned to track the Axis powers in Latin America. In 1945, Mr. Popper joined the Foreign Service. His first series of postings were with the department’s division of international organizations, where he served as assistant chief of the Division of United Nations Political Affairs in 1948 and officer-in- charge of General Assembly affairs in 1949. In 1951, he was named deputy director of the Office of U.N. Political and Security Affairs, becoming its director in 1954. Following a detail to the National War College in 1955, he was assigned to Geneva in 1956 as deputy U.S. rep- resentative to United Nations organi- zations there. In 1959, he served as deputy U.S. representative to the Conference on Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests, and was 80 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 I N M E M O R Y u u