The Foreign Service Journal, November 2011

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 63 I N M E M O R Y Africa (Bukavu and Stanleyville, Zan- zibar, Lubumbashi and Dar es Salaam) and two tours in Vietnam (Chau Duc Province and Saigon). In 1975 he spent 10 weeks in western Tanzania working full time on a hostage case that resulted in the safe release of four stu- dents who had been kidnapped while studying with Jane Goodall at Gombe. In Washington, Mr. Macfarlane served in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, on the Board of Exam- iners and in the Bureau of African Af- fairs (as Rhodesia desk officer and in the Office of Inter-African Affairs and Office of Southern African Affairs). During a tour as a Senior Watch Officer in the Operations Center, he met Ann Griffin, the first female FSO to serve as a staff assistant in the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau. They married in 1978. After attending the National War College from 1984 to 1985, Mr. Mac- farlane concluded his career as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Kathmandu, receiving the Superior Honor Award for his service. Following retirement in 1988, he moved back to Seattle, where he began a second career as a trade consultant, instructor and public speaker, with an emphasis on disaster response technol- ogy and improving international aid. He served as interim executive director of the World Affairs Council and of the Snow Leopard Trust, and facilitated 17 discussion groups on current events and foreign affairs at local retirement communities. Mr. Macfarlane was a talented pi- anist, a dedicated gardener, a fan of the Seattle Mariners, and a devoted hus- band and father. He is survived by his wife, Ann, of Seattle; their sons, Matthew of Seattle and Andrew and Stephen, both of New York City; his brother, Alan of Seattle; and nephews, nieces and in-laws. Karen Gerlach Malinowski , 63, a social activist and the wife of retired FSO and former ambassador Michael E. Malinowski, died of adenocarci- noma cancer in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 3. Karen Gerlach was born in Alma, Mich., on Jan. 23, 1948, and grew up in Wyandotte, a suburb of Detroit. After graduating from the University of Michigan with degrees in dramatic arts and anthropology, she worked as a so- cial worker for Cook County and the state of Illinois in the inner city of Chicago. She married her husband in 1975 and, upon his entry into the For- eign Service the next year, moved to Washington, D.C. She accompanied him on 14 tours of duty, including three at the Department of State. Their tours began in Mexico City, where Mrs. Malinowski worked in the consular section. For their next two tours, she was among the first commu- nity liaison officers, serving at a very dangerous time in Kabul in 1979 and in Colombo from 1980 to 1983. In Pe- shawar from 1987 to 1989, she taught English at an American Rescue Com- mittee-sponsored high school for Afghan girls. The school was the only one of its kind in Peshawar and, unfor- tunately, a target of radical elements in Pakistan and from Afghanistan. She showed considerable courage in her commitment to provide education op- portunities to young Afghan women. During two tours in Nepal, from 1991 to 1994 and from 2001 to 2004, when her husband served as ambassa- dor, Mrs. Malinowski led the American Women of Nepal, later Active Women of Nepal. Then the largest nongovern- mental organization in Nepal, AWON provided health care to the impover- ished, maintained a free English-lan- guage lending library, fostered self- employment of women through cre- ation and sale of handicrafts, ran a na- tionwide literacy program, and man- aged a scholarship program in con- junction with the U.S. Peace Corps. Mrs. Malinowski was president of the U.S. Embassy Club in Manila and also served with her husband in Vene- zuela and Swaziland, and at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and the National Defense Intelligence Col- lege in Washington, D.C. Following his retirement from the Foreign Serv- ice in 2009, she resided in American University Park in Washington, D.C. She is survived by her husband of 36 years, Michael of Washington, D.C.; four sisters, Susan Anderson (and her husband Mark) of Pentwater, Mich., Jeanne Lewis (and her husband, Steven) of Fort Wayne, Ind., Patricia De Proto (and her husband, Michael) of Guerneville, Calif., and Deborah Gerlach (and her husband, John For- man) of Allen Park, Mich.; two broth- ers, Charles Gerlach (and his wife, Nancy) of Birmingham, Mich., and John Gerlach of Wyandotte, Mich.; and by many nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews. Peter N. Synodis , 83, a retired Foreign Service officer, died peacefully, surrounded by his loving family, on June 8 in SanDiego, Calif. He suffered from heart complications. Mr. Synodis was born in East Pitts- burgh, Pa., on July 3, 1927. He was the youngest of three children born to Nicholas and Marianthe, Greek immi-