The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2016 63 IN MEMORY n Lola Arnold Bardos , 91, wife of the late Arthur Bardos, a Foreign Service offi- cer with the U.S. Information Agency, died of complications frompneumonia on Aug. 17 in hospice in Albuquerque, N.M. Mrs. Bardos was born on July 22, 1925, in Syracuse, N.Y., and spent most of her youth in that area. After graduating from high school at the age of 16, she studied and graduated as a minister of the Unity Church inMissouri. She thenmoved to California to study at the University of Southern California. There, in 1946, during the spring of her senior year, she met Arthur Bardos, a newly minted American citizen fromHungary, who was completing his master’s degree. After she graduated with a B.A. in psychol- ogy, the couple married andmoved to Boston, where she worked for the Office of the Dean of Harvard Law School while Mr. Bardos worked on his Ph.D. in compara- tive literature at Harvard University. WhenMr. Bardos joined the Foreign Service in 1951, his first post was Vienna, during the challenging post-war years when Austria was partitioned into four occupation zones—quite an introduction to their newwork and lifestyle. Subse- quently, Mrs. Bardos accompanied and assisted her husband in Casablanca, Paris and Conakry (where she worked for several months as a French interpreter for doctors on the Project HOPE Ship). Mrs. Bardos resettled the family in Bethesda, Md., whenMr. Bardos was assigned to Vietnam. Brussels, Vienna (for a second time), Bonn and Ankara rounded out their overseas posts. Before their final post in Turkey, the couple lived in Boston, where Mr. Bardos taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Throughout her husband’s career, Mrs. Bardos represented her country with grace and warmth, genuinely bonding with all those with whom she interacted. As her friends and family recall, she truly never met a stranger—rather, she created friend- ships and built bridges in the most difficult of circumstances. Mrs. Bardos was known for her hospi- tality and her wonderful cooking, and her table was never more crowded than on Thanksgiving in a foreign country, when all were welcome to share the feast. She was an art andmusic lover, and she was end- lessly appreciative of the cultures, histories and legacies of the people whose countries she called home. Following retirement from the Foreign Service, the couple settled in Bethesda, Md., where Mrs. Bardos continued her decades-long membership in and service to the Bethesda United Church of Christ as a choir member, boardmember and par- ticipant inmany service programs. Arthur Bardos died in 2013. In October 2015, Mrs. Bardos moved to Albuquerque, N.M. It was the last time she established a home andmade new friends, and the first time she enjoyed the opportunity to live in close proximity to a daughter and her family. She enjoyed their strong love and support during that last year of her life. Lola Bardos is survived by her daugh- ters Catherine Mack (and her husband, Robert) of Lakeland, Fla., and Jennifer Graham (and her husband, Gerald) of Albuquerque; and four grandchildren, Kevin Graham, Kathryn Graham, Rachel Graham and Daniel Mack. n Dave S. Cohn, 77, a retired Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, died on June 16 in Oakland, Calif., after a long illness. A naturalized American, Mr. Cohn (formerly Paul David Cohn) was born on March 18, 1939, in Toronto, Canada, the second of three sons of Martin and Tmima Cohn. Martin was an executive in Jewish community work in Toronto and, after immigrating to the United States, in Cleve- land, Chicago, Minneapolis and Cincin- nati. Tmima, an attorney, was elected to the Toronto Board of Education, andmuch later served as chair of the Planning Com- mission of Volusia County, Fla. From a young age, Mr. Cohn’s goal was to follow in his family’s tradition of help- ing tomake the world a better place. He graduated from the University of Cincin- nati and from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration in 1963, andmoved toWashington, D.C., in 1965 to join the War on Poverty. There he served in several community programs before becoming a regional officer with Volunteers in Service to America. In 1973, he joined the San Francisco Regional Office of the Department of Health andWelfare. He also worked with the California State Department of Health before being offered his dream job with USAID in 1980. Mr. Cohn served with USAID as a health and population officer from 1980 to 1999. He distinguished himself as the first USAIDHIV/AIDS officer, posted to Uganda from 1987 to 1991. The HIV/AIDS education and prevention programhe developed for and with the participation of Ugandans from the military, industry, entertainment and all walks of society, was for many years the gold standard in Africa. In addition to Uganda, Mr. Cohn served as health officer in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Peru. On domestic tours, he was country officer for Bosnia andMongolia. He helped avert widespread suffering in Ulaanbaatar one brutal winter by facilitat- ing emergency coal blasting to keep the city’s central furnace operating. Aside fromhis family, Mr. Cohn’s greatest love was cars—some classic, some junkers, some high-end. At one point he owned two Lincoln Continentals and