The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

46 DECEMBER 2012 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 7. A professor of several languages, popular cookbook author, accomplished dancer and museum docent, Maideh Magee was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, on May 28, 1922, to Persian parents. She grew up in a large household where four languages—Azeri, Persian, Turkish and Russian—were commonly spoken. After her parents returned to Iran, she attended an English-language high school in Tehran operated by American Presbyterian missionaries. In late 1943, during World War II, she decided to further her education in the United States and traveled alone from Tehran to Cairo and then to Alexandria, Egypt, where she boarded a merchant ship which sailed through Nazi U-boat- infested waters in a convoy across the Atlantic. In 1947 she earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Douglass College; two years later she received a master’s degree in inter- national relations from the University of California at Berkeley. During the 1950s and 1960s Ms. Magee taught Persian, Turkish and Rus- sian, and English as a Second Language, at the Navy Language School of George- town University’s Defense Language Institute and at Michigan’s Wayne State University. She also spoke French and Bulgarian. From 1991 to 2010, Ms. Magee was a docent at the Hillwood Museum, where she lectured in several languages about Marjorie Merriweather Post’s extensive collections of Russian and French art. A recognized authority on the art of Russian lacquer box painting, she lec- tured internationally on Russian cuisine, customs, art and folk dancing. She also assembled a noteworthy private collec- tion of Russian art. Ms. Magee accompanied her husband on assignments to the Soviet Union, France, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, Latvia and Ukraine. Later she traveled with him on international election moni- toring missions to various East European countries and parts of the former Soviet Union. Her fame as a skilled hostess of all sorts of diplomatic functions grew steadily. In 1960, Ms. Magee published a cook- book on Persian cuisine, I n a Persian Kitchen , which was praised by critics. “Maideh Mazda Adds Extras to Paradise” was how the Washington Post headlined its review, which began: “When Omar Khayyam wrote the Rubaiyat, his ‘thou’ must have been a prototype of Maideh Mazda.” After 19 hardback editions, the book is now in its seventh paperback printing. As she wrote in the book, Ms. Magee first tried her hand at Persian cooking in 1944 to bring the tastes and aromas of their native dinner tables back to homesick Persian students in the United States. New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne called the book “at once a fascinating collection of recipes and, for anyone interested in the foods of other lands, a pleasure to read.” At Claiborne’s request, Ms. Magee took a train to New York to prepare a meal for him. As he suggested, she brought her own favorite pots, pans and utensils and her own food. “He made me undercook everything, so it would look better in the photographs,” Mr. Magee recalls his wife saying on her return to Washington. In 2009, Ms. Magee was particularly pleased to receive an award from Ency- clopaedia Iranica honoring her “for her efforts to introduce Persian culinary art to the non-Iranian public,” her husband recalls. In addition to her deep interest in art and cooking, Ms. Magee greatly enjoyed world travel and reading. She was an active member of Friends of Hillwood, the Arbremont Book Club and Welcome to Washington, as well as the Sibley Hospital Senior Association, Kennedy Center, World Affairs Council, Merid- ian International Center, Washington Performing Arts Society and the Lively Foundation. Besides her husband of 53 years, Maideh Magee is survived by her daugh- ter, Maya Magee of Washington, D.C., and two nieces. Her granddaughter, Jes- sica Miller, died in 2011. n James Donaldson Mason , 89, a retired member of the Foreign Service, died on April 3 at his home in Fort Myers, Fla. Mr. Mason was born on Dec. 24, 1922, in Elwood, Ind. After several years in the private sector, he joined the State Department in 1943. His 40-year career in the Foreign Service included postings to Accra, Trieste, Nanjing, Manila (twice), Hong Kong, Tunis, Brussels, Paris, Nice, Asuncion, Guadalajara and Toronto, in addition to assignments at the State Department in Washington, D.C. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1983, Mr. Mason settled with his wife and their two daughters in Silverspring, Md., where he continued studies at the University of Maryland and earned a bachelor of science degree. Mr. Mason had a great love of baseball and rooted for the Indiana Cubs. In 1987, the couple moved to Fort Myers. Mr. Mason is survived by his wife, Nanette Mason; two daughters, Carmen and Maria; and many grandchildren. n Carroll Russell Sherer , 89, wife of the late Ambassador Albert W. Sherer Jr.,