Hi, my name is David Staniunas from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Today is August 2nd, 2023. And joining me to talk about her experiences in Jibrail Lebanon is Mary Jane Stickley. Thank you for being with us, Mary Jane.

It's nice talking with you.

It's my pleasure. Would you start us off just by telling us a little bit about your background growing up and how you ended up working for the Ohio CROP Christian Rural Overseas Program.

I grew up on a farm. I was born on a farm. My dad is a farmer, and I met Tom Stickley when he was dating my sister and he wanted to marry her and she didn't want to get married. She wanted to travel. So he settled for second best and he and I got just had a wonderfully exciting and.

That ended up being the best.

And. So then one of the most exciting things we did was go with Christian Rural Overseas Program, arranged with Clyde in Rogers. We always called him the very Reverend Clyde in Rogers, and he became when he saw us and his helper, he worked with Margaret Brueggemann or I don't know if you know that name.

I don't know that name.

And they came over and. Well, this was just a very there was a lovely house for us to live in. And Tom was in charge of the dairy program was we also had goats and chickens and.

We have some pictures of those, as you'll see.

Yeah.

And then the boys were 18 months and three when we went over there. Wow.

Oh.

And of course, the villagers all loved these two little boys, and they'd bring their little people over to play. And it was a lovely experience.

So you and Tom went over to Jibril about this would have been 61 or 61.

61 while we were there.

Yeah, it was September of 61 into 62.

Yeah, I think we came home in November of 62.

That makes sense. Yeah. It was one year. Right. One year? More than that? Yeah, a little more than that year.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, Mary Jane, you grew up on a farm, and Tom did. He also grew up on a farm. You had a background.

He lived about his. His dad had a big farm. We were. My dad was a small farmer, you know, 120 acres. And I think Tom's father was a farmer. And they had a lot of land and quite a big time operation. Yeah.

Yeah. And we didn't mention what counties in Ohio, you.

Know, Shelby County for us, and only 35 miles away was Champaign County, Ohio. There's also a champagne in Indiana and Illinois.

Yeah.

Of that Champaign County, Ohio is where this near Urbana, Ohio.

Okay.

So, I mean, that's a. Had you ever been abroad before going to Lebanon?

Had you been overseas? Oh, my. Went to Mexico.

Oh. When I was 16, I. Our Spanish teacher took four of us students and we were gone for a month and visited. We went through Tolleson, Charlie, and down to Mexico City and south of there. Yeah, it was a month long trip. That was probably the first time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so did Ohio Crop prepare you and Tom or Mike? I was there some kind of preparation period before you went to Lebanon?

You know, I don't remember very much. People in that organization knew Tom. Tom was about three or three years older than I was. And they had. They had heard him speak and he had been in several years before. He and my sister had been on an exchange program where he went to Ecuador and my sister went to Scotland and they were very good friends and the same age being on on that program. And then he I think I can't say whether it was Tom or my sister. They were required by this program to give speeches all over Ohio to farm groups and Grange Farm Bureau, all sorts of farmers, nations. I think they made Tom made a hundred speeches all over Ohio.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

So so, you know, there was some training to be kind of like agricultural interpreters, you know, and kind of interpret your experiences abroad to. Yeah.

Ohio cadences. Yeah.

Did you all receive any kind of language study in Arabic?

Oh, I studied Arabic for a long time, but it didn't do much.

Okay, that's.

A tough one. Yeah, that's one. That was much later when Tom was invited to teach at the American University in Beirut. And so, of course, I signed up right away to I, I took classes there because to hear that history there, mostly history courses.

But but dad learned Arabic in the Army.

Tom already knew Arabic because B was a B former Marine, or he he had spent a year his army service.

And so I.

Was a year in Saudi Arabia. So he already had the Arabic. Yeah. And I just struggled with. You know, studying it, learning it, and trying to use as much as I could. But my that wasn't good. It was just the practical things. You know.

My dad was always very good at languages. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's September 1961. Tom has Arabic and has a year of background in Saudi Arabia, and you're going to a brand new place. I mean, what were your some of your thoughts and feelings about landing in Lebanon?

Oh, I was so excited. I wanted to you know, I wanted to travel. And that's one of the things Tom and I had in common and learning about love, learning, getting into a brand new culture and learning the language as fast as it could. And and so I was delighted that we were going to have such an adventure. Yeah. And actually, my father came and stayed with us for five weeks, in which I had learned enough Arabic by then to take it to Egypt.

Well, that's when we were in Beirut. That that was. That's right.

That's what I'm talking about, right in Beirut.

But in general, Grandma and Grandpa Stickley came and visit.

Yeah, that was much earlier when we lived in Jabril and Tom, Tom's mother and father and little sister, ten year old sister Cynthia came and visited us.

Yeah. Mm hmm.

I know that you all have some images from your collection cued up. Do you want to scroll through those and tell us about them?

John's? Yeah, we're all set up here. Yeah. It's nice to remember these things. You know, I'm getting up there in age and I think I have a memory problem. But we go back and look at these people and.

Boy, I remember.

That. I remember all sorts of things. Yeah.

Is not good.

Good for my head to head.

And that's why we keep records, huh?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And you see those? Okay.

That's fantastic.

So these are.

Well, they're when we first got the house ready for us, but when I first got there, there was a group of students from American University of Beirut and Beirut College for Women, and they were doing sort of a service project, and they were up there working with the village on certain things. And we got to know those kids. That was a very nice experience.

And there's that grain drying there.

Yes.

Yes. Okay.

That's grain drawn there. And he's just one of the prominent elders in the village.

Yeah.

More project work.

Uh huh.

So these are all likely to be the summer work camp folks from A to B and.

Yeah.

And they through college for women.

Yeah.

And we've got yeah, we've got poultry.

And that's our neighbor, right?

Yeah.

And there's dad in the lower right.

Tom, You see the side of his face with Dizzy? That's Tom. And Samir was the head of that.

Okay. Yeah, that's Samir memory.

Laurie Some of their memory.

Uh huh.

And so that's Samir turning around to smile at us there. No, no, no.

The other side of Tom.

Oh, right here on Tom's. Right on Dad's right. Okay. Yeah.

That's Samir. Mama.

That's okay.

And I forget those other guys, but they were similar kids from other villages or other projects. I just don't remember them. I happened to be entertaining them at the time, which I did a lot of. That's John Dexter back. There's John Stickley. That's how old he was.

Okay.

And then that's that's me in front of our house. And so there were ten dresses. There were. You see those stones? And that was like maybe a six, six foot terrace. And then there was another one above that and then another one above that. And then on our house. And so actually, he's right down in front of our house.

Okay. Are those are those mulberry trees?

I don't think they were mulberry trees, but, you know, I don't remember.

What they were.

And that is the house.

That's the neighbor that.

Was right behind us. Yeah. And of course, we were very close friends with the bee, with the family that lived there. And the other part of the house that you see just the corner of there.

That.

Was not inhabited, not finished.

Right.

In fact, I think it had been damaged. They had they had a war in 58.

Yeah.

Couple of years before we went. And there was I don't know whether that house was damaged or it never got finished building or what.

And so is this. Is this the.

House?

Corey? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Your mother and his grandmother had lived there and you had you mentioned Creek.

Yeah. We have a good picture that in fact, it might be. This is this is we went to the beach.

That's how well the boys were.

Yeah.

What beach is closest to Jabril like?

That's. That's between Beirut and our village.

Okay, So familiar around Tripoli and that area.

Or probably near.

Tripoli. Yeah. Okay.

And that's the roof of our house. And those are Nevaeh's little nieces. And they lived in Beirut. Their father was a professor at the Beirut College for Women Junior. And they would come over and play with our kids. And that's the roof of our house. And that's the thing where the kids can pump and it goes.

Around and around.

And Munir Kuria. I don't know what kind of information you you want to know about these people. Actually, Munir Khouri, when there was a political problem, he was taken. He came up to hide near us, stayed with his mother, and was going to go to Syria to escape. But they caught him and put him in prison for seven years.

And we've we've we've talked a little bit with not Zachary. And we he also he wrote a memoir before he died. And Nada has his memoirs. And she's spoken about his political activism and being held as a political prisoner.

Okay.

As I say. Yeah.

Do you have any way of getting a copy of that book?

It is. It's all in Arabic. And I've got like one English translated chapter. But that's another thing that we need to follow up on with. Yeah.

That's not.

A.

That's a john.

Yeah.

And that's when they were still working on our house. We were. And that wasn't quite them.

Yeah.

Looks like John, doesn't it?

These are just local village women, I guess.

Yeah. John and Jimmy. And they call those their grandpa pants because they were overalls like their grandfathers used wore at home on the farm. Both their grandfathers were farmers.

Yeah.

And that is, you know, Tom had a you probably know Tom's background is college major animal husbandry. And he was called because that cow was having a terrible time giving birth. So they called Tom down, up I forget where it was in the village. And he actually extended his arm clear into that cow and pulled this calf out and saved it.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's quite a story.

Because, you know, we had cows on our project and that's one of the reasons they chose Tom to go on that project.

He had had a lot of experience because.

He was a dairy farmer. Yeah, but if Tom and I had stayed on the farm and he would have taken over, his father had, what, 50 head of Holsteins. But they all steams. I think so.

And Mary Jane, do you remember anything about how the dairy program, how the dairy program operated?

I remember Tom got up at 4:00 in the morning, That's how. And they haul the mail. They all the milk down to Tripoli.

Okay.

So they're. Yeah.

And I think that's like a poem Sunday.

Yeah, I think that it.

Was a.

It was going to.

It was a Christian village. Yeah.

Thomas's Christian. But the next village over was Muslim. So the whole area was very mixed, you know, between Christians and Muslims.

Yeah.

And there's Tom. Partly just after he pulled that card.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. Do you know who's with him there?

Ah, I do not remember her, but she was just some someone who lived nearby. Maybe she was. Maybe the cow is theirs. I don't. I don't remember who that is.

Okay.

Listen, I'm going to see if I can find a picture of your house.

Yeah.

See you.

Amazing.

There's a I we've been talking about the couriers that lived right behind us.

You know, that's.

There's an there'd be.

That sort of bickering and.

Some of their you know, his nephew niece children and and my boys.

Yeah.

I had real good picture of the bees Shankly's operation. I'll see if I can find that one. See if there are any others here. Oh, you should. You should explain this picture.

That's how we kept warm in the winter. That little stove there.

Ooh.

And we'd huddle around that and the little table and the chairs for the kids to sit there. That was the one warm place in our house.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, I get pretty cold up there. Right up in the mountains and.

But, you know, during the day the sun shone and it was it was very pleasant. That's my little that's my little stove I baked. I think that's expected from having passed. Missionary In the past they had missionary people that they always go to for cookies during as a certain celebration, and they sort of expected me to have cookies for everybody. So I bake cookies, very many cookies on the edge, two burners, and then you just set it on and then turn the burners on. It's pretty you have to sort of guess what temperature.

To watch it.

Yeah. So there I am cooking cookie and milk and cookies.

Yeah. And that's a was it was that the downstairs.

That's after we moved because another family Keith books and his family. Have you heard that. I don't know what the connection would be that that's the family that came when we left and because they had three kids, I offered that we'd moved downstairs in this very little space because they really needed the space. And that's what I was.

Mary Jane, You said Keith Books. Yeah. Yeah. Be You see, just.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Because the boxes would have come in the fall of 62, Right.

When did we go home?

November 62.

November 62.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's right. That was our house. A very nice house, you see? It is. And when the books came, we moved out of the upstairs and moved down just because they had three kids. And we. We would be leaving soon. Yeah. And.

What's going on in the foreground, Bill.

Oh, all those piles. Yeah. I don't know what that is. All those piles of dirt. Do you remember?

I don't remember. Look, that's not the way I should put.

The terrain is incredibly rocky. And that.

Yeah.

Yes. In very drought. Yes, that's a good.

That is how I spent my time.

How about those goats?

Yeah, that's right in front.

Of our house. That's the stairs going down, our house going down.

And my job that day was to watch my kids and the goats. And I was reading Joseph Howlers, Catch 20, Catch 22. I was reading, I was watching the goats and the kids.

That's something.

Very useful.

That's amazing with a goat. Goat herds woman and her kids.

Yes. Yeah.

Did Mary Jane, did you know Ed Hanna and Bonnie? You know Ken?

No, no.

But of course, the names of familiar to me, I heard them. Now there's my Tom.

Here you go.

That's why he got up at 4:00 in the morning.

Yeah.

Getting right into it. Right into the work.

Yeah.

See if there's.

Okay. There's a picture with a bunch of people.

Oh, yeah. Zoom in on that. Yeah.

Okay.

Hmm. Okay.

Well, course. Tom and I. And John and Jim. Right?

That's that. And that guy you pointed out earlier?

Yeah.

And I suppose those are just board members. Members of the board. Yeah.

Yeah, because there was. There was, like, a local Jim Brailey.

Yeah.

Overseeing, like, via car.

And this would have been the local head of the.

Which is the third from the right.

Samir.

Third from the right. Which is Samir.

Yeah. Okay. Hmm.

Who's this gentleman next to your right?

Well, they were they were board members from elsewhere. They didn't leave the area. Yeah. But I was, of course, in charge Whenever the visiting fireman came, I was in charge of.

Feeding them. Yeah. Yeah.

So. So at this point, the if I remember correctly, the project would have been called the Accra Regional Cooperative.

Well, that's.

No, that's okay.

I'm just. I'm trying to think about who could be represented in that picture of folks on the board. And it might be people from, like, the nearest council of churches.

Any amount you see.

So you have several.

Okay, So one woman and her husband, Farhad, where she.

Backs against the wall.

With their backs against the wall. And I can remember when when she wanted to talk to him. And she was down where we lived. There was sort of a valley and then where the village was, and then you'd swoop down on up again. And that's where we lived. And when she wanted to talk to him, she'd just yell. Yoffe Woody.

That was.

Hey, my little Farhad.

And it would echo through the valley. Yeah.

Yeah, probably.

Oh, and then.

That's gonna be with respect to.

The horses.

With his back to.

Us. And then Tom and myself.

On the.

Left and on the right.

That's how it's hard for me to.

That's the father.

I can't think now, you know.

Oh, that's his.

Dad and his dad with a bunch of the project kids.

Yeah, he had. He was sort of setting up these groups in different villages of what he had in mind was, like, our forage program back home, because he was quite active in that back at home when he was younger. And so he had what I always called his forage kids that he'd have different projects with.

Yeah.

That's amazing. Um, so this group are these, are these kids from Djibril or maybe elsewhere?

Well, they would be from probably I'm not sure whether there would be that many from Jim Brown maybe.

Maybe surround them.

Or maybe some surrounding. I just don't remember.

That makes sense. Yeah, because Djibril is very small. I mean, it's like the hurricane. That's about it.

Okay. Interesting. Okay. It's.

I want to get a picture to be Korean and as she should, clich making operation. I think that's another bunch of pictures.

Those are. Yes. That came to us from Ohio and they stole.

The tape.

Dorothy Tate. And they came and visited us. And that's when they're leaving. They stayed with us for.

Several from our band.

Ohio.

And Harris helped out.

Harris just loved that need go help the little boys with their projects. They were building and they really fit in well with all the activities that Tom was leading in the village.

Hey.

What are the boys building here? Are they building, like, pens for hens?

Could be.

Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Or rabbits.

Oh, yeah. You got rabbits, too? That's right.

Right. Yeah.

And we saw that one already. Let me let me go. There's another one here I think would be interesting to look at. Let's see if we can. That when we go back to.

Okay, now let's see.

Well, we we looked at these. There was another one I want to show.

It's.

Get. I said, Oh, this is the one.

Oh, there's the Zen clich.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's a beautiful picture.

T shirts and a B.

And that B that lived right. Sort of us behind with his family behind and a little further down the road. And those are Bo. Do you know what she increases?

I do not. It looks like a mozzarella. Kind of.

Well, it's a cheese.

It's like a goat cheese.

And they made those. And then. They put them in pots of.

Olive.

Oil, big pots of olive oil for 40 days. And when they brought them out after they dried, they put them in pots of olive oil and for 40 days. And then when they brought them out, they'd roll them in time.

Wow.

Yeah. And that you can go to a Lebanese store now here in Oregon and get that. And it's a delicious cheese.

Yeah, it's like a roll roll in it. After some kind of space.

Time, time, time. The same thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was lovely to have all that cheese we wanted.

Yeah, I was in the bakery. There's some good ones in here. We should probably go through these.

Yeah, that's walking. We took.

You can see the mountainous terrain.

We walked that there was a road behind us that went on up to another village. And we were just. The boys and I were taking a walk.

And the.

These fellows were.

You.

Showing us the way and telling us about it. So if you behind that, you dip down. And that's where we lived. And then. Look up again and you can see mountains and even a snow covered mountain back there.

Yeah.

As I remember, we were kind of elevated, but the village of Gabrielle Self was down more in the valley. Very well. Then you really live.

You go down and then up again. It was a little bit up. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mhm.

But you can kind of see the views. Yeah. You're. That's the Cory's house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looks like another.

Easter.

Easter, probably. Yeah.

Yeah.

These guys were doing.

Some dance.

Dubbed dance.

Step to.

Man. And there's this.

Baby.

With the luring and the visiting kids from. His family and all this Christmas. Don't forget Christmas.

Christmas and Djibril.

Yeah.

Oh.

That's Tom. When we got everything set up after the boys had gone to bed. Then Tom took that picture of what they would see when they got up. And that was that Christmas tree was just a sort of an orphaned piece of a broken tree. We didn't want to cut a tree down, you know, but we used that as a tree.

Yeah, that is incredible. Yeah, that's a keeper.

And those are kids from the village and sitting on our doorstep. They like to come over and play.

Jamie Oh, this one.

Really was our wonderful, wonderful lady that came twice a week she brought. Fresh bread right from the village. You know, the great big slice of the mountain. The mountain bread that's real thin. You can get it here, I think, also. So we had the best fresh mountain bread to make sandwiches. And that's how all the boys were when we lived there. And I remember one time Tom and I had to go off for one day to Beirut, and I actually left the boys with Jimmy Lee and her sister, Sophia. And they came over and the boys were afraid of them. They that was okay because they knew them very well. And I felt confidence in them. And I also knew that if some accident happened or something serious, where they knew that she would walk right over to the house behind where Horace lived, he could take them in a car to wherever if they had to go to someplace.

I don't know. Yeah.

So she was just part of our household. Lovely lady.

Yeah, she's cool.

I think you've even got your arm.

Around her there. Yeah.

Looks like it. Oh, that's. That's kind of a is that. That's overlooking the village?

Yes, we. This is from the sea side and looking down.

That's actually what I was thinking. And would you explain a little bit earlier how you go down in the village? The main part of the village was up on the U.S. side.

Uh huh. And then you see a mountain beyond that.

Yeah.

Like that picture gives a good perspective.

I mean, people in Beirut maybe had never heard of Jabril or had never been up there. I mean, when we talk to friends down in Beirut, they'd just be amazed.

That we lived up there. And that's.

That's Tom. And they're planting something right next to the house. That field was right next to the house.

Must have been an incredible amount of labor to kind of, like, remove rocks from.

Yeah. It looks like it's very labor intensive.

Those in the walls. Two separate cloths.

And then, you know, I'd show them where Grandpa lived, and.

I don't know.

What they'd have in their mind, how I could show them where Grandpa lived on that. And those are.

The.

The little children of the Curry family and. I call them the reading room. They got together on our porch and read. Yeah, we were really quiet.

Oh, that's.

And that's the little grandmother of Debbie who made the cheese. What was her.

Name? Theodore.

Ted. A-ha. Yes, dear Eudora.

I know. I don't know why I remember that, but it's.

Still there.

Randomly.

And she was all bent over, and she was just a sweet old grandmother. That lived with them.

Yeah. And that must.

Have been.

Sometime. I don't remember the answers.

I think we were up on a mountain of boats.

Either Beirut or Tripoli. I just don't remember. Yeah. I don't remember who that man is.

I think that's it on that bunch.

To see three years.

That's. These are. These are from before we left. Yeah.

There's my dad and my two little boys. The first one. And I tell you, I wasn't very we were very popular for taking those two boys away. And there's my mom.

Yeah. This is just before the Ohio. Before we.

Left. Right. Before we were. We wanted the airport to leave, and that's my father and the pond that he built with the scoop on the back of his little Ford tractor. He dug out the pond and made a dam across, and that he called that his heaven because he loved to go back after milking in the evening and fish and squirrels doing so well, they walk right up to him. Yeah. So, see, I had that wonderful farm background also.

Yeah.

And that's out at my folks house.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

That was just.

For.

And that's dads, dads, parents, parents. Champaign County.

I was a friend of Dad's.

I don't remember.

That's my father's father, Kenneth Stickley. I'm going to.

They had Ayrshire cattle.

Let's see if we get any more.

There's Tom and his boy.

Yeah.

I think. I think. Yeah. These are all before. Before we left. Mm hmm. Went over there?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's it on the. Mainly it on the pictures.

Yeah. Well.

Mary Jane, you said that Tom taught at A you B when did when did he start teaching at the American University of Beirut?

Okay, now let me sort this out. I remember where we were. Tom must have been in grad school, and we were lucky enough that the university farm and farm house happened to be empty then. And when I went to see about where to live, they asked if we'd like to live on that farm.

Yeah, but you're term of Djibril means asking about Beirut. A b, we talk.

Know he's talking about how to reverse. How did you how did you first happen to go there to.

To live in Beirut? The American University of Beirut. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, because that was in 68 that we went we were there from 68 to 72 that we went to live in Beirut at the American University.

And so the.

Death.

Professor, what was your question again?

Oh, I was asking about when Tom started teaching at a pub.

Okay. And because. There were people that knew, Oh, I know where we lived that the first time, Tom, when they needed advice about, you know, something about the cows or or he would go down to the university and talk to the professors if he had a problem with the animals that we had. And they remembered that when they had a vacancy and they remember Tom and that we had had experience up there and that they would call on him when they needed counseling about the animals. And that's the reason. That's the reason that suddenly once we were living out on that university farm, the the bell rang one morning and we had a telegram. And I ran upstairs and Tom was still in bed. And I handed in the telegram and they were inviting Tom to come back and be on the faculty based on just that connection that I told you about before. And we were so happy to get to go back to Lebanon that we both stood up on the bed and held hands and danced around on the bed. So Lebanon is very dear to our hearts, and that's amazing. And so I'll tell you that story because it just shows how happy we were to go back. That's how much we loved you.

Yeah.

And and so the family between 62 and 68 moved back to Ohio.

Because Tom wanted to get his Ph.D.. See, the first Chowdhury went. Of course he didn't have that. So we were back there and actually the boys were in first and second grade and of course my parents had been rather disturbed when Tom wanted to get married so soon. So I had made the of that. Tom promised my father that I would graduate.

From Ohio.

State. So in that period of time, I took, you know, I take the boys to school, to nursery in kinder, and then I go to classes for 3 hours. Then I'd pick them up, take them home, feed them, put them to bed, study and finally did finish. So I completed that promise to Tom, promised to my father that I would finish year. So that was nice.

Yeah.

That's extraordinary. So. You were in Beirut from 68 to 72. Can can you tell me about what daily life was like for you there?

Well, our region sort of sort out. That's separate from when we were up.

And Yeah.

So then when we went back.

We lived in the faculty apartments. There you'd be.

Yeah. And that's when we were so pleased.

To go back.

Because we love Lebanon so much more so than we lived. So they invited him to be on in on the faculty, then the team.

You know, the agriculture.

School, the.

School of Agriculture, based on having known him and his coming down and asking advice about our problems up in the ground. They remembered him from that.

By then he had his Ph.D..

By then he had his.

Agricultural economics. So he taught agricultural economics at the American University.

And then we we lived in faculty housing. Yeah, right. Right down on the campus and.

Overlooking the ocean.

Overlooking the sea. And right across, right out our gate was a road that went up to the main part of the city. But there was the British embassy. And on the other side of that was the boys school. American community. The American community. Right.

Okay.

So Jimmy would have been the fourth in you in the fifth grade by the time we went back to Beirut? Yeah. And we were so happy to go back because we had had a very, very pleasant time up in the village. And during that time, of course, we got to visit the village again and see all.

Those folks that we.

Had known before. Yeah.

So what's Beirut is is a little bit different than the rest of the city, huh?

Well, yeah.

I mean, like any city, it's we live in a very. Pleasant on the sea.

Nice where you had the. CORNISH And.

The. CORNISH You. Yeah, it was lovely. It was lovely. But, of course, there were not as nice places in a big city.

As there are. Hmm. Yeah.

But that was oh, my, we love there. And I could stand on my balcony. Our apartment was on the first floor and watch Tom go out to my right through a gate to his office. I could.

See his right next door.

Which was right next door, and watch the boys go out. The gate on the left side. And they just go around the British embassy and there was their school. So that was very nicely. And straight ahead, I looked out over the sea and watched the dolphins play and.

The boats go by and. Yeah.

We have a life. You know.

It's interesting because, I mean, 68 to 70 was a very intense political period in the Middle East. I mean.

It is kind of between conflicts. It was right after the war, but before this civil war broke out in 73, they were sort of in their five years of peace. Yeah, relative.

That's right.

You know.

That's right. Because there was a time war and. I looked down on our back, little slit of a porch on the back. Part of our fiber.

Is toward the end.

And all the students were just rushing down.

Yeah, it was actually 68 to 73, not 72. We were there for five years. And 73, I think is when the Civil War broke out.

Oh 73 Yom Kippur War.

It and it was sort of time to come home for us, wasn't it?

Yeah, well, you evacuated.

Yeah, I sent the boys home early.

The airport was closed for a while, and then one opened up again. You put us on a plane?

We, uh. We drove to the airport, but we. We didn't go close to it, but a friend took the boys to.

It.

The rest of the way because he could. We couldn't. I don't know why that is. And he saw that the boys got on the plane. Okay. And then my Uncle Tom was couple. We called him and he was there to pick him up in New York of New Jersey.

New Jersey. You said that as news you saw that plane to you?

Yeah, I had my chest hurt. I mean, this was a very stressful time, and I want my boys out of there. But I didn't want to leave Tom alone. So we arranged that that way. And I remember just watching that plane. And when, you know, the refugee camp was right over there where there was lots of trouble right next to the airport. And I remember watching that plane go up. And when it got so high and just I couldn't see it anymore. My chest quit hurting because I knew the boys were safe.

Out of there. Yeah.

And the nice time when I stayed until the middle of July, he had to finish up things, you know?

And. Oh.

What was.

What was tense.

With the whole.

The whole the whole thing about Lebanon to us is positive, really. In a way. There were many good times and good. I mean, life on that campus. I can just walk up and there were concerts, you know, all all the countries in Europe would send their their music, their symphonies, their artists down who would perform in the church that was right on the campus. And we could just walk up and go and all that good stuff.

You know, it was it was kind of like the playground of the Middle East, people coming from all over the Middle East and vacation there and. It's a beautiful place.

Yeah, I remember our being up there. In that in that building. And I had told Jimmy I'd like him to come down. So pretty soon I heard this rustling and he was excusing himself, walking over people's feet. And he had he had a little tablet to take notes from, whatever that problem.

Was.

That was.

Yeah. And of course, then the kids had there were other professors, kids, you know, they had plenty of kids. To play was right there on campus behind closed and guarded gates.

So.

Yeah. The memories just flew out. Once you asked me a question, I go on.

Oh.

Mary Jane, is there anything else special you'd like to share with us about your time in Lebanon?

Hmm.

I just remember Tom loved his work. The boys will go on to an excellent school. Because besides the kids, they're from campus and local kids. All the Aramco people who were stationed in Saudi Arabia had their kids in the boarding school. So that was money coming in. And they had a good music program, a good library, music lessons, individual for kids. I mean, it was just a very well supported school by the Aramco. Folks that wanted it nice for their kids.

Yeah. Fascinating. Well.

It was an exciting night. We loved our lives there. We really.

Did. Yeah.

What do you call it?

Yeah.

Mary Jane, thank you so much for sharing your memories with us. And thank you so much for sharing this slide captures. It's incredible to see all of the Israeli families, you know, represented in those and those slides that it was. It's an amazing trip. And thank you again for making time for us.

It's so nice to talk to somebody who really wants to know how how it was back then, because I love recalling it all. It was all it was all good. Okay. Thank you.

Take care. I'm going to stop the recording.