Ann and Matthew Gordon remember Ainab 1967 to 1975

Ann Gordon

When I think of Ainab, and I often do, I think first of all of the fine people, included in this great project that good Joshua has fashioned, whom I met and mingled with up there. The fun, great walks up the hills, one very memorable one with Ray Close leading the way to the top for pancakes over a fire, watching the sunrise! As I remember we cooked 200!

And of course the tennis, Malcolm and David Dodges’ first serves, plus Joan Landis’s rather eccentric but effective one. The tennis was great, funny but a wonderful mixture of old and young. I love the image of Nina selling watermelon slices, how reviving those watermelon slices were for us sweating players. 

What a place for the children of all ages, the concrete roads built for the miniature cars and trucks. The games on the court, rover-red-rover and lots of others. And wandering down to the village for a cold soda. 

Victoria kept her horse there one summer, tethered to a tree. He escaped once, but was caught by Ralph Crow who calmly put his arms around Nar and led him back. 

The bridge! not brilliant, but full of laughs, sometimes wondering if Archie would give us a splash half way through. The food and drinks were special, no doubt because of the mountain air. We all enjoyed guests coming up for a meal and a break from hot Beirut. 

We Gordons had the Leavitt house from about ‘67 to ‘75. And thoroughly enjoyed Landises, Kerrs, Crows, Kennedys, Dodds, Scotts Archie, and various other ex-Ainabis who visited. We all enjoyed knowing Mary Eddy. She had such good stories. And was an elegant member of the hillltop. 

I was shaken when I saw in 2001 that nothing was left of our house but a concrete slab. I never knew whether it was bombed or what happened to it. 

But we are so lucky to have had that magical place and all the memories it has evoked for over 80 years. And bless this blog.

AINAB (by Matthew Gordon)

Hills that smelled of warm thyme

The pink and peach light of the late afternoons

The concord grapes: squeeze, the rush of thick sweetness and broken seed

The treehouse, flashlight game beneath the Dodge house, the volleyball games; best of all, kick-the-can.

Jisr al-Qadi: was there ever better swimming?

The tangle of car roads, oh, the car roads: why so fascinating?

The tennis matches; one fierce net exchange with my father remains fixed in my memory. And blessed Joan’s serve, the giggles.

And the people, a great swirl of faces, names, episodes. Ted Kennedy on French horn! And Mary Eddy’s niece or granddaughter (what was her name?), she took us on a long hike and much further across the hills than I had known. And Ken Crow back from India at some point (he also played me the 45 rpm version of “Paperback Writer” and spoke at length of why it mattered).

Concrete slab indeed. The Scotts lived in the house at one point, during one invasion from the south or another, and I believe it was a nervous Israeli soldier who shot up the roof (with US-provided ammunition?). I don’t recall who told me, but he or she described it as the beginning of the end for the house.

We’ve attached a watercolor of the Gordon family on our porch (done by Ann Osborne, August 1969).

Those were the days my friends.

Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism - UC Press 2015 - NER, Marash, Kerr, AUB, AUH

My friend and colleague Josh Landis suggested that the people on this list might like to learn more about my recent book on the role of NER, AUB, the Beirut-based American Red Cross, Kerrs, Ray Travis, Antoura, Dodges in the formation of Modern humanitarianism, relief and development.

Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015) follows the international NGO movement in the Eastern Mediterranean during and after WWI to address the suffering caused by the Great Syrian Famine; and post-war efforts to help the Armenians after the genocide resettle in So. Anatolia and then move again back to Syria and Lebanon.

The first chapter is online at my Academia.edu page.  This is its opening paragraph:

Marash, Anatolia, February 9, 1920. As the Armenians of Marash fled their city in the face of civil war and the certainty of massacre, a twenty-three-year-old American Near East Relief (NER) official, Stanley E. Kerr, made the decision to stay behind in the organization’s headquarters to care for the hundreds of children and elderly who could not travel. He was one of a tiny handful of Americans who remained in the war-torn city as other relief workers evacuated with the able-bodied and the retreating French army. “Tonight,” Kerr wrote to his parents back home in Philadelphia, “the most bitter cold of all this winter….Our orphans, old women and men will remain in our compounds….Perhaps by remaining here we can protect the remaining Armenians from  massacre….We are in great danger, but not without hope….No matter what happens remember that I am ready to make any sacrifice even death.” For the young American, this was his first real encounter with the full measure of the horrors facing the civilian population of the Eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the “war to end war.” For the Armenians of Marash, the massacres, dispossession, and exile they faced that night came only at the end of a generation of war, communal violence, genocide, famine, and disease that had left a quarter of the Ottoman state’s subjects dead and millions displaced: in the Balkans and the Caucasus Muslim refugees fled advancing European armies; Ottoman Armenians who had survived state-sponsored efforts to destroy them as a people filled camps and shantytowns scattered along the outskirts of the major cities of the Levant; and Greeks and Turks on the “wrong” sides of new international borders would be “exchanged”—a euphemism for internationally sanctioned dispossession and forced migration—as nation-states emerged from the ashes of empire.

This was at times a very hard book to write, especially as I see so much of what is happening now as a reflection of what happened then; as well as the same international indifference to suffering.

Something I wrote in my preface that I'm sure many of you also feel:

I wrote this book as the contemporary “Middle East” [has] descended into a humanitarian disaster that, in its degree of suffering and international indifference, resembles the one that occurred during and following World War I. Historians must not draw too many parallels between the past and the present, but as I have looked out across the region over the last few years, I see in the immense refugee flows, human trafficking, sexual violence, and genocide of the current wars in Syria and Iraq echoes of a hundred years ago. Those echoes resound across the same territories of inhumanity and humanitarian response, especially now in the city of Aleppo, which has been subjected to the kinds of unceasing urban violence reminiscent of Madrid in the 1930s or Sarajevo in the 1990s; at the time of this writing the city seems poised to fall into the hands of the most violent of Islamist extremists, whose pitiless and cruel modern ideology has already led to the destruction through genocide of ancient non-Muslim communities in northern Iraq and caused utter misery for countless Muslims throughout the region.

Arda and Aram say: Buy my Baba's book!

I would also encourage you to take a look at a book I helped edit: Karnig Panian's Goodbye Antoura: A Genocide Orphan's Memoir (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2015).  It chronicles Panian's life during the genocide and then his placement at an Ottoman orphanage at Antoura where he faced forced Turkification - think American Indian boarding schools.  It also tells of his liberation by AUB faculty and later care by NER.  Panian was among those orphans returned to Aintab in the company of NER's Ray Travis, who then had to flee again with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

It's a very moving book and tells the story from the other side of the American relief effort.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the work.  Below is my UC Davis contact information.

Keith David Watenpaugh
Associate Professor
Human Rights Studies
University of California, Davis
kwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu
(530) 574-0815

Director, UC Davis Human Rights Initiative & Human Rights Minor

President, Syrian Studies Association (2014-2016)

For more on my research go to my page Academia.edu

Bread From Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism

The year the Ainab property was acquired

Dorothy Kerr Jessup mentions that her parents - Stanley and Elsa Kerr - were on sabbatical in the US the year the Ainab property was purchased. I think this photo of them was taken that year - though I always assumed it had been taken in Ainab!

Dodd Photos of Ainab in the 1930s 1

Identified back row, L to R: Wally & Helen Ritscher, Dora & Harold Close, Elsa & Stan Kerr

Others L to R: Stuart Dodd, Archie & Mary Crawford. ca. 1939

Left to Right: Bruce Dodd, John Ritscher, Ray Close, Peter Dodd, Helen Ritcher, Dottie Kerr, Helen Leavitt, Malcom Kerr. 1936

Dodd Photos of Ainab in the 1930s 2

Ainab tennis courts, 1940. Left to Right -

Back row: Marjo Ritscher, Marga Leavitt, Wally Close, Marion Kerr, Dan Leavitt, Ann Ritscher, Art Close, Howard Leavitt.

Front row: Bruce Dodd, Johnnie Ritscher, Peter Dodd, Helen Leavitt, Ray Close, Helen Ritscher, Dorothy & Malcolm Kerr.

Bruce, Molly Crawford, Hugh and Alice Crawford in the Water Barrels. Dodd house, 1939.

Betty Dodd with Hugh, 1936. Dodd/Dodge house, Ainab.

Original Dodd house, 1933, before the roof blew off. Reportedly, it landed on the Crawford property, contents of the attic intact, including a set of Life magazines! Dodds were on furlough and missed the excitement.

Ain Ksour (near Bludan). 1939?

Back row L to R: Mary Crawford, Stuart dodd, Liz, Alan, and David West

Front row: Bill West, Johnny Crawford, Molly Crawford, Peter Dodd

Dodd/Dodge house, Ainab. Betty, Peter & Bruce Dodd

Ainab tennis courts. Peter Dodd and Johnny Crawford.

The Origins of Ainab in 1932-33 as recollected by Dorothy Kerr Jessup

There are so many questions I would like to ask about the origins of the property. I can only offer bits and pieces:

I grew up in Lebanon in the 1930’s and 40’s, and think often of Ainab as my favorite place in the world.

I was born Dorothy Kerr, Malcolm Kerr’s sister, and Anne’s sister in law.  We built our house there in the 1930’s  along  with the Dodds, Closes, Leavitt’s and Crawfords.  When our parents retired and came back to the US,  the original houses were sold to new owners. Ours was sold to the Crows, whom I never met, but see someone by that name listed among those receiving this message. Sad to say, none of  the Dodd children are still living, and a good many of the others as well, but I’m still in touch with Molly Crawford and may be able to find Ray Close (we’re all in our eighties now.) My brother Doug Kerr is the only other one still alive in our family, from our generation.

I remember being told the story about how the property was first found and purchased by the five young AUB faculty families, but I was so young at the time, I didn’t pay much attention to details.   All I know is that they bought the property around the time my father was on sabbatical in the US, and that would have been 1932-33.  Their basic concept was an arrangement of shared, community property, with each family owning it’s individual property and home surrounding a community space, which was, of course, to be a Tennis Court, along with a space for socializing, singing, story telling and bonfires.  I don’t know how our parents managed to decide amicably who would get the lot with the best view, but somehow they managed to make that decision, and everyone seemed quite pleased with the outcome.

The Closes had the house with the panoramic view of Beirut, the sea beyond, and the sunsets.

The Dodds built their house close to the trails that climbed the mountain behind our property, and, as I mentioned before,  made the house so high that they got marvelous views from a very high porch.

The Leavitts and Crawfords had nice views of the Ainab valley.

And our parents (the Kerrs) said what they wanted most was the lot with the most privacy. So the lot they chose was on the side of the Ainab hilltop away from all the views, but with a nice vista below of an evergreen forest where the way-wees (jackals) howled at night. We used to lie in our shack at night listening to them and other sounds from the forest,  but once we got used to them, we kind of liked that. Our father built a vineyard  on the land just below the house and above the forest, with the help of Arab villagers.  So that all provided a very different,  lovely setting. 

 

Our house was the last one to be built, and we moved in when I was six (around 1936).  I remember being very impressed watching the Arab movers carrying our furniture, without the help of any equipment or animals. One man carried a large piano on his back for quite some distance, from the top of the hill where the moving van was parked, down quite a long path to the house, never stopping to rest.

The tennis court and community space hadn’t been developed yet, but that construction began during the first summer,  with a crew of Arab workers, and that was an amazingly exciting period for us children. For reasons I can’t explain, there was a lot of blasting involved, with dynamite (I can’t remember the word in Arabic).  Every time the workers were about to set off the dynamite, they’d call out very loudly, and we’d all run as fast as we could to get as far away as possible.  In retrospect, I wonder if our parents had any doubts for our safety, but I remember it only as being vey exciting!   After they’d cleared the ground and leveled it (very carefully, I’m sure, for all of our fathers were devout tennis players)  they paved it.

(Whether they laid a base before the asphalt, I couldn’t say, but maybe Ray remembers.)   I believe there was some discussion at an earlier point about whether the surface should have been clay instead, but I’m pretty sure the reason for asphalt was that it would be very low maintenance, and that was a big consideration given that the Arab villagers in Ainab and Beysour were not at all likely to have had any experience in maintaining tennis courts!   I don’t know, and wonder if anyone does, whether our parents realized at the time that asphalt would probably crack and heave, if the ground below it ever froze.  But if they hadn’t, I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about  that crazy surface in later years.  Somehow, those cracks and humps and bumps just seemed to be taken for granted, as an added to the challenge of the game, in the years I played tennis there.  Others can comment on their own experience and reactions in future years) .

 I’ll have other stories to tell in the future about our various childhood (group) adventures, maybe little by little.  Dorothy 

1976 Construction underway at former Kerr house

Nora Kennedy in Sept 2015: "Here are some photographs of the Kerr - Crow - Kennedy house taken in 2011. It was extremely moving to be there again. I heard recently from a friend of a friend that one or some of the houses are for sale..."
 

Dodd/Dodge house above, Kerr/Kennedy house below

 

From Dorothy Kerr Jessup to Nora Kennedy - Sept 2015

Hello to Nora and all the rest of you: It was moving to me, too to see these photos of our much beloved Ainab house.  I haven't been back there since 1951, and have been wondering a lot lately what it must look like now.  Your family must have lived in our house at some point after my parents (the Kerrs) sold it to the Crows, if I remember correctly. I'd love to see more photos of it. (For the rest of you, the Kerr house was the one with the arches in one of the photos, and stairs to the roof in another.  The other (tall house) that looks like a castle was the Dodd's house.  My family lived in it the year our own house was being built, while the Dodds were away on sabbatical.  It used to have a big porch on top, with a brown wooden attic above, but the attic-roof blew off one stormy winter. So when the family rebuilt the upper part, Stewart Dodd decided to put his cistern up there instead, so they wouldn't have to pump water.  I never heard for sure how well that actually worked, but at least the top didn't blow off again.  I gather it's still standing. [end]

1976? Construction underway to expand the Kennedy (former Kerr) house to enable Mary Helen and Ted to live there all year round, which they did from 1980 to 1984 (I think).

1977 after a fire

1977, May. Former Kerr property. Ted Kennedy looking at the result of a forest fire. I am not sure if this was the cause of the disappearance of the big cabin, whose foundation is visible, or if that occurred when the house was occupied by militias (PPS and/or Fateh) during the first phase of the civil war (1975-9176).

Kerr Farewell 1970

Here we are saying farewell after the fabulous summer of 1970, with our Volkswagen camper that would take us to Aix-en-Provence for the year.  That was the summer of singing at the tops of our lungs in a tree house that I seem to remember being near the Kerr/Kennedy house.  Lots of Gordon memories, maybe because we were living nearby in the Eddy house:  David singing Edelweiss by the campfire, sleeping in the VW one night with Melissa Dodge and Vicky Gordon. The kind of freedom we children had was intoxicating, though lots of idyllic memories involved our parents too.  On a midnight walk along the water pipe, Ann Gordon at a clearing said to me, 'look up at the full moon, and you can see two people kissing.'  I always look for that in a full moon to this day, and it always reminds me of Ann, and of that summer.

Magical places to sleep

There has never been anywhere as magical to sleep as an Ainab cabin - mosquito nets, candle lanterns and all.

Earlier at the tennis court

There is only one chain link fence I remember - at the tennis court.  Here is Malcolm Kerr watching somebody else play tennis.

Playing Chess

Malcolm and Stanley Kerr playing chess in the Kerr house, late 1950s.  Malcolm doesn't appear to be on crutches so it must have been after he married Ann and miraculously got better straight away.

Mary Eddy

Mary Eddy in 1965 (Posted by Joshua Landis)

Introduction

Dear Ainab people and members of the old American Community in Lebanon. I have started this blog because a number of Ainabees, educators and members of Lebanon's old American Community have said they would be interested in trying to record some of the history of the community before the older generation are no longer with us. We can add posts and photos that will fill out some of the history of the US community and its families. Mostly, it is simply to have a bit of fun. Best, Joshua Landis

 ?, Bayard Dodge, Doris Dodge, David Dodge, Margaret Hutton, Ann Kerr, Suzie Kerr watching tennis in Ainab in 1965

Joan Hutton Landis hamming it up on the tennis court sometime in the mid-1960s.

Joan Landis in Beirut in 1964 - She and Doris Dodge would dress up like this to go shopping in town!

Dodge House on Rue Bliss in Beirut, 1965