DECHERDS AND LANES IN LEBANON

 DECHERDS AND LANES IN LEBANON

Written by Betsy Lane in Vermont with the assistance of Jude Lane Landis

August 2020

 

My father, Douglas Decherd, was the first member of the family to travel to the Middle East.

The Decherd Family: 1941 in the courtyard of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. From left to right: Doug Decherd holding Eleanor, Becky Decherd, Betsy, David and Don.

 

After completing his BA at Sterling College in Kansas, he signed up as a short termer to teach Bible and English at Assiut College in Egypt. Although he loved his time in the Middle East, he decided to further his studies at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, receiving his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1929.

 

Both my parents were musicians; my mother, Rebecca (Becky) Burgner Decherd with a Master’s degree in organ and he as an accomplished pianist with a good baritone voice, in need of an accompanist. Music remained an integral part of their lives, both personally and in the schools they managed in Tripoli, Lebanon. Their students sang a stirring rendition of the Lebanese national anthem, led by my mother’s enthusiastic accompaniment at the piano, at all school events.   

 

The Decherds joined the Syria/Lebanon mission in 1931. After a year of language study in Jerusalem, Doug and Becky Decherd were sent to Aleppo, where my father taught at the North Syria Boys’ School, forerunner of Aleppo College. Will Stoltzfus, who built two houses in the hills of Lebanon, one in Alley and one in Ainab on the main road below the hilltop, was the principal of the Aleppo school. (Will Stoltzfus also founded the Junior College for women, which later became Beirut College for Women and finally Lebanese American University). Our family spent several summers in the Stoltzfus’ Alley house, known as the “Khalwe” – on the Jebel Amerkan.  (There was a Jebel Amerkan in  Alley as well as Ainab) We also spent a few summers at the Freidinger house in Suk el Gharb before moving on to Shemlan, first with the Dormans and then in our rented house, within shouting distance of Beit Dorman.  Many years later, the Lane family spent a month at the Kerr/Eddy house on the Ainab hilltop (1963), at the invitation of Mary Eddy, whose daughter Carmen was one of my room mates at ACS.  We met Mary Eddy at the embassy tennis court in Jeddah, where she was a frequent guest. The cool breezes of Ainab were a welcome change from the hot, muggy port city on the Red Sea. In early years, the Decherd family moved across the Shouf mountain, spending summers in Aley, Suk el Gharb, Shemlan and finally Ainab.

 

Instead of returning to Aleppo in 1938, after a year’s furlough, my parents were assigned to Tripoli, Lebanon, to work in the boys’ and girls’ schools. My father eventually became principal of both schools.

 

Managing both schools during the war years was a challenge, especially during the Syrian campaign in 1941, when the war seemed to be coming too close for comfort. Many Americans left for the States, but my parents chose to return to Lebanon after fleeing as refugees to Jerusalem for four months. The Vichy French, under Marshall Petain had taken over the Boys’ school, which commanded a strategic location overlooking the city and the port. Fortunately, my parents’ return to Lebanon coincided with the Vichy departure, and the schools were able to re-open in the fall. Keeping the schools open was a priority, and my father took pride in the fact that many of the graduates from his schools were well prepared for further study at the American University of Beirut.

 

My parents spent their first year in the Middle East studying Arabic at the School for Oriental Languages in Jerusalem. My mother was delighted to find a full pipe organ at the YMCA, a rarity in the Middle East. She returned to Jerusalem from Aleppo to play for the service of dedication in 1933, when I was six months old. She enjoyed playing the organ again in 1941, when we were refugees in Jerusalem. She and Ginny Dorman, the recently arrived young bride of Harry Dorman, who had a lovely soprano voice, gave a concert in the YMCA auditorium and also at the American Colony during Sunday afternoon recitals.

 

Lebanon has always felt like home to me and my siblings, but I am the only member of my generation to have returned to that area. I met my husband, George Lane in 1953, while acting as an “au pair” to the Dorman family, when they were spending a furlough year in Ginny Dorman’s summer home in Westminster, MA down the hill from the Lane family home.  I taught at my father’s school in Tripoli while George finished his tour as a Philco “tech rep” on Okinawa. We were married at the Community Church in Beirut in 1955.

 

George joined the Foreign Service in 1957 at a time when the FS was focusing on area specialists.  After three years in Washington, DC, he signed up for Arabic language studies, and we were soon on our way to the US Foreign Service Institute in Beirut , where he spent two years studying Arabic. We served in various Middle Eastern cities – Beirut, Jeddah, Aleppo, Rabat, Benghazi, a second tour in Beirut and finally Sanaa, Yemen, where George served as Ambassador. (Here is George's interview

 

Our oldest daughter Susanne and her husband, Yahya Sadowski are carrying on the Middle Eastern connections. Yahya was a student of Malcolm Kerr at UCLA, and spent a junior year abroad at AUB. He later taught in the Dept. of political science. Susanne is currently a member of the AUB development office, where she has worked for more than fourteen years.

 

This family’s emotional attachments to Lebanon run deep, and it is heartbreaking to witness the current turmoil and disintegration of the country that has been, and still is, such an important part of our lives.  The connections between the families that lived through the war years, (WWII) when there was little travel in or out of Lebanon, were close, and most have lasted throughout our life-times.  Helen Leavitt, first cousin to my best friend Liz Smith, and I ended up in the same corner of Massachusetts and sang in the same church choir. Malcolm Kerr was two years ahead of me at ACS in the old building on Rue Jeanne D’Arc.  His future wife, Ann Zwicker, and I became good friends when she arrived in Lebanon as a junior year abroad student at AUB in the fall of 1954, the same year I was teaching at the Girls’ School in Tripoli.  We met again, when Malcolm was studying for his PhD at Harvard, and George was at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  We have remained in touch over the years and our paths crossed in several places, including Beirut.

 

There is one less pleasant period of our time in Lebanon that bears mentioning.

 

When the American Ambassador to Lebanon, Francis Meloy, was killed in June 1976, Secretary of State Kissinger  almost closed the embassy, but chose instead to keep it open with a skeletal staff. We were enjoying a fairly peaceful tour in Swaziland when George received a top secret FLASH telegram (a category normally used only in dire emergencies) summoning him to Washington for “consultations”. My mother was visiting us at the time, and said immediately, “George is going to Beirut”.  She was right, of course. He left the next day, after our 4^th of July celebration, and we did not see him again for six months. Our family followed the normal Foreign Service protocol in such situations, to “pack and follow”. 

 

The State Dept. reluctantly agreed to allow me to join him in February, 1977, when tensions had subsided somewhat. Our children were able to visit us during the summer, and our youngest, Jude, spent a year at ACS.  Malcolm and Ann were among our first guests. I remember walking with them through the rubble in Souk Tawily which was eerily quiet, with a few hungry cats the only creatures stirring.  

George Lane's Retirement from the Foreign Service, Washington, DC 1985. From left to right: Jude Lane Landis, George Lane, Betsy Lane, Becky Decherd, Susanne Lane.

 

Everyone who has spent time in the Middle East has a story to tell – of troubled times but also of wonderful days at the beach or hiking in the mountains and valleys and savoring some of the best food in the world.  The best memories are of the friends who shared these experiences and have remained close throughout our lives.

 

One final connection I should mention is that between the Lane and Landis families. We overlapped for a few months in Jeddah, in 1961, little knowing that the youngest Lane daughter would marry the youngest Landis lad.

 

Betsy Decherd Lane  

July 2020