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Preserving the Past
The AAFSW Spouse Oral History Collection is housed at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia.
Established in 1986, the Spouse Oral History Collection continues to
interest researchers and journalists. To note the fiftieth anniversary
of the start of the Korean conflict, Kristie Miller, Washington correspondent
for the LaSalle, IL, News Tribune, based her column on an interview with
Patricia Bartz recorded in 1987 and featured in Jewell Fenzi's Married
to the Foreign Service, which is available from AAFSW.
Mrs. Bartz was one of 682 women and children (and one man) evacuated from
Seoul June 25, 1950 with no emergency plan. The evacuees crossed to Japan
on a small freighter designed for a 12-man crew; it carried a cargo of
fertilizer that shifted in heavy seas. Temperatures plunged and there
were no blankets or warm clothing. When food was eventually air-lifted
to the evacuees, only the strong voluntary leadership of one woman averted
a riot. There were pregnant women and a case of polio on board, and Bartz
found it miraculous that the ship reached Japan with everyone alive.
Journalist Miller later noted that the experiences of Foreign Service spouses add a new perspective to U.S. diplomatic history. ADST has produced a CD-ROM containing over 140 of these Spouse Oral Histories, available from the ADST. Researchers should contact Marilyn Bentley at 703-302-6990 or at marilyn_bentley@adst.org.
To be interviewed for the spouse oral history program, email oralhistory@aafsw.org.