F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

Dallas Ford Brown, 75, a retired
FSO with USAID, died on Jan. 6 in
Richmond, Va.
Mr. Brown, known as “Ford,” was
born in Greens Fork, Ind. He graduated
from Greens Fork High School
and earned a B.S. in business at Indiana
University in 1954. Mr. Brown
served in the Air Force ROTC in college,
and afterward served in the U.S.
Air Force, attaining the rank of captain.
Following work as a certified
public accountant in private industry,
he joined USAID in 1959.
Mr. Brown’s Foreign Service
career took him and his family to
Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Cameroon
and Morocco before he was
assigned as controller to Cairo in 1975
— shortly after Egypt and the United
States resumed diplomatic relations
and USAID launched one of its largest
programs ever. He later served in
Washington in several positions, including
as the Africa Bureau’s controller.
He was the youngest controller
ever promoted into the Senior
Foreign Service.
After retiring in 1983, he served as
the chief financial management specialist
for the Department of State
Refugee Program for several years.
He was also chief of party for a
USAID-financed financial management
development program in the
Sahelian countries, and did other
short-term work for the agency, usually
in Africa. A stalwart friend and wise
mentor to many USAID employees,
he was an expert bridge player, a constructor
of wonderful birdhouses and
a philatelist.
When not posted overseas, the
Browns resided in Washington, D.C.,
from 1959 until 2006, when they
moved to Richmond, Va., to be near
family.
Mr. Brown is survived by his wife,
Lou Ann Rutherford Brown of Richmond,
Va.; three children, Thomas
I N M EMORY
Brown of Universal City, Texas, Julie
Woessner of Virginia Beach, Va., and
Kay Swenson of Midlothian, Va.; eight
grandchildren; and a sister, Linda
Crabtree of Lafayette, Ind.
Memorial contributions may be
made to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
or the Indiana University Foundation
Scholarship Fund.
Sylvia Grill Walsh Flenner, 83, a
former Foreign Service staff officer
and wife of retired FSO Robert H.
Flenner, died on April 1, in San
Antonio, Texas.
Mrs. Flenner was born on July 20,
1924, in New York City, the daughter
of Esther Roepke and Saul Grill, who
met on a ship while returning to the
U.S. from Europe after World War I.
Losing her mother in infancy, she was
raised by her aunt/stepmother, Ellen
Grill, and her grandmother Roepke.
She was educated in New York and
Washington, D.C., where she graduated
from St. Roses. Her first job was
in the State Department code room,
from 1943 to 1946.
Mrs. Flenner began working for
the Foreign Service as a secretary at
the London Conference of Foreign
Ministers at the end of World War II.
She was then transferred to the consulate
general in Munich, where she
served for four years, and then to
Berlin, for two years. Next, she was
posted to Japan, where she served in
the consulate in Yokohama for two
years.
In 1957, she was assigned to Costa
Rica, where she met Mr. Flenner, a
second secretary. The couple married
in 1958, and moved to Washington,
D.C., where Ms. Flenner worked in
the Department of State’s passport
and visa offices. Their son, Robert,
was born in 1960. A year later, the
family moved to Luanda, where the
Flenners worked in the U.S. consulate
general for five years. In 1966,
they returned to Washington, where
Mr. Flenner worked at the State
Department until he retired in 1968.
The Flenners moved to Castine,
Maine, in 1968. There Mrs. Flenner
assisted her husband in his new position
as head of administration at the
Maine Maritime Academy. In 1990,
they both retired again and moved to
downtown San Antonio, where they
lived just off the River Walk.
Mrs. Flenner is survived by her
husband; a son, Robert Lawrence
Flenner and his wife, Patricia; a stepson,
John Wareham Flenner; a brother,
Robert B. Grill and his wife, Laura;
two nephews, Robert and John; and a
niece, Marisa.
Anne Jeanne Gurvin, 75, a
retired USIA Senior Foreign Service
officer, died on March 4 of complications
of breast cancer at Asbury
Methodist Village’s Wilson Health
Care Center in Gaithersburg, Md.
Ms. Gurvin was born in Rochester,
Minn. She graduated from high
school at age 16 and obtained a B.S.
degree in English and American studies,
with honors, from the University
of Minnesota. She taught high school
for two years in Minnesota before
returning to the university to obtain
an M.S. in information science and
Spanish literature.
In 1957, she accepted an assignment
as a regional library administrator
with the U.S. Army Special Services
in France. Based in Poitiers, she
also covered American libraries in
Tours, Nantes and Samur. During
this period, she traveled throughout
Europe and the Middle East. She
enrolled in graduate courses at the
University of Paris (Sorbonne) and
then the University of Madrid, study-
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