Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Melissa Miller (Left) and Lee Lee
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Melissa Miller (left) and Lee Lee
39,000 MILES Written by Melissa Miller
My first trip back to Istanbul, a little over forty years since we had left, started in San Francisco, where we had been living since 1975, the longest time we had lived anywhere since 1960, when we left Nashville for India. I was looking forward to returning to Istanbul: excited, thrilled, and a bit apprehensive about going back. I knew it wouldn’t be the same as it had in 1963, but I didn’t care. Istanbul had been a dream, full of history, art, culture and the place I had thought of as home for three years. I had my first date there, my first boyfriend and first kiss! And now I was on a plane, going back to my home, back to memories and feeling very happy about seeing it again. The plane ride was a long thirteen hours non-stop, and the memories of earlier trips all started to come back…..
When people used to ask me where I was from, it was always hard to answer or explain about my life overseas. For years after we came home, I never told anyone. So this is my story about that time, from 1960-67 -- all the places we went, lived, saw and experienced. When we left Nashville, I was only ten years old and had only been to Florida for vacation. My sister, two brothers, and my parents and I were not ready for what we encountered and sometimes now, I still find it incredible. My father had lived in Italy during the war, but that had been so long ago. He often talked about the wonderful people in the little villages where he lived, with great affection and memories. And so here we were, getting ready for the greatest adventure of our lives.
In 1959, my father was working as a DJ in Nashville, at a local radio station. When some representatives from the US State Department were recruiting candidates to join USIA (United States Information Agency), he was invited to join their program. He accepted and from then on, things would change for us very quickly. He was sent to Washington DC, for testing and extensive training, while our family went through a whirlwind of getting ready to move to New Delhi, India, my father’s first posting overseas! Since he had to leave before Christmas, my grandmother decided to have a family dinner and Thanksgiving at the same time.
None of us had any idea how much our lives were going to change, moving from Nashville to a country half way around the world.
My mother spent those three months getting us our inoculations, cholera, typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, smallpox vaccinations, calling up pharmacies around the city to see if they could get them for us! Besides that, she had to get a moving company lined up, get us packed, buy three years’ worth of clothes for us, and get us to school, sometimes in the middle of snow storms. She also had to keep a household running until we left for New York. I wish I still had her calendar for those months, each day was packed with so much to take care of. I don’t know to this day how she did it!
Before we left Nashville, my sister and two brothers had our moment of fame, especially at school. The nuns at our catholic school began to refer to us as “The Miller Children, the ones going to India” THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN also printed an article of our impending move, since my father had worked for the paper. I have to admit, it was fun getting all that attention!
March 1960 We were scheduled to leave for New York, where we would board the ship to Europe, the SS Exeter. My mother didn’t want to fly with all of us on a plane -- my sister Melinda, and my brothers, Kurt and Larry. So, instead, we sailed. We left on March 18th, and traveled farther than we had ever gone before. The train trip took overnight, with my mother sitting up all night, as there was only a room for the five of us! When we arrived in New York, it was already dark and very cold. We had 26 pieces of luggage, included were two steamer trunks and two suitcases each. We couldn’t get a cab for what seemed forever, and finally, two cabbies took pity on my family, one told us “you would need a truck for all of this lady” but stopped and picked us up to go to the Lexington Hotel. The lobby was huge, full of people and we were so glad to be inside and warm!
My father flew up from Washington the night we arrived, to see us off on the next day. We were all so glad to see him after three months of being apart. He took our mother out to dinner and a night on the town. We ordered dinner and watched TV.
1960 The ship, SS Exeter, was not the size of the huge boats today. I think it probably held about one hundred passengers. The saving grace of sailing across the Atlantic was that there were other children on board, so we wouldn’t be bored. Our cabin, meant for the five of us, was the size of a walk- in closet. My mother was convinced that the travel office at the State Dept. must have made a mistake on putting all of us in one cabin. After my dad checked with the steward, he came back and told us this was it! Two beds, one bunk bed and a crib! Not to mention our suitcases. We were going to be on here for over two weeks. Somehow, we managed and settled in for the voyage. As none of us had ever traveled, except vacations in Florida, this turned out to be quite an adventure. We didn’t know that the North Atlantic was very rough and very cold in March. We didn’t know rough seas could cause seasickness but found out soon enough. About a week into the voyage, the ship hit the edge of a storm and that ship rose up and down in the water, over and over again. Everyone on the ship was sea sick. We were told that going out on deck would help us from feeling so ill, but that wasn’t true. It was worse.
The storm caused other problems, such as on the night of a formal dinner where all the women were dressed up very nicely, in evening gowns and heels. That ship hit a wave that sent it straight up and then right back down, causing the guests to get thrown on their rear ends, flying up into the air. All the food on the tables went in the same direction and fell back on the passengers. What a mess! Women in all their finery, covered with dinner, chairs flung from one side of the room to the other. I still remember standing on the steps that lead into the dining area, watching all this happen, and noticed that the little bowl of after-dinner mints went sailing through the air, all of the little pastel candies like a rainbow, falling back down to earth, as if in slow motion. Quite a night, for sure.
When we were not being tossed about on the seas, we spent our days aboard playing shuffle board, ring toss (unfortunately, since the seas tended to be choppy, most of the rings ended up in the drink. Makes me wonder how many thousands of rings lie at the bottom of the Atlantic?) We also took promenades around the deck, because there was a sign posted saying if you walked around 100 times, it was a mile. None of us ever did. There were also movies shown in the lounge and food available around the clock. After breakfast, tea was served on the aft of the deck at around 10 am, then lunch, then more tea, then dinner and room service was a phone call away!
The other part of sailing was lifeboat drills. This consisted of putting on our life jackets and going up on deck to watch the lifeboats being lowered and told what to do if, god forbid, there was an emergency at sea. My mother always made sure we had our jackets at hand, especially for my youngest brother, Kurt, who was only four years old when we were going to India. The drills always seem to occur just as mom had put Kurt to bed for his nap. Of all the kids, I think Kurt seemed to get the most of that voyage. He was very cute and rambunctious and much of our time was spent chasing after him. We all still talk about that cruise and how much fun we all had.
I think that trip wasn’t a lot of fun for Mom, since she spent a lot of it making sure Kurt didn’t get out of the cabin alone. Kurt also had this little trick of how to get out of eating dinner. He told my mother he didn’t feel good and was going to be ill. Worked like a charm every time! He also was very good at escaping from us when we were up on deck. One time we found him dangling on the rail of the ship and managed to pull him back before he fell in! Pretty sneaky for a little four year old.
After nearly 12 days on the ship, we finally arrived in the Mediterranean! First stop was the Rock of Gibraltar, but we were not allowed to go ashore there without a visa. What a difference that made from the Atlantic. The weather was sunny and warm and the water was calm. We all had that moment of “pinch me, am I dreaming” when we saw the port of Cadiz. Years later, it still amazes me that I went to Europe when I was only 10. We were in port for three days, and couldn’t wait to go ashore. Imagine seeing Spain through our eyes. We had never heard another language spoken besides English so it was exciting to hear Spanish. Passport control was all very exciting as well, getting them stamped and waved on. The port was bustling with people and activity. Tour guides and touts beckoning us to use their cab, people looking at a woman with four kids in tow, we must have been a sight.
Finally, after not being sure what the next step was, a very nice cab driver came over and said he spoke English. My mother decided to hire him for the day, and it turned out to be most fortuitous for us. He drove us to get money changed into pesos, and off we went. We were just all so overwhelmed about Spain; I don’t think any of us really listened to what the guy said. He took us to a place to eat and waited for us. To this day, I remember everything we ordered: filet of sole, potatoes, salad, coke with lemon and some delicious bread. The rest of the day, that driver showed us the city, took us shopping, took us to a place to have my sister Melinda’s glasses fixed and back to the ship
The next day, two women who were on the trip with us offered to take us to Seville with them. This city was so beautiful, with each little back garden filled with colorful blooms, a fountain and Moorish style tiles. Whenever I think about that trip, it is one of my favorite memories.
Back on the ship and onto Barcelona. Again, my mom lucked out by finding a friendly cab driver, who spoke good English. He took us on a tour of the city, showing us the Gaudi architecture, the mechanical museum and Gaudi’s work on the Holy Family Cathedral. The day went by too quickly and then back to the ship once more.
The next port was Marseilles, which sadly, I barely remember. Well, it has been fifty plus years. I do recall that a cab driver tried to rip us off since the new francs were being introduced. A police man noticed and got our money back for us.
On to Naples, which thrilled my mother since she had just been reading about Pompeii. We took a trip there to see the museum and get a glimpse of Vesuvius. What struck all of us most deeply was seeing all the people frozen in lava. It was a very eerie place to be walking around.
While in Naples, we stopped at a jewelry factory where cameos were carved and they were selling beads made from the glass formed by lava. It was fascinating to see how the cameos were made.
Next stop, Alexandria, Egypt. Second continent for the now peripatetic Miller clan. We didn’t know quite what to expect there, but it felt very different from the places we had seen in Europe. It was very hot, for one thing, and the women were dressed in long coats and some were wearing what we found out were burkas. They were covered from head to toe, with only their eyes visible through the little netting opening. They seemed to be floating instead of walking. The men were also dressed in robes that went down to the floor. We took a tour of the catacombs and a market, where my mom bought a small brass table, a carved box set with mother of pearl, a bracelet with a large scarab beetle carved from turquoise and other items. We also saw our first camels and sheep. All in all, quite an adventure.
Our final port of call for us was Beirut, Lebanon. It had just come out of a civil war for its independence from France; but the city looked pretty much unscarred, at least where we were staying. It felt odd and rather sad to be leaving the ship; but we were nearing our final destination at last, after almost a month of traveling. In that time, we had witnessed different cultures, languages, food and people. It was an eye opening experience for a family that had never been out of Nashville. By then, we were used to people staring at us when we went anywhere. It was good practice for what our lives were going to be in India.
Beirut. March, 1960 At last, terra firma! We stayed at the new hotel, the Excelsior. The elevators were made of glass, and we thought that was the height of elegance. After settling in and unpacking, my mother called room service to order some lunch. Just soup and sandwiches but when the waiter came in with our food, it was more than plain old soup! There were two large tureens filled with a wonderfully smooth cream of chicken and one of fresh tomato, best soup we had ever had. The sandwiches were thinly sliced chicken on freshly baked French baguettes and French fries to go with them. Cokes with lemon and chocolate cake for dessert. It was one of the best meals ever.
The four days we spent in Beirut were used to buy some more clothes for all the kids since we had moved into warmer climates and heading toward even hotter ones. My mother found a wonderful French seamstress, who made me and my sister, three lovely dresses each, hand embroidered with flowers on the bodices. She found a tailor as well to make my brothers some suits. She also had a few dresses made for herself. We had dinner at a place that served a lot of Americans, so it was hamburgers, shakes and fries for all.
April 9th, 1960 The day for leaving to fly to India had finally arrived, and we were all a bit apprehensive about flying for the first time ever. My mother was even more scared since she was with all of her kids. We all piled into a cab and then we were off to the airport. Jet aircraft had just been around for few years for commercial flights. We boarded the Lufthansa plane and were shown to our seats. My mother’s face was pale and she looked petrified.
We were excited and scared at the same time, sort of the way you feel going on a roller coaster ride for the first time. The five of us took up an entire row of seats on both sides of the aisle and settled in. Everything was fine until the engines started up and then we all became silent at the same time. The jet rumbled down the runway, and then we were up and in the air. The flight attendants came around offering people chewing gum to help with the pressure in our ears and also handed out drinks. The flight was fairly uneventful and we landed in Tehran several hours later. Now, a note about Iran. The shah, Rezi Pahlevi, had recently seized his throne and things were very tense in the country. When the airplane landed, it was met by armed soldiers who escorted the passengers into the airport, where there were even more soldiers standing around with serious-looking machine guns. We had our passports stamped and a ground hostess met us to show us to the lounge where we were to wait or our connecting flight to New Delhi. The original wait time was supposed to be about an hour, which turned into two and then three hours. The ground personnel finally came to tell my mother that the aircraft hadn’t left France yet, due to mechanical problems. So there we were, thousands of miles from home, stranded in strange country, surrounded by soldiers. The next flight was due to leave at around 7:00 pm. We were expecting an Air France Caravelle, the latest and fanciest jet they had with food from Maxim’s in Paris, reclining seats, air conditioning, all the latest bells and whistles in jet travel. Well, when the flight was announced, we were so happy to be going; and as we walked out to the tarmac (no concourses yet) what we saw in front of us was not the Caravelle, but a prop jet, yes, propellers, on a plane that looked as if it had been used in WWI! Up the steps we trooped, wondering what awaited us inside. What a shock to see that there was no carpet on the floors, just metal. The seats did not go back, there was no friendly flight attendant handing out gum, just a harried looking one who was probably just as disappointed as we were. Fortunately, the flight was not full so we were able to spread out in the seats, which we discovered did not recline. My mother was even paler on this flight than on the one to Tehran! She looked as if she wanted to run from the plane and take all of us home. We sat down and buckled up (thank heaven there WERE seat belts) and soon, we were once again airborne. Once we were at cruising altitude, we quickly realized that the cabin was not pressurized. Everyone one of the Miller kids had earaches and were miserable. We were also not flying very high up, so every bump and bit of air turbulence was felt. We were flying over the mountains between Afghanistan and India, clearly visible from the airplane’s windows! Now, amid all this misery, the one bright spot was the food. It was fresh from Maxim’s in Paris, cooked on board. The attendants came down the one aisle with a cart piled high with fruit salad, roast beef, potatoes and wine for the adults, a welcome beverage for sure. There was a cheese course after dinner, desserts of Napoleons, cakes, pies and ice cream! The joke in our family is still the “bad news, good news” about that flight.
After flying for what seemed an eternity, we finally arrived at the airport in Delhi! As the plane landed and taxied to the terminal, customs officials boarded it and proceeded to spray the passengers with disinfectant—as if we might bring germs in with us! Coughing and hacking as we stepped off the plane, we entered a night that was hot and humid and miserable. We came into the lounge, teeming with hundreds of people, and one of us spotted our dad. We had really never been so happy to see a familiar face. We all rushed toward him enmassed, nearly knocking him over. He took care of getting our passports stamped and then getting the luggage. So, here we were, at last, in India, not knowing what to expect or see.
April 11, 1960 My dad had come to the airport in an Embassy car, big enough for all of us and the bags. My father’s driver, a man called Kim welcomed us and then we were off to our new home, a hotel. As we drove along in the countryside, on a one- lane road, the first wave of homesickness hit us. There were no street lights on the road and the only other source of illumination was the full moon, shining like a beacon in the pitch black sky. Suddenly, we passed a camel caravan, which lumbered along at a slow pace, and went on its way. That was the first hint we were not at home. Then, a little farther down this road, we came upon a man riding an elephant. Well, that sure woke us up! All of the kids were wide awake after that. Finally, we were in the city; and we drove up to the place that would be home for a few months while a house was found. The car approached the gates and a watchman came out to open them for us. He was a tall Indian, attired in full uniform of a white coat and trousers and a magnificent red turban, complete with a fanned top. He was quite impressive to see. He opened our doors with a flourish and a quick bow. We walked into the lobby of the hotel, One Mansingh Road. At one time during the British Raj, it was the home of a maharajah. The furnishings and design were pure Raj bamboo furniture, terracotta floors and a magnificent double staircase. It was amazing and overwhelming to see.
Our suite, up on the second floor, reflected the Raj look in the lobby. Rattan chairs, oriental rugs, heavy draperies and lamps that looked as if they had been there since 1900. There was the master bedroom off the sitting room, another room for the boys, through an area that could be used for a place to eat, then a bathroom with a huge tub, basin, and separate WC. The room for my sister and me was next to that area. The ceiling fans were keeping the whole place cool, and there were also air conditioners. We all flopped down on the chairs and sofa, exhausted from that flight from Tehran. A waiter came up to take our order for dinner, which was great since we hadn’t eaten for hours. My mother ordered for us so that the waiter wouldn’t have to listen to us argue about what we didn’t want. Dinner was roast duck, green beans, potatoes and dessert. The “dhobi” (doughbee) came and collected four weeks’ worth of dirty clothes; and then when we couldn’t stay awake any longer, we all headed for bed, in a new home, new country and way of life that we would have to adjust to quickly. At 6:00 every morning we were there, the bearer came to the room with a tray of tea. In the afternoon, he returned promptly at 4:00, vestiges of the Raj, with another tray of tea, dark Darjeeling, with milk and lemon, little sandwiches and pastries.
The next morning, before we were up, we kept hearing sounds out in the road that we thought were geese. That noise turned out to be the taxi horns, a bulb horn actually that did sound a bit like geese! We eventually did get up, brushed our teeth with bottled water, and headed down to the dining room for our first breakfast. It turned out that the chef and cooking crew had all been trained by the British, so food for that meal was very familiar to us. Eggs, sausage, Rice Krispies, tea and marmalade. The milk was a bit different tasting, but we were told it was safe to drink. Our waiter, Ram, was another tall Rajasthan, who called me and my sister, “missy sahib,” and my brothers, “sahib!” We figured we could get used to that.
The first few weeks we were in the hotel, we ventured out into the streets with our ayah (nursemaid) but never more than a few blocks from there. The traffic, the people and strangeness of living in a new country was overwhelming at first. There were cabs, horse drawn carriages, which we found out were called tongas. People on bicycles, motorized putt-putts, and buses filled to overflowing, with passengers falling out of the windows, water buffalo pulling carts, and the cacophony of it all at once was deafening. We also couldn’t go far because our youngest brother, Kurt, had an allergic reaction to his smallpox vaccination and wasn’t really supposed to be exposed to outside contacts, in case he did contract small pox! Eventually, though, he was vaccinated and we could travel farther away from One Mansingh Road. In April, I also celebrated my 11th birthday, two days after we had arrived. Needless to say, it was not a fancy affair, nor were my parents there to celebrate it with us. They had begun the ritual of welcoming dinners, cocktail parties and receptions in their honor, part and parcel of being a diplomatic employee. They did get me some nice presents, and the cook even made me a cake.
Since school was almost over for the year, since it was too hot to go after May, we were spared the trauma of starting there till August. In the summer to keep the children occupied, since there was no TV for us to sit in front of and vegetate, the school had what it called summer sessions, a sort of day camp that consisted of arts and crafts, games, cooking classes, first aid and improvisation classes, which I loved. It was a great way to make new friends and get acclimated to a new school. The school building was an old British army barracks. The classes went from first grade up to senior high, all in one place, in about five different buildings. All the class rooms had high ceilings and fans to keep them cooled off. We had worn uniforms at the Catholic school in Nashville; fortunately, we didn’t have to at the Taj, the name of the school. The students were from all over the world, and Indians who could afford the fees. The teachers, as well, represented many varied countries and ethnicities. There was a large library, the gym classes were conducted in the playground, a music room, art and crafts room and an auditorium. I would be starting in the sixth grade in the next semester. That school would be one of the five I eventually attended while living overseas.
Every time we went out, we drew a huge crowd of people staring at us. My mother was very tall compared to Indian women, and blonde, so we were very conspicuous and hard not to notice.
When we weren’t at the summer school, we played games, read books and played badminton. Meanwhile, my parents had begun the arduous task of finding a place for us to live, which entailed seeing as many houses and flats (apartments) as possible. Our furniture was making its way on a cargo ship and was due to arrive in August. Every morning they would set out with an estate agent, feeling very optimistic that they would be successful in their search and came back without doing so. The monsoon was scheduled to start soon, meaning the humidity and heat were going to make looking even harder.
Finally, after weeks of searching, my mother and father had finally found a home for us in an area called Sundar Nagar, out in the suburbs, right across from the zoo. The house, #29, was a typical Indian construction. The rooms were large with high ceilings and the ubiquitous fans. In the back was a verandah, toward which the bedrooms and kitchen were facing. Servants’ quarters were in back. The garden out front was tiny and surrounded by a tall wall, covered with glass to discourage burglars. There were lovely flowers in the beds and a flaming pink bougainvillea bush up one side of the house. We were on the ground floor of a two flat house. There were three bedrooms, drawing room, three baths, kitchen and dining room. The night we moved in, it was miserably hot and humid so we stood in the shower, fully clothed, and soaked ourselves! By the time we went to bed, we were already dry. Boxes, crates, furniture and suitcases laid about the rooms, waiting to be unpacked. We were too tired and hot to bother that night. Fortunately, we did have our own beds and sheets to sleep on.
The next task was for my mother to start assembling her household staff, something she had never had to do at home. We did have various cleaning women over the years but nothing as involved as a full retinue required to run a house in New Delhi. Because diplomats were required to do a lot of entertaining, the people my father worked with at USIS, visiting officials from the State Department, Indians and foreign dignitaries, a lot of servants were necessary to have all that run smoothly. The caste system was also firmly in place in 1960, which meant that only one person could do the job for which they were hired. So, what my mother had to do was interview and hire the following:
Bearer: served as valet, butler, told the other servants what to do, bought the food for the house at the local markets, and served dinner. Cook: pretty much self-explanatory. We had some great cooks and some terrible ones over the course of the years we were there. One cook in particular was a disaster. We had inherited Gunny from the Waters family when they went home. He put a can of corned beef in the oven, unopened, and it, of course, exploded! There was corned beef all over the stove and walls for weeks. My mother also asked him to make a blueberry pie for a lunch she was giving and a chocolate one, as well, which he did together in one shell. We did not eat it. Sweeper: kept the rooms swept, cleaned the kitchen, helped the bearer keep the house cleaned up Ayah: the nursemaid for my youngest brother and babysitter Dhobi: washed and ironed our clothes, without a washing machine or dryer! Mali: the gardener. Chowkidar: night watchman, kept us safe at night, stayed at the gate. Derzi: tailor who made most of our clothes for us. The servants’ quarters were in a building up behind the house - nothing fancy, just two rooms for each family, and had a shower and indoor plumbing
Some of the original servants were from the family who we replaced, including Gunny, the cook. Well, he wasn’t very good, as we quickly found out. In India it was almost a moral obligation to take other families’ servants and then replace them later. Our bearer, Francis, was very good at his job and kept the house running very professionally. His wife, Ruth, and three children, lived in the servants’ area. The sweeper, Ram, was a Jain, which meant he couldn’t harm any living thing, including insects, because the Jains believed in true reincarnation of souls. So my mother had a hard time keeping fly swatters and bug killer in the house. The ayah we had at the hotel, we kept her on since she had also worked for the previous family; but she was not very good at keeping an eye on Kurt. The other problem she had was giving him a bath. Every night, at bath time, Kurt would run around the house stark naked, Sawamma in hot pursuit, and complained to my mother “Kurt no bath taking, memsahib!” Finally, we had to let her go and hired another ayah, probably one of the best in all of Delhi. She showed up at our door one morning, dressed in a simple white cotton sari, all business and no nonsense, rather like an Indian Mary Poppins. She had her letters of recommendation all neatly typed up, in a briefcase and she and my mother sat in the living room. The interview was just a formality because we told mom that we all wanted Meena to come and work for us, and she did. She was amazing with Kurt, who loved to take a bath. She loved us and we, in turn, loved her. She lived in the servants’ quarters with her three young children. Her husband had been killed and she had started working as an ayah to support them
Meena was the best thing that happened to the four of us when we were in India. She could read and write English as well as Hindi. She took us to the most fascinating places in Delhi that most American children never knew existed. We went to Old Delhi and the markets there, row upon row of items for sale, jewelry makers, people making clay pots, snake charmers, and the streets teemed with humanity and selling wares all in the same spaces. We saw lepers, holy men, Muslim women covered head to toe in burkas, with only a little net screen showing their eyes. My mother never worried about us when we were out with Meena because she knew she loved us and would not have let anything happen to us. In the summer, after breakfast, she would get us ready for the day’s adventure. She always stopped in Sundar Nagar market and buy a pan leaf that was spread with betel nut paste, some other ingredients and rolled up and chewed. I didn’t know why she did this but heard later, after we left India, that it had a mild narcotic effect from some ingredient.
One time, she took us to see the entire festival of the Ramayana, a play based on the Bhagavad-Gita, the story of Rama, Vishnu and all the gods and goddesses of Hindu mythology. It went on for four nights, and we attended all of them. They went on for hours, and although we couldn’t follow all of what was happening, Meena translated for us. Here we were, four children from America, not familiar with any religion other than Catholicism, watching a story centuries old, and enjoying ourselves immensely! I think that being exposed to eastern religious philosophies at such a young age had a profound effect on us, on me and my sister Melinda, in particular. We may not have been aware of it at the time, but when we talk about our lives then, we both recognize the powerful hold they had on us. Meena was the pied piper, the story teller, the teacher who introduced an entirely different perspective on life that I know we would have never been fortunate enough to experience had we stayed in Nashville. For that, I will be eternally grateful.
Itinerant salesmen would come by the house from time to time, selling all manner of wares, from precious gemstones, to scissors, magazines, and anything else they had to offer. I wondered then if the gem sellers were afraid to travel without being robbed. From time to time, people came by looking for odd jobs, armed with letters of recommendation, all neatly typed out and in a folder, ready to be taken out and given to Francis, and then passed on to my mother.
To alleviate boredom in the summer, besides the summer school, we played endless games of Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Parcheesi and cards. We had a lot of friends in Sundar Nagar and often went bike riding with them to an old temple in the Nizammudin neighborhood, about a half a mile from our house. That place was great for hiding, playing in and exploring.
Summer went by very quickly, culminating in the annual monsoon season. The monsoon rains came up quickly, with only a rumble of thunder to announce their arrival. The sky turned black and the clouds appeared as if from nowhere, the wind picked up and then, suddenly, an enormous and loud downpour of huge raindrops, hissing and throwing up clouds of dust as they hit the dry ground, starving for moisture. The green parrots flew out of the trees around the houses, and turned in unison, leaving only a flash of their green feathers as they disappeared over the horizon. For a brief few minutes, the heat dissipated, to be quickly replaced with sweltering humidity. And, then just as suddenly as it began, it was over…until the next afternoon, when the rain returned. This monsoon rain became one of my favorite times of summer.
School started in the middle of August, while it was still hot and sticky. Yes, that was my idea of heaven! Many of the kids returning had been there the year before; but for the new kids, it was hard for us to fit in. Shyness took over, and that feeling of dread and excitement as well. There were two classes for sixth graders, small by American standards. I think there were about 10 kids in each class and both teachers were American women. SO with feelings of total fear and dread, I headed for my classroom. A lot of them were new also, so eventually, we got to know each other and bonded together in our new status. I made some new friends and joined the choir. It was just the same as being in school at home, except it wasn’t. My favorite class turned out to be art, taught by Mrs. Noonan. She was what would have been called then, a Bohemian type. She was part American Indian and wore huge, chunky turquoise necklaces, long skirts made from ethnic types of fabric and Indian sandals. She was quite a character and a wonderful art teacher. She encouraged her students to be expressive, to paint with no rules and to have fun.
I also enjoyed taking French, starting in the sixth grade. The teacher was an Indian, Miss Alluawalia, who had studied French at the Sorbonne, in Paris. Her rule was no English was to be spoken in class, only French. I still remember what the book looked like, blue cover with white print, “Francais” from Librarie Hachette, Paris. I had never taken a class in a foreign language, but it was a lot of fun. We all struggled at first, speaking only French; but it was the best way to learn. The other classes were math, English, PE and music. School was let out at 3:00 pm, since summer was in full heat mode. There were no school buses so we went home in a taxi -- quite an adventure for the Miller children.
Weekends were spent riding bicycles all over the neighborhood, sometimes down to the maidan, a huge open space where families went to let their children run around and exercise. We also went to the zoo, just across the way from our house. The design was very unusual, as there were no cages, but the animals were kept in check by being surround by moats. The tigers were often in the water, with only their heads visible. There were also lions, elephants, water buffalo, peacocks that wandered around freely, and of course, monkeys, antelope and animals native to India. It was one of our favorite places to go with Meena. The zoo was enclosed by the walls of the remains of the Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan as a form of protection of his capital city, Agra, to Delhi. He was one of the emperors of the Moghul Empire that occupied India. At night, the animal calls could be heard inside our house, as the sun was setting. The evening’s serenade began with the lions roaring so loudly that it made our living room windows shake. Then the monkeys would join in, with their silly chattering, and then the elephants would start trumpeting and the peacocks would bring the performance to an end with their squawking, which sounded very similar to someone screaming. Never a dull moment at night.
We didn’t know anything about earthquakes, being that Tennessee rarely experienced seismic activity. Monsoon had just about ended, with thunder still rumbling in the far distance. So one night, in 1960, when we heard what we thought was thunder, it turned out NOT to be thunder, but an earthquake! Mother had been in her bedroom, playing her violin when the bed started shaking violently. She thought the cat had jumped on the bed, but she hadn’t Then the reality of what was happening kicked in and mom came running out of the room, “white as sheet.”
“Oh, my god, an earthquake” she screamed as she ran into our room and then the boys’. “Go under your bed; no, go outside!” All of us were running in all directions, not really sure what to do. Finally, my dad said to go out and stand in the driveway which we did. The people who lived upstairs were also there, as well as all the servants. It was all over in a few minutes, but we talked about it for days.
Daily life settled into a routine, and aside from earthquakes and monsoons and dust storms, we were getting used to living in India. We all had established friendships and found ways to occupy ourselves. I think not having a TV was the best thing to happen to us since we were forced to find other ways to entertain ourselves. We all became very good at board games and cards. We rode our bikes all over the neighborhood and to other areas near us. One place we really enjoyed biking to was Humayans’ tomb, in a neighborhood called Nizamuddin East, about half a mile from where we lived. I had a good friend in the same area, and she and I would meet there and explore the tomb. It was very old and falling apart, and monkeys had taken up residence in the ruins. Sometimes, we went out bike riding at night with our parents. One night while we were out on the streets of our neighborhood, we started being chased by a large pack of jackals, and we all started pedaling quite quickly to get away from them and avoid being attacked. Our mom was pedaling and flew right past us to get home and inside. It was quite a sight to see her doing so, her hair flying out behind her!
Running the house was time consuming for my mother and our bearer, Francis. They had to go over shopping lists for weekly groceries, mostly bought on the local markets in Sundar Nagar. There was a very small commissary located at the American Embassy, but the selection was very limited and the only milk available was this powdered milk mix, which tasted awful, no matter how my mother tried to camouflage it! To this day, whenever I see a box of powdered milk, I try not to gag.
Francis bought fruits and vegetables at the market, as well as rice, lentils, flour and my mother supplemented it with meat bought at the commissary. She did not want to eat anything that came from the butcher’s shop in the market for many reasons and I never asked her why. Then I happened to go past the meat “wallahs” stall one day and understood why. My father would go on shikar (safari) once in a while and brought back water buffalo, blue bull (antelope), duck and peahen, which we ate, as other kinds of meat were not easy to get. Sometimes mutton would appear in the kitchen, as well as a scrawny chicken. Water buffalo was a very tough, sinewy, gamy meat, as was blue bull. I did eat frog’s legs as well. When we would go to someone’s house for dinner, inevitably mutton would be served, as was nimbu pani (lemonade), chapattis and some sort of curry would be on the menu. We never drank anything but boiled water, to avoid getting infected with water borne diseases. We even had to brush our teeth with boiled water. Eating in India was an adventure to say the least.
LAUNDRY DAY The highlight of the week was when the dhobi came to do the wash. We didn’t have a washing machine or dryer so everything was done manually. The dhobi would arrive around 6:30, before the heat was unbearable and proceed to gather up the dirty laundry to be washed. He took it into the large bathroom, filled up the bathtub with the hottest water he could get from the geyser (hot water tank). In most of the world, houses do not have a central hot water heater where the water sits all day till someone turns on the hot water tap. The tank is on the wall, where the water pipe runs through it, and only when the water is turned on does hot water get produced. Anyway, after the tub was filled and steam began pouring out of the door, did he then put the soap powder in and then proceed to wash the clothes with his feet! He walked up and down the tub, stomping on the clothes. The muscles in his legs were like wires from years of doing this. He would empty the tub, which did not a have a pipe leading to the drain, so when he did this, the floor became flooded. He would wring out the clothes with his bare hands, even towels and sheets, and then proceed to start the next batch. All the washing was done in about an hour, and then he started putting the wet laundry on the clothes lines outside. It was always hot enough that they would be dry in half an hour. By 10 am, all the clothes had been washed and dried, and then he would start the ironing - not with an electric iron but one that had hot coals in the bottom and hissed and billowed steam as he ironed, since he sprinkled them with water. The smell of clothes being slightly singed is one that I never forgot. He had to be restrained from putting starch in all of our clothes, but they were always very smooth and clean.
GROWING UP WITH SERVANTS My mother warned us not to get used to having someone waiting on us hand and foot because we wouldn’t have that once we went home. We were expected to make our beds, clean our rooms and make sure we had clean clothes. We were told to treat the people who worked for us with respect and be polite when they did something for us. They called us “Missy sahib” and “Little sahib” and taught us “kitchen Hindi,” how to count to 10, and Meena taught us Indian dances and Hindi words as well.
HOLIDAYS We became familiar with all the holidays of the various religions in India. Holi, a festival to welcome spring, which involved going around throwing colored powder or water on people around the neighborhood, one of our favorite days. The dye was hard to get out of our hair and clothes and sometimes, it dyed our skin. There was also Diwali, the festival of lights, when everyone lit little oil lamps and decorated their houses with them. My parents were not too keen on having them in the house so we put them out on the sidewalk in front. The holidays also included shooting off fireworks, which my brother, Larry, relished each year. There were volcanoes that produced colorful explosions of light, and Roman candles, firecrackers and other pyrotechnical wonders to delight us. There were also Buddhist holy days where drums were beaten for hours on end.
THANKSGIVING We celebrated our first one away from home, so it was a somber occasion. We had no turkey but peahen instead, no yams, no cranberries or any of the other traditional side dishes, but we did the best we could.
CHRISTMAS My parents had ordered all of our presents before we left home; but as they came by cargo ship, they didn’t arrive in time for the holiday. So my parents went out to the shops on Connaught Circus and bought us games and books and toys in the shops there. It actually turned out to be a great holiday, and I received a wonderful book on world history, which I credit for starting a life- long love of the subject. Dinner again was a peahen, but the commissary had wised up and brought in a supply of cranberry jelly, frozen peas and rolls, so it wasn’t too bad a dinner. As we were finishing up, we heard music out in the street and went to investigate. We were greeted by an itinerant ragtag group of “musicians” who were attempting to play an accordion, drums and a clarinet, none of whom were doing a very good job. They played “When the Saints Go Marching In” and some other tunes we didn’t recognize. The whole point was to pay them baksheesh (alms) and send them on their way to the next house. We also had a tree, decorated with our ornaments from home and spent the day playing records on the hifi. Not a bad day at all.
In the spring of 1961, my mother found out that an American living in Delhi had started a ballet school and signed me up for it. The teacher, Mr. Maitland, taught the class up on the roof of his house. There were about twenty little girls who came there, and I became friends with some of them. Every week, he put us through practice on the barre and then in the middle of the roof. That autumn he announced that we were being invited to perform at the 15th anniversary concert for the founding of the UN. Some of the older girls would perform a recital and others would come out on the stage at the end of the show, dressed in native costumes of the member nations. I was chosen to perform at the end of the show, dressed in an Indian costume.
On the day of the performance at an auditorium, we all gathered for the show. Backstage, all the performers were rushing around, nervous about dancing in front of hundreds of people -- ME, included. Our mothers were busy with last minute costume adjustments and applying a bit of makeup so we would be seen under spotlights. The concert was a great success; and as we were preparing to leave the stage, we were told that a special guest wanted to come up and thank us. So there we were, all holding hands and our breaths, when a rumble of voices and excitement ran through the audience. I couldn’t see much since I was not wearing my glasses, and the guest was making his way down the stage, stopping to say a few words to each performer before moving on. As he came closer to me and the girl next to me, he was close enough for me to see who it was. It was Prime Minister Nehru! He stopped next to us and put his arms around our shoulders. I was in such shock and awe. I was speechless. He patted us on our heads and moved on. Well, by this time, the audience members were shouting and applauding so loudly, and the people on the stage were all talking at once. It was quite an evening, to be sure. After he left, we were allowed to leave; and I walked out to the taxi in a state of being dumbfounded. The next morning, my father woke me up very early to show me the photo of me and Nehru on the front page of every paper in New Delhi. I have had that photo hanging on every wall of every place I have lived for 51 years and am very proud of it. Sadly, I never had the sense to have it signed. Most people don’t know who Nehru was so I have to tell people who look at it. Sometimes, it still doesn’t feel real. My dad sent the column and photo to his old paper, THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN, and they published it as well. My fifteen minutes of fame!
Life in India took on a normality, meals, school, making friends and learning how to be a diplomat’s kid as well. What that meant in actual life was hard to describe, but mostly it meant being on our best behavior when company came or out in public with our parents. That was difficult at times, seeing how we drew crowds of people every time we went out. No matter where we went, we were stared at and being kids, it bugged us. Still, we couldn’t say or do anything; we just had to tolerate it.
In 1961, the husband of our art teacher, Mrs. Noonan, came to school to ask the kids if they would be interested in learning how to square dance. About twenty kids signed up when they found out it would mean time away from classes to learn and eventually to perform in public. I signed up because I like to dance and it sounded as if it would be fun. We learned and practiced for about three months and then found out we would be performing for the wife of the Ambassador, Mrs. Galbraith! She and about thirty staff members from the Embassy assembled on the grounds of the residence, and we performed for them without a hitch or misstep. After that, we were invited to perform for a large audience at the main performance hall in New Delhi and after that, we were invited to dance on a very nascent Indian TV station. That was a quite a treat for us since so few people in India even had a TV then. Shortly after that, our performances were over for good; but it was quite an experience for the kids.
Shopping in New Delhi was quite an adventure, going from store to store along Janpath Road, a major commercial area. We also went to Cottage Industries, also on Janpath. The store was a collective of people in villages producing wares for sale, all under one roof. You could buy fabric for clothes, housewares, jewelry, furniture and more at the same time. What was nice was that the purchases were sent to the front desk so that you didn’t have to lug them all over the store. All of our clothes had to be made by the derzi (tailor) as there were no stores to go to and buy them. Our derzi, a little Sikh, was very good at copying any item of clothes from a magazine, the Sears catalog or from the vast number of patterns he carried with him. When I say small, I mean in stature, he was only about 5’5. He was very shy when it came to measuring me and my sister and mother, mostly embarrassed, I think, by having to measure my mother’s somewhat ample bust line. He came up to about eye level with her bust and died of mortification when he confronted it. He would take his tape measure and hold it about four inches from her bust, all the while saying, in his sing song Indian accent, “Oh, memsahib, I am not looking! Not looking!” So when her dresses were ready to wear, they were always too big!
In the summer time, before monsoon, the temperatures could easily hit 105- 106 in the afternoon. My mother didn’t like for us to go out then because we could have suffered a heat stroke if we were out there for more than a few minutes. However, my brother, Larry, didn’t think he would, so inevitably, he would be out on his bike, riding all over and come home red in the face and then go stand in the shower for a few minutes to revive himself. If we went to the hotel pool downtown, we had to be in by 7:00 am and out by 10 am. School started at the same time and was finished by 2:30 and the year was over in May. I am not talking about a little warm and by evening, it cooled off. No, the heat in India was searingly hot, the kind of heat that can permeate every nook and cranny and that no air conditioner nor fan could help. Some days, we would have people knocking on the door asking for water. One time, in July, the road crew was in front of our house, the crew consisted of women from Rajasthan, dressed in their traditional red saris, silver earrings, eyes outlined in black kohl, which kept the flies away from their eyes. Some of them had little babies on their hips, and the women carried hot tar in woven baskets on their heads, in temperatures up to 110! I felt so sorry for them; and my mother did, too. She would send Francis out with pitchers of water to give to them. They probably made about $1.00 a day to support their families. The school also had a summer program for students to keep us from being bored. We had art and acting classes, cookery and first aid, games and much more. This is when we had the chance to meet other American kids.
Meena would take us to Chandi Chowk Market in old Delhi, to see temples and shop. Chandi Chowk was a street full of stores and alleys with more stores, a complete honeycomb of side streets, with people selling food, baskets, trinkets and more. We saw funeral processions on the way to the burning ghats, the bodies wrapped in white gauze, family members carrying them on their shoulders. She took us there one time, and I have never forgotten it to this day. Funeral pyres stacked high with kindling, the mourners standing around, feeding the fire and then placing the body on the fire. It was a stark lesson in life and reality.
I wasn’t aware of how eastern religions had such a powerful impact on me until years later, after we had come home. I found myself rejecting everything I had learned about Christianity in favor of Buddhism. I joined a Buddhist group in San Francisco when I first moved there and met many of the people who would become my friends. I also started meditating every day and attended a Hindu temple in Berkeley. I had the incredibly good luck to attend a lecture given by the Dalai Lama in San Francisco. Although I no longer belong to the Buddhist groups, I still meditate and follow their way of approaching life.
In the summer with so many air conditioners and fans going at once, because the nights were not much cooler than daytime temperatures, eventually the electrical transformers just gave up and the power went off, which seemed to happen at least once a week in the middle of July. The neighborhood just became extremely quiet, no air conditioners humming, the radios silent. We just had to sit and wait patiently for the power to come back on, usually within an hour or so. Sometimes we just gave up and went to bed, even though the rooms were suffocatingly hot and the mosquitoes were buzzing about. We did sleep under a mosquito net and even then, they found their way in!
In the fall of 1960, my father took some time off from work; and we went on a road trip to see some of the historical areas and sights of India. He rented a big car and a driver. All of us piled into the car, including Meena, for a week of travel. We were going to see the Red Fort, built by the Mughals, as well as Fatehpur Sikri, a palace also built by the Mughals and then to Agra, capital of the Mughal Empire and the main attraction, the Taj Mahal, a lasting monument built by Shah Jahan in honor of his wife, and mother of his thirteen children, Mumtaz. I had seen photos of it, but the chance to see it in person was very exciting for all of us. We set off early in the morning, before the heat of the day took over. The car was Hindustan motors saloon car, and it was very comfortable and somehow we all fit in the back seats, since there was a kind of jump seat for one. It was air conditioned, thank goodness, because even in the fall, temperatures in the desert could get up over 100! In 1960, no cars had seat belts; but the driver was a careful sort, and we never went over 45 miles an hour. The cook had prepared a lunch for us to eat along the way, and we had water and snacks as well. We took along books and games to pass the time. Once we left Delhi, the landscape and topography changed quite a bit, mostly plains and grassy areas. We passed camel caravans, as well as water buffaloes pulling carts. We stopped along the way, under a big shade tree and had lunch. As always, we drew a crowd and tried to ignore being stared at. We arrived in Agra in the afternoon and stayed at Laurie’s Hotel. I think it was built in the 1940’s, very British Raj. We were in two rooms, one for the kids and Meena; one for my parents. I remember the beds had mosquito netting, as the windows provided the only breeze, and the two ceiling fans. The pool had salt water in it instead of chlorine! Meena was not allowed in the dining room with us, which I thought made no sense, as she was Indian!
THE TAJ MAHAL We went in the morning, to avoid the heat. The place was crawling with people, same as we were doing, staring in awe of this magnificent monument of love. Words cannot really describe that first glance of marble shining in the sunlight, blinding us in its whiteness. The inlaid semiprecious jewels sparkled and glimmered in the sun, the fountains of water shooting up into the air, the perfectly kept gardens a feast for the eyes. It was beautiful, serene and I think we all pinched each other in disbelief. Inside the mausoleum, it was cooler; and the sarcophagi of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz were carved out of marble as well, and covered in inlaid stones. All of the screens and columns were intricately carved and cast shadows on the walls. The people were very respectful and quiet as they filed past the final resting places. A tour guide was explaining how long it took the monument to be built and the history of the Mughal Empire. It was an experience that would have a lasting impression on us for quite a while. When I look back on all we saw and did while we lived in India, I realize just how lucky we were to be able to do so.
DAILY LIFE: We settled into a routine very quickly, going to school, homework, and just being kids. At night all of us would sit in the living room, listening to music, playing board games and mother would sometimes play her violin.
We were able to ride around on our bikes everywhere in Sundar Nagar and beyond, many times on our own. We had a lot of freedom, and we never worried about anything happening to us. Maybe we should have, but it just never occurred to us to be scared. Larry used to go down to the banks of the Jumna River, about five miles from home! My mother was worried that a crocodile might have gotten him since Meena told her about people being killed by them. Larry seemed intrepid in his adventures and promised to be careful.
Melinda and I used to go shopping downtown, sometimes alone, other times with Meena or Mother. I used to go over to friends’ houses on my bike, and all of us used to ride bikes to Humayan’s Tomb in Nizamadin, about 10 miles from home! The place was enormous fun to explore and wander around in. We used to see monkeys playing there as well.
My friends included Amrita Chaterjee, who lived down the street from me. We took ballet lessons together and hung out at each other’s houses. She went to an English-run high school and spoke fluent English, as many Indians did. Another good friend was Marsha Zucker, who lived over a few streets from me in Sundar Nagar.
In the summer of 1960, we had an American teenager come and live with us for a few months. She had been an exchange student sent to India by the local rotary club in her town in Pennsylvania. She was only fifteen and had never been away from home either. She was staying with a family in a village, Bikaneer, and was told she would be sharing a room with their teenaged son! Well, after hasty arrangements were made, she came to our house. She had all the latest fashions and makeup from the States, and music as well. She played the piano and sang, taught us how to do the twist and enrolled in school. She was a great friend and we had a wonderful time while she was there. Her sister and I became pen pals, and I actually called her a few years ago even though we had never met. We wrote each other for about five years. I told her about my life overseas, and she described life in a small town in America. As for the girl who stayed with us, she went home in October, back to Pennsylvania.
My parents joined a little theater group in Delhi and performed in several productions, including “The Lark” about Joan of Ark. We got to see the opening night performance and then attended the party afterward and met the actors. It was great fun, and I almost caught the acting bug then. We also attended shows they weren’t in, including Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” “Ten Little Indians,” and other shows. The other plays my parents took us to see included “The Alchemist,” and my mother also performed in the “Caucasian Chalk Circle”.
I had to go to the dentist; and there was one in Sundar Nagar Market, Dr. Sondhi. I had two cavities, and he filled those and told me I needed a root canal as well. I was only 12 and wasn’t sure what that involved. Well, I found out very quickly when I showed up at his office. He prepared my mouth and then started drilling, without explaining to me what he was going to do! Just as he started the serious drilling, the lights went out (well, it was summer). So there I was, sitting there pretty much unable to move, and with a hole in my tooth. The power came back on fairly quickly, and he continued to do the operation. I was loaded up on xylocaine and novacaine; and when he finished up, he sent me on my way without calling up my mother and asking her to come and pick me up. So I walked home, as it was only about a ten minute walk. By the time I had walked back in 110 degree weather, I was woozy and sort of out of it. My mother was furious that he had loaded me up on pain killers and called him and informed that I would not be coming back to him.
FALL OF 1961 Another time, the International Trade show was going on. The US delegation consisted of all the usual mechanical inventions, industry and technology and American jazz band. Well, since my dad loved jazz, he invited the band over for dinner one Sunday. One of the musicians was a vibraphonist named Mike Manieri, absolutely gorgeous and about twenty one. Melinda and I went totally gaga over him! They stayed all afternoon and played for the family, another wonderful memory to store away.
1962 We had been in India for two years, getting used to a different kind of life, going to school, making friends, living with heat and humidity and dust storms and monsoons, and getting homesick as well. We had become accustomed to eating exotic foods, being stared at and making do without grocery stores and television. Going to school in an army barracks was just the norm. We were told one day at school that we were finally getting a new school, built just for us! We were taken to the groundbreaking ceremony in March, where Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, who was visiting India, would be helping us celebrate! She was very tall, beautifully dressed in a pink dress and her signature Breton hat in a matching color. She spoke briefly, in that breathy way of hers and we all applauded afterward. The school was amazing, with a pool, a library, separate buildings for each section, a gym and more. It would be opening for the new school year, in August. I was so happy and looked forward to going.
My mother had become very ill in February of that year, diagnosed with amoebic dysentery, a nasty infection that required being hospitalized for, at least, four months. She was at the Holy Family Hospital, on the outskirts of Delhi. We went to see her every week, and she was very thin and very tired when we saw her. I was so afraid she was going to die and scared to see her. Sometimes family friends would come with us and occupy us to keep us quiet.
While she was in the hospital, a guy from Nashville, a son of a friend of my father’s, came to visit. He was riding around the world on his motorcycle. As was the case many times while we were in Delhi, people visiting from Nashville were always dropping in. I imagined the conversation went something like this: “Oh, if you are visiting India, be sure to give the Miller Family a call!” And they did! This guy was very cute, and my sister and I were teenagers then and boy crazy. He took us out on his motorcycle around the neighborhood, and we were smitten with him.
In April of 1962, Mother’s doctor had done all he could for her and sent her home for treatment in the US. We were leaving before the tour of duty was over, but the doctor thought it was best to go home. We were happy about being able to leave, but sad at the same time. We had made a lot of friends and hated to say goodbye. We left Delhi on April first, the first leg of another long journey home. We flew good old Pan Am Fight # 1, stopping in Karachi, Tehran (didn’t get off!) Baghdad, Ankara ,Turkey, and then onto Rome, where we would stay for a week or so, then to Naples and get on the US Independence for another cruise around the Mediterranean. In Rome, we saw the Colosseum, took a tour of St. Peter’s, went shopping and learned a little bit of Italian from my dad, who was fluent in the language. He had been in Italy during WWII and had learned it when he was living in a little village. We stayed in a pensione, a bed and breakfast type hotel, which included breakfast in the room. Rome was crazy, with traffic, people on the move, horns honking and noisy. I loved it, especially trying to cross the street in a sea of cars. From Rome, we took a train to Naples. Trains in Europe were wonderful, clean, and fast; and people were always coming around selling things to eat. We developed a taste for panini, sandwiches filled with cheese and meat, and coca cola to drink. We also fell in love with gelato, Italian ice cream. I remember that everyone on the train was dressed up, looking very stylish and cosmopolitan.
We arrived in Naples three days before boarding the ship so that my father could take us sightseeing. Our hotel was right on the Mediterranean waterfront, with breathtaking views of Capri in the distance. Albergo Vittoria was a very old hotel, with amazing rooms and food. We rented a car and took a trip to Pompeii again and a drive along the Amalfi coast. The ride was a bit hair raising for my mother, as the drop off the side of the narrow road was a long way down.
My parents let us wander around Naples, and we found a wonderful candy store, Perugina, where the windows were full of displays of huge Easter eggs, filled with chocolate and other goodies. The owner saw us outside and beckoned us to come in, in Italian and a little bit of English. He offered us a taste of candy and then helped us choose something to buy. Kurt picked out something he thought looked good and proceeded to bite into it outside the shop. He then spit it out immediately, as it was filled with rum!
We boarded the SS Independence on Friday, April 13th, my thirteenth birthday! The ship was much larger than the Exeter and had a movie theater, solarium for kids, two pools, four restaurants, nice big deck chairs and lots of other kids. Our staterooms were above the waterline and the kids were in two rooms, mom and dad were on a different deck completely. We set out to scope out the lay of the land, so to speak, and met some other kids on their way home as well. This time the trip would not take three weeks but just two. There would be a different route and ports of call as well. Smooth sailing. No rough seas and we were on our way home after being gone two years.
Last port of call before we went out into the Atlantic was Funchal, Madeira, in the Canary Islands. It was beautiful and mom did a lot of shopping, mostly hand embroidered textiles and clothes. We still have few of them. Happy memories.
NEW YORK Two weeks later, we had the joy of seeing the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. We were in New York for a day, then a train trip to Washington, DC so Dad could be reassigned and debriefed. We visited people who had been there when we were and then we flew to Nashville. It was an odd feeling to be home again, where we could go to a grocery store. It was clean and it was home. While we were in Virginia, we were staying in a hotel that had self-contained apartments, with a kitchen and separate entrance.
NASHVILLE Home again after being away for two years. My grandmother was so glad to see us and have us back. We flew from DC on an old prop jet, shades of Tehran! In our honor, the family threw a huge barbecue for us at my father’s uncle’s house. We drove out to White house to visit my mother’s aunts and they had another big celebration for us.
We stayed in Nashville for three months, revisiting old friends and for some reason known to my parents, they decided we needed to be in school, even though the year was almost over! I went back to Christ the King, where I was welcomed as some sort of celebrity. I was asked all sorts of questions and demonstrated how to wear a sari. All very strange and fun at the same time.
In July of 1962, Daddy had to report to the State Department for his new assignment and for language lessons. We found out we would be going to Istanbul, Turkey, for three years. We didn’t know anything about Turkey, but we were given a post report and did some reading up on it. We were looking forward to going and traveling once again
I attended my third school in Annandale, Virginia, a suburb of Washington. I didn’t know anyone there, but soon became friends with kids in the neighborhood, which made going to another new school a little easier. I didn’t tell anyone that I had been overseas for the last two years or had traveled all over the world.
JULY 1963 The time to leave for Istanbul was getting close, and it was time to pack up and hit the road again. We were sailing on the SS Independence again, which we were happy about. We took the train up to New York, stayed for one night and boarded the ship on Melinda’s 16th birthday. Once again, we would be sailing around the Mediterranean and stopping in Italy to visit my dad’s friends there. Once in Naples, we would have our own car and not have to rely on a train. We watched with great trepidation as the longshoremen loaded the station wagon onto a hoist and raised it up onto the pier. The car made it, and we breathed a sigh of relief. Some friends of ours were watching their car being unloaded in France and witnessed it falling into the sea!
We loaded up the car with luggage, which took up most of the room in the back seat and trunk. Poor Larry was wedged in between the suitcases and the back seat; but once we stopped and rearranged the bags, he had more room. We were driving across Italy from Naples to Cisternino and then Bari. Daddy had been stationed in the little towns up in the foothills of the Appenines and had become friends with many of the residents there, including a Contessa and her daughter, two school teachers, the owner of a car company and many others.
As we drove along the freeway and country roads, we watched the topography go from tall pine trees to scrub bushes and rocky terrain. We passed through villages that consisted of a town square, the church and a café. We stopped for lunch in such a place, Fasano. We found the only place to eat, with no name and no menu. Lunch was what had been picked fresh from the garden that morning, bread from the oven and fresh pasta, that we saw drying in the sun in the courtyard. We were shown a table big enough to seat all of us and then the food started arriving. Fresh tomatoes still warm from the sun, in olive oil and with fresh basil and mozzarella on top, delicious! The bread was still hot, just out of the “osteria” drizzled in olive oil. So good! Pasta with fresh tomato sauce and parmigiana cheese; oh my goodness, fantastic. That meal was perfection, all fresh, homemade and an experience we still talk about to this day.
We left the café, full and happy and on we drove, until we arrived on the outskirts of Cisternino (little cistern); and as we turned up another road, my Dad told us that everywhere we looked, all of it belonged to the Cinci Family, the Contessa’s ancestors. We saw miles and miles of olive groves, orange and lemon trees and grapevines that had been there for centuries. After what seemed an hour drive, we came to our destination, the Cinci Villa. It was a massive stone house, complete with turrets and a huge balcony. We pulled up and stopped, and as we did, a woman ran out onto the balcony and called “Giacamino!” That was La Contessa Cinci, all five feet of her.
We went into the downstairs area, complete with the suit of armor and the family coat of arms, up a winding staircase and into the most amazingly beautiful, sumptuous salon, with floor to ceiling windows, covered in silk draperies, the floors had Oriental carpets on them, mirrors in heavy gilt frames, again, floor to ceiling. Each table top was crammed with photos, objects d’art, vases full of flowers and outside was the balcony, that wrapped around the entire house. The Contessa embraced Daddy and then all of us and welcomed us to her home. She was dressed from head to toe in black lace, and was tiny. Her daughter, Josefina, was visiting from Texas, with her oilman husband and children. Everyone talked at once and it was a moment out of a movie. Then came the food, as only an Italian could do it. Tea, coffee, lemonade for us, cookies, candy, cakes, sandwiches and more just kept coming. We stayed for the afternoon and hated to leave. It had been an amazing visit and experience for all of us. My family still talks about that day, so many years later.
On to the next people to visit the sisters in Cisternino, Nina and Stasi, who had taken in my father during the war. My mother, who was a singer, sang “Un bel di” for them, which brought tears of laughter to them. Then it was time to leave, another wonderful day. We drove to Bari, where we would be boarding a ship to sail to Istanbul in a few days.
ABOARD THE DORICA Compared to the SS Independence, this ship was tiny. It was full of Danish and German tourists, armed with their Baedekers; and they kept to themselves. We occupied ourselves by playing cards and staying on deck. We looked forward mostly to the great food at lunch and dinner. The Dorica outdid itself in those departments. Each meal consisted of at least five courses, pasta, soup, salad, the main course, cheese and then dessert. The best dessert was an ice cream sundae, but not just any ordinary sundae. Three scoops of gelato, nuts, meringue, chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherries on top! The highlight of the cruise was sailing through the Hellespont, the narrow passage between the Aegean and Marmara seas, where we could reach out and touch the sides of the passage.
ISTANBUL We arrived in Istanbul on July 23, 1963. The ship entered the Bosphorus Strait, the body of water between Europe and Asia, and up the European shore and then back to the port, near the Eminonu Bridge. The port was busy and crazy with activity. We all went out to watch as our car was lifted from the hold and hoisted up on ropes and pulleys, and then swung out onto the road near the ship. We weren’t allowed to have possession of it immediately, as it had to be inspected by customs officials. So we piled into a cab, with all of our bags and set off to the hotel in the city. Istanbul drivers are crazy so it was a wild ride to the Park Hotel. The Park had seen better days, but we were so happy to be on dry, stable ground, I don’t think we noticed. Our suite was up high enough that we had a fantastic panoramic view of the Marmara. However, the balcony was only knee high, and my mother wasn’t too happy about that, as Kurt was still small enough to have fallen off very easily. We were up six floors and had to keep an eagle eye on him all the time. The suite had five bedrooms and a large drawing room, and two bathrooms.
SETTLING IN About a week after we arrived, the wife of my father’s boss came to visit and invite us for dinner. Another wife, who we had known in Delhi, was also living in Istanbul. They took us around the sights and out to the beach on the Black sea, Kilyos. Istanbul was a city so full of history and culture, and I fell in love with it almost immediately. We saw the Dolmabahce Palace, the last place the Ottoman sultans lived in before their empire fell after WWI. We also took a trip up and around the Bosphorus, as well as the fortress of Rumelihisari, built by the Byzantines in an effort to stop the invasion of the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
The Park Hotel had one thing going for it -- wonderful food and entertainment for the guests. Every night we had the choice of dining on steak and French fries, fresh fish, pasta, traditional Turkish cuisine or any combination. When cruise ships were in port, the hotel offered various kinds of entertainment for passengers who came to the hotel for dinner. One night, it was a belly dancer, complete with finger cymbals and seven veils, another traditional Turkish folk music and one night a pianist.
ANOTHER HOTEL My mother decide she was tired of worrying about us falling off the knee high balcony at the Park, so we moved to another hotel, the Divan, just a few blocks from the Park. Our parents were always attending some social function, which meant we were left alone and bored. We threw water balloons off the balcony, dragged our mattresses out on the porches, and generally caused minor havoc. Nothing dangerous, just pent up energy. We were sure the manager was going to tell our parents, but they didn’t.
One day in August of 1963, my dad came home and told us that there was a movie being made in Topkapi, the sultan’s palace and set of the Ottoman Empire. The film company was recruiting people to be extras in the film, and would be paid and get a free lunch, not to mention the chance to see how a movie was made and also meet the actors! We all answered at once and said yes, we wanted to do this.
The name of the film was “Topkapi,” starring Melina Mercouri, Peter Ustinov, Maximillan Schell and other actors. We would be in the filming for about two weeks and be paid about $25.00 a day. The next day, Melinda, Larry and I were picked up at the hotel in a taxi and taken to the palace, which we had not seen until then. We met a lot of other American kids that day and also English and French kids who were recruited by their consulates. The film’s director, Jules Dassin, married to Ms. Mercouri, gathered all of the extras together in the courtyard of the palace and told us exactly how we were to act and not to come on set until we were called. We soon found out that making a movie involved standing around while lights and cameras were being adjusted and scenes set up. This waiting gave us plenty of time to explore the rooms and art galleries of Topkapi, magnificently decorated and full of art and jeweled treasures, including the Peacock Throne from Iran, and the emerald encrusted dagger that was meant to be stolen in the movie. The views from the balcony in back were also breathtaking, taking in the Bosphorus and the sea of Marmara and the city laid out before us.
Finally, we were called to come to the forecourt, where filming began. Well, we were all star struck when Melina Mercouri and Max Schell came onto the set! Mr. Dassin called for silence and the cameras began rolling. We had to be completely silent when that was going on, and an assistant of the director’s kept going around calling “Silence, s’il vous plait!” silence! We also found out that movies weren’t filmed in sequence and that one scene could take a few hours. We didn’t care; we were all so excited. Filming stopped for lunch and we all proceeded to the café and lined up for the buffet. When we were all sitting around eating and talking about the movie, Peter Ustinov came over to the table where my sister and brother and other extras were. He asked if he could join us! So he sat there, regaling us with stories, did his accents and entertained us until it was time to go back to filming. To say the least, that summer was not boring. I met one girl, the daughter of a French diplomat who became my best friend.
We went to Topkapi for about two weeks, walking around pretending to be “tourists” and also had a chance to see more of the palace. At the end of August, the filming there was done and moved onto other locations. The whole experience for all of us was unforgettable and when I see the movie when it is on TV, I always look for the extras in the background!
School was about to begin, and my mother and father wanted to get us settled into a home before then. Finally, after doing a lot of house hunting, they found the place that would be our home for three years -- in a neighborhood out in the suburbs, in an area called Balti Limani, on the Bosphorus, with a breathtaking view of the Asian shore from our living room. It was on the third floor of an apartment on a hill, three flight of steps up to the apartment, no elevator! Three bedrooms, a kitchen, two baths, a huge living room, and a 45- foot wrap around balcony. So we rented it and moved in, quite an ordeal. The moving trucks didn’t have room on our street to park so they parked on the one leading up to our street, and then had to go up two flights of steps just to get to the apartment and those three flights of stairs, carrying some of the furniture on their backs! I don’t know how they did it, especially a piano!
Labor Day weekend, the teen club organized a two day trip to Kilyos, the beach on the Black Sea, about thirty miles from where we lived. That is when we met more of our future school mates and Turkish people as well. Some Turkish men are very good looking and one in particular, Okdem, was the heart throb among the girls. He was eighteen, tall, brown curly hair, gorgeous brown eyes and a fabulous smile. I was just fourteen and smitten with boys, especially him. He had a reputation for dating most of the girls in teen club, but we didn’t mind sharing him. His best friend, Ali, was also quite popular with American teenagers. The weekend was a lot of fun, swimming, cooking on the beach, playing volleyball and a lot of flirting also. It was a great way to end summer.
SCHOOL So here we were, about to start at yet another school in another country and city. The school was actually an army Quonset hut, in a suburb of Istanbul. It contained grades 1-9 and had five teachers. My eighth grade class consisted of about 20 kids altogether. Our teacher was Mr. Gaskin, and he was also the home room teacher. He taught English, geography and history. Other teachers taught math, science, and PE. As with the other school I attended in India, kids came and went during the year, as their fathers were reassigned.
Students who were past ninth grade had a correspondence school in another building, and that is where my sister went. At first, they only had a teacher to monitor the classes; but eventually, someone was brought in to teach as well. Some of the students came over to our school for different subjects. In 1964, two new teachers came in, Mrs. Walker to teach algebra and French, and a new science teacher, Mr. Faranola.
Freshman year, our class only had about 14 kids in it, but being typical teens, we managed to get into trouble anyway. Silly pranks mostly, nothing more. Mr. Gaskin tolerated most of them, even when we hid his jar of peanut butter or his vast collection of Cracker Jack prizes. Mrs. Walker was a new teacher in 1964, and I even managed to learn algebra and a little bit of French. She was very funny and would reprimand us in Japanese! In the summer that year, Diana had gone to France for home leave; and when she came back to Istanbul, she brought some new records with her. She brought them to our house and played them for us. They were with a new group called the Beatles, and I was a fan after the first time I heard them!
We moved into an apartment house up on a hill in Balti Limani, out in a village along the Bosphorus. The view from the living room was of the water and Asia, and there was a 60-foot balcony for enjoying the view and watching ships sail up and down the Bosphorus. At night, in the summer, we sat out there for hours listening to the ferry boats going between Asia and Europe, blowing their horns. The breezes blew in and we could hear music wafting up from the clubs along the shore. People would go and eat or drink tea in the restaurants and tea houses, with waiters running back and forth to where the cars were parked near the water, dodging traffic as they carried their trays full of food. Some of my happiest memories from Istanbul were during the summers.
FALL OF 1963 Saturday night at Teen Club. I saw this gorgeous Turkish guy walking over to me, and he asked me to dance. I knew who he was, the most popular guy at Teen Club. I knew he had asked out just about every girl there, but he wanted to dance with me. He was about eighteen, maybe 5’9, big brown, soulful eyes and brown curly hair. I think I went weak at the knees when he danced with me, and I was smitten after that. He stayed with me until it was time to go home; and when my parents came to pick me up, I asked them to give him a ride too, since, very conveniently, he lived right next door! He held my hand on the way home and asked my parents if he could take me out the next day. We dated each other for about three months, mostly going out for walks in the afternoon, down along the Bosphorus, or a movie and the dance at teen club. He was my first real love and boyfriend. Saturday nights were greatly anticipated, a time to dance, listen to good old rock and roll and meet boys. I think that is why I loved Istanbul so much…first love, first kiss and first crushes on other guys who never knew I was attracted to them.
Sometimes after some of us had gone to see a movie, we would walk down the path between Etiler at the top, down to Bebek at the bottom. There were usually about six or seven of us, the Rosell kids and Millers. In the summer, the air was nice and cool and we would wind our way down the cobblestone path, passing houses, listening to music coming up from the clubs and restaurants in the little village. Friday nights brought out so many people, there was a festive atmosphere everywhere. We would make our way to the bus stop to wait for the next bus home. If we were coming home from Teen Club on Saturday night, our Turkish friends were also with us.
NOVEMBER 1963 My mom and I were sitting in the living room, listening to music or just talking when the phone rang. I had a friend over for a slumber party, and we were yakking away also. My mom answered the phone, and whatever she was hearing, it made her cry. I thought something had happened to my dad, but it was her dressmaker calling to tell her that President Kennedy had been killed in Dallas. After she hung up, my dad called to tell us also. We were in shock. For the next four days, we sat in the living room, listening to the VOA on my dad’s short wave radio as the whole mourning process and funeral took place.
Earlier that fall, the first day of school, my father’s driver came to pick him up; and when he came in, he was saying something in Turkish about a Russian tanker that had run into a house on the shore in the thick fog. All the occupants were killed, and the house was gutted; and it all happened just down street from our house. We all went to take a look while we were waiting for the bus, and for years afterward, people still went to look at the house. The pilot was put in jail, as was the captain.
FALL 1963 My father’s job as Information Officer included at times, PR work on behalf of the Consul General - his boss. The Sixth Fleet, part of Naval Forces overseas, visited Istanbul as part of the fleet’s voyages in the Middle East. In October, the fleet was due to visit and my father was sent to cover the arrival of the newest aircraft carrier in the fleet, and nuclear powered, USS Enterprise, along with about ten other craft. He asked us if we would like to go with him and so the four of us tagged along. I wasn’t really sure what a fleet was but found out when we arrived at the launch site on the Bosphorus. Because the ships were too big for the shallow port, they were moored off shore, and we had to go out in a launch to get there. The Enterprise was huge! And full of sailors.
DECEMBER 1963 Another Christmas away from home but this time, at least we could buy and get gifts without having to wait for a long time. We had a tree and soon, the first snowfall of the year. We sat in the living room and watched as it fell, covering the ground and buildings; and it got so thick, we couldn’t see across the Bosphorus. When the cobblestones were covered with snow, getting to and from the house became a tricky process, as the car slid around and using brakes was a waste of time. Then we could go shopping in the little village market not far from us. However, going back up the street was much trickier and so was going up the steps to the apartment house. I loved watching the snow falling, cut off from the world.
SUMMER AND FALL 1964 Summer was spent sightseeing, going to the base movie theater to see first- run films. The theater actually was the auditorium of the school. Movies cost 50-cents, and we saw a lot of them. If we weren’t there, we were at Teen Club, in the Post Exchange building or at someone’s house at a party. We also took a tour on the Bosphorus or to Kilyos. During summer, American artists and movie actors would come to entertain Americans and Turks with cultural programs set up by the State Department, part of my father’s job was welcoming them and interviewing them. We got to meet some of them and see their performances. One of the acts was a folk-singing group, very popular in the States then. After the show, we went back stage with our dad and asked the group if they would like to give a show for some teenagers, and so we organized it in the empty apartment downstairs and invited the whole Teen Club to come! About fifty kids showed up, and the group performed for about three hours, all of us singing along to folk songs and rock tunes as well. I also met Garry Moore, a game show host and host of his own variety show in the states. He and his wife were wonderful people and very entertaining. At Thanksgiving that year, when my sister was home from school in Ankara, they treated us to dinner at a very nice place in Istanbul. Little did we know Melinda had been exposed to hepatitis! And so was Mr. Moore and his wife. They had to endure getting gamma globulin shots at the medical facility in Istanbul! Everyone there tried to get a look at him, afterwards. We also had William Saroyan come for dinner, but my mother didn’t know about it until we came home from the beach and driving down the Bosphorus road, the clutch went out on the car. We weren’t too far from the house, so we walked home, after having the car picked up and put on the sidewalk! As we were walking up our street, Balti Limani, Larry came out on the balcony and yelled down that Dad was coming home with a guest. When we were in the apartment, he told us William Saroyan was coming for dinner. He was on a tour of Turkey, part of the artists program put on by the State Department. My mother had an hour to throw something together for dinner; and at around 7:00 pm, my father arrived home with Mr. Saroyan in tow. He was very nice to us, apologized for showing up unannounced and proceeded to tell us stories. I knew he had written “Human Comedy” and “My Name is Aram.” He was not very tall, had a huge handlebar moustache and gray hair and was a very charming man.
Some of my fondest memories were sitting on the balcony at night, watching the ships sailing along the water and hearing the “whoop, whoop” of the horns on the ferry boats going back and forth from Europe to Asia, warm breezes coming off the water and the lights along the shore twinkling in the distance, looking like diamonds in the night. Those were some of the happiest days of my life and still are. Istanbul is a magical, mesmerizing city, full of history and art, kind, helpful people; and I would love to go back again.
WINTER 1965 The Teen Club organized a ski trip to Uludag, and Larry and I went. There were about thirty kids altogether, with parents as chaperones. On the way up, the bus got stuck in the snow; and we had to walk up to the ski lodge. I didn’t know how to ski and spent the day hanging out in the lodge with other people who also didn’t ski. At night, we had dancing and parties. When it was time to leave, we headed back down the mountain, and got stuck again! We ended up staying over in the town closest to us in Bursa and headed home the next day. To this day, I have never gone skiing at all.
We used to sit in the living room on Sundays, listening to the stereo and playing board games or cards. Daddy would make toasted cheese sandwiches and we usually had a fire in the winter. Sometimes the snow was so thick, we couldn’t see the other side of the Bosphorus!
SUMMER 1965 Melinda graduated from the new high school in Ankara. I would be going in the fall that year, so I was glad to see the school and dorms beforehand. That summer, I also spent most of it at my friend, Diana’s, home in Tarabya, owned by the French consulate. Tarabya was way out in the suburbs, on the water. She invited me to come one weekend, and I ended up staying for most of the summer. My mother didn’t mind, and I did come home for clean clothes; but for the most part, I stayed at her house. Now, this house was huge, on a lot of acreage, and it was beautiful. It was a yali, a summer palace, four storeys, a gingerbread house, all carved wood and set up on a hill, about three miles into the property, and the drive way was very long and curving and the house couldn’t be seen from the street. There was a huge patio in back, a pool, massive kitchen, complete with the copper pans on the rack, and a lounge next to the kitchen. Madame Trachta did all the cooking and it was delicious.
My room had a double bed, private bathroom, balcony with a view and the bed had a full canopy on it. We spent most days swimming or shopping in the nearby village. During the time I was there, a group of students came to visit, so every night was spent dancing and staying up until all hours. I brought my record player and lots of 45 records, including the latest hits from the States. The most popular, besides the Beatles, was the “Locomotion,” by Carole King. I ended up teaching everyone how to do the dance, and we formed a long conga line to do it. It was a blast! I also met William Saroyan, the author, and spent time talking to him about writing. He was a fascinating person and very funny.
FALL 1965 The time had come to go to school in Ankara. I had seen the dorms in the summer and thought I was ready to stay away from home for the first time. I was sixteen and wanted to go. Other girls and boys I knew from Istanbul were also going. My parents took me on the train, an overnight trip. We were also going from Europe to Asia, on a remnant of the Orient Express. Ankara is in the middle of the Anatolian Plain, in the middle of nowhere.
The school was out about twenty miles from town, the dorms were army issue, two storeys, plain and ugly. Since they had been built without all the proper paperwork, at times the water and electricity had been turned off; but we were assured all the kinks had been worked out. The rooms were painted green, the beds were metal and the floors were linoleum. I had a roommate who had been living and going to the school in Beirut; but as that school didn’t have classes for any one past freshmen year, she had to go to Ankara. There were also girls as young as 14, who came from all over the Middle East and as far as Pakistan. We had counselors who were there to smooth the transition and allay homesickness. It didn’t work, but they tried. I found my room and unpacked, made my bed and then had to say goodbye to my parents, so there was a lot of crying and I felt so homesick the minute they left. I hoped I would start to feel better as the year went on, and I did. We had been assigned sponsors from the Americans living in Ankara, and some of them were really nice and had their kids out every weekend and some weren’t so great. Mine were okay. I did make friends and the counselors tried to some up with ways to entertain us and alleviate our homesickness and boredom.
DORM LIFE We had six counselors, assigned to keep order and keep an eye on us. We had to clean our rooms every morning, and the counselors did a room inspection and awarded stars for cleanliness. Gold, silver and green stars and a blackball if the room was a mess. They were posted in the hall way on a bulletin board, and we could see our star after school. Study hall was in the school after dinner, and in our rooms on the weekends. School grades went to the counselors, who then sent them to parents with notes about how we were doing in classes.
The compound where the school and dorms were located was out in the middle of nowhere, literally. I guess the idea was to keep us safe and prevent kidnappings. What it didn’t prevent was boredom and the tedium of being stuck out there all week, while other kids could go to the PX, Teen Club, and movie anytime they wanted. We were allowed two hours on Saturday to go to Ankara downtown, unescorted, and shop or hang out. The PX was small and didn’t have much in the way of clothes or anything else, but we did go to the café and have cokes and better food than the school had.
We did find ways of getting into trouble, all very innocent compared to today’s teenagers. We had parties in each other’s rooms after lights out. We also stacked up coke cans in a pyramid behind our doors so that when they were opened, there was a terrible crashing noise. I know, very silly, but 60 girls cooped up in small spaces had a lot of energy to burn. In the winter when the snow came, we had snowball fights with the boys or if we were unfortunate to be walking by the doors, somebody might have grabbed us and taken us outside in the freezing weather. On Valentine’s Day, the boys from next door kept threatening to have a “panty raid,” which turned out mostly not to be more than that -- a threat.
After school, we hung out in the lounge, listening to music, dancing or flirting with the boys. Dinner time was around 6:30, and we all filed into the cafeteria and sometimes, that would end up in a food fight. Hey, what can I say, we were in teenaged puberty hormone overdrive.
Some weekends, the counselors planned field trips to places close by, in an attempt for us to learn more about Turkey and each other. We were loaded up in one of the blue devils, an Air Force bus. We went to see the Whirling Dervishes in Mevlana, another disastrous ski trip, and other sites. We had some really excellent teachers at the school, one in particular for me was Nancy Blue, my world history instructor. She made the subject come alive and sparked my love of the subject that I still have. I had a chance a few years ago to talk to her and thank her for steering me toward majoring in European History.
We were all looking forward to Thanksgiving and a chance to go home for a week. Some of the girls lived too far away and had to stay with their sponsors. We took the train home, and it was quite a trip. Some of us were lucky to be in first-class sleepers; and some had to rough it in third class, meaning they sat up all night. The sleepers were really nice, comfortable beds and were warm. A bunch of us all crowded into someone’s room; and we stayed up most of the night talking and playing music. As we sped through the Anatolian countryside, I looked out the window and noticed there were no lights anywhere, just deep dark nothingness.
When we arrived in Istanbul the next morning, the train went through little towns along the water, giving a wonderful view of the city and train station on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. At the station, my parents picked me up; and we drove home to Balta Limani and our apartment. I had never been so glad to see the place! We had dinner with the Rosells at their house at the top of the steps. The time went by too quickly, and it was back to Ankara. It had snowed while I was home and the snow was covered in black soot from all the coal fires and was ugly, and I was miserable. I had some friends from Istanbul, and we were all so homesick but didn’t want to admit it.
CHRISTMAS 1965 I had to take the day train from Ankara because the travel office at the Embassy had forgotten to book me on the night train. I was so scared of traveling alone and sat in my seat the whole time - twelve hours! I had money to buy food and books to read, but I was only fifteen and looked it. The countryside we traveled through looked like scenes from Siberia, nothing to see but fields and snow. I was so glad to finally to get back to Istanbul!
1966 My father was being reassigned to Saigon and he came to say goodbye before he left. February in Turkey was cold, snowy and miserable. He signed me out of the dorm (big deal), and I stayed with the Slacks - family friends. He took me out to dinner at the Officer’s Club, up on Cankaya Hill, where we had chicken kiev. We went shopping the next day at the PX, where he bought me new clothes and a record player. He was leaving the next day, and I was so sad at the thought of not seeing him for at least six months. Mom decided she didn’t want to live in that big apartment with just my brothers, so she moved into town in an area called Ayazpasa, close to the water. It looked out on Dolmabahce, and we could watch the boats going up and down the Bosphorus. I went home for spring vacation and saw the place for the first time. My room had a balcony where I could sit and listen to the music coming up from restaurants and other people’s homes.
My mother also came for a visit and I was so glad to see her! She had only been there once before to get me settled in the dorm, in the summer time. Winters in Turkey can be very bleak, snowy, cold and miserable. When she arrived and saw the guards at the gate, she told me she was ready to march in there and take me home! And I was ready to go. She took me out to dinner the next day and to the PX to buy me some clothes. When it was time to say goodbye, I was so homesick, I almost went back to Istanbul with her.
JUNE Finally, school was over! Melinda came to Ankara and rode back with me on the night train. We had a sleeping car all to ourselves, but the shower and bathroom were down the corridor. Melinda went to take a shower and forgot where our room was when she came back so she kept knocking on a door that turned out to be a total stranger! She apologized and hurried back to our room when I heard her a few doors down. We spent the rest of the trip with no other incidences. The train arrived at Haydarpasa train station, located on the Asia side of the Bosphorus. We still laugh about that trip.
With all of us home for the summer, we spent a lot of time at the pool at the Hilton Hotel and cooking dinner on the little balcony. We ordered food from the little grocery; and the delivery person would ring the doorbell and we would send our basket down to the street, which he filled up and then we brought it back to the apartment. The phone situation had improved a little bit from Baltilimani. We in fact had an illegal line, thanks to an American friend of ours. In Turkey, if you wanted a phone, you had to pay a huge deposit on it and then go to a phone store, show your receipt and pick out a phone. Several weeks later, a man from the PTT Company came and installed the phone, a basic black model with a rotary dial, and weighed about ten pounds. Sometimes the service would go all haywire and we just had to wait for it to come back on.
JULY One Saturday, the phone rang; it was Mike Lunine, a friend of Dad’s to tell us Dad was at his house, since Dad wasn’t sure where the new apartment was. He drove him to our house, and we had a wonderful reunion. He wanted us to move to Bangkok so he could see us more often, every three months or we would have to move back to the States. Well, none of us were too happy about either choice; but Mom finally agreed to move to Bangkok. We would be moving in August, yet again, a new school, a new country, a new house.
We hated leaving Turkey and our home for three years. We had fallen in love with the place and people. Turks are so friendly, helpful and opened up their homes to all guests, feeding them, making them part of the family. We loved the food, the vast history of the ancient invaders and occupier, the art, architecture and the beauty of the city on the water. Istanbul was so unlike anywhere we had lived before or since. There is an atmosphere that almost defies description, the feel of the breeze as it wafted into our apartment off the Bosphorus, the sound of the music being played in the tea houses along the road along the waterfront, the smells of meat being roasted and the myriad ships and vessels as they sailed up and down the water. Summer nights were so enchanting, people out for a stroll, waiters rushing back and forth from restaurants to cars parked along the water, avoiding the traffic and balancing trays bearing tea and coffee.
1966 Off to another country, another school. After all the moves we had made, they just weren’t getting any easier. We hated leaving Istanbul. Back to good old Pan Am, only in tourist class, not first. We flew from Istanbul to Ankara, Ankara to Pakistan, Delhi, and Calcutta. The monsoon season was in full strength, runways were flooded; it was unbearably hot and humid. We had a two-hour layover in Calcutta at the Dum Dum airport. Mother chose to stay on the plane, but we kids decided to check it out. It was teeming with people, and no air conditioning! We saw a room with a sign on the door: “air conditioned room!” We walked in and it was actually about thirty fans going at top speed! We headed back to the plane to wait out the layover.
Next stop, Rangoon, Burma, where the runway was flooded also, and flew around trying to find a patch of dry land, and finally landed, very bumpy and a bit scary. From Rangoon, on to Bangkok, some twenty hours or so later, where my dad was there to meet us. The Embassy had made reservations at the very posh, expensive Oriental Hotel, for one night. It was a beautiful suite and at the time, about $130.00 a night. The only view was of a very ugly river and not much else. Anytime we went out, we were hit with a blanket of humid air and rain. The next day, mom and dad went out looking for cheaper accommodation; and we moved to the American Club, a family hotel, founded by an American who had built the first dairy farm and pasteurization facility in Bangkok in the 1950’s. It was a very nice place, full of Americans and other nationalities in transit. Every morning, breakfast included fresh pastries, fruit, eggs and bacon. The bar also had American sodas, potato chips and a TV! We hadn’t seen one of those in three years. A lot of American shows were broadcast, dubbed in Thai. If we wanted to hear the soundtrack in English, we had to have a shortwave radio, which someone in the hotel had. So we watched at night, swatting at the mosquitos that lived under the table.
We moved from the American Club when Dad went back to Saigon, not sure why. We stayed at about three different hotels, all terrible. Finally, just before school started, we settled in Khanith House, another residence hotel, and there was a pool. We stayed there until mom rented a house in a nice neighborhood.
SCHOOL We were attending International School, my third high school, seventh in all. It was on Soi 15, off Sukhumvit Road, the main street. There were a lot of Saigon dependents there, and about 1,500 students altogether, first through senior high. It was three storeys, open on three sides to allow for a breeze and lots of fans in the classrooms. I had teachers from a lot of different countries, and students from all over the world attended. My favorite classes were American History and French.
We were at the end of Soi 4, in a small house, three bedrooms, two huge bathrooms, servants’ quarters, living room, kitchen and dining room. In back of us was what could only be described as a jungle, probably full of poisonous snakes. Since Bangkok is below sea level, we had a canal around the house; and it was full of mosquitoes. Every time we turned on the air conditioning, they would fly out. We also had little chichaks (lizards) living in the house with us, and they did help to keep down the insect population. They lived up on the ceiling, and I used to hope one of them wouldn’t drop on me in my sleep.
One thing Bangkok had a lot of was movie theaters, built by American film companies, and they showed first-run American films with Thai subtitles. We went to the movies at least once a week, if not more often. Seats had to be picked from a diagram of the theater. Before every movie, the Thai National Anthem was played, while the photo of the King and Queen was shown on the screen. Then the commercials and then the movie. We must have seen a movie every week, including “The Sound of Music” and “Dr. Zhivago.”
GOING HOME JUNE 1967 My father came for a visit and told us we would be going home for a few weeks and then on to our new assignment, Tel Aviv. Well, we didn’t go because the seven-day war started the same day! We finally left for home in July. We were once again in transit, on Pan Am, only not in first class. The trip took almost a week, since jumbo jets were not yet in existence. We flew from Bangkok to Hong Kong, then to Tokyo, onto Hawaii, where we had a few days layover. We didn’t do much because we were suffering from jet lag. From Hawaii, on to LA, with another four day layover, so we went to Disneyland. First time for us on the west coast (little did we realize we would all end up there 10 years later). The hotel had one of those vibrating beds so we put in a quarter and expected it to last about five minutes, only it didn’t, and kept vibrating for most of the night until hotel maintenance came and disconnected it! We also watched the “Tonight Show” for the first time in six years. Finally, we flew to Nashville, for a family reunion. We stayed there for about three weeks while Mom flew to Washington DC to find us an apartment since Dad would be coming home from Saigon in September. We ended up in Annandale, Virginia, outside DC, in a huge apartment complex. My last year of high school and my fourth school, where I didn’t know anyone.
So after all of those years living and growing up overseas, being exposed to so many languages, cultures, countries, what did I discover about myself and what did I learn? I found out that adapting to a new life is difficult but also very enlightening, educational, fun, that I love to travel and still do it when I can. Keeping an open mind and attitude is paramount for living in other countries and not comparing them to the United States. I came to appreciate different foods, religions, languages, cities and customs. I learned not to let people staring at me not bother me. Moving all over was tiring and exhilarating at the same time. I can pack a suitcase for a two week trip in a matter of minutes and still have room for souvenirs. I experienced earthquakes and a threat of war.
I learned enough of the languages to get by. I made a lot of friends, ate food most people would never see in their lives! I have a great respect for snakes, lizards and other creatures. I have traveled on planes, trains and ships. I met a lot of famous people, a Contessa, actors, actresses, was in a movie, and met the Prime minister of India.
We had so much freedom in all the countries where we lived. My mother let us ride bikes all over Delhi, go uptown with Meena, and everywhere else she took us. In Istanbul, we went uptown all the time, mostly to shop in Taksim Square. When I look back on the years we spent living overseas, I still find it hard to believe that we never felt in any danger. We did tire of being stared at, and we drew a huge crowd wherever we went, mostly because we were foreigners and our mother was tall and had blonde hair.
So out of all the places we visited and lived, I would say Istanbul and Turkey were my favorites. I think because I was a teenager then and was just discovering boys. At Teen Club in 1963, I met a lot of cute boys, and one in particular, a Turkish boy who I would end up living next door to for two years. He was very handsome, tall, olive skin, brown eyes, curly black hair and sparkling white teeth. He knew all the kids, especially the girls and dated quite a few of them, including me! I was fourteen, he was eighteen and very worldly, I thought. He was a good slow dancer and kisser. I nearly fainted when he asked me to dance and then asked me out! We dated for a few months, and then he moved on to the next girl.
All of the moving and traveling we did was a wonderful way to grow up and yet, it was very hard saying good bye to friends and onto another country. I attended four high schools, one for each year, in three countries and two continents. I lived in Europe and went to school in Asia, and I doubt many people could say that. I moved at least fifty times if not more, during the years we were overseas. I still enjoy traveling and have gone back to Istanbul two times, and marveled at the changes it had undergone in the forty years since I left. Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone pressed to their ears, high rises were everywhere, there were a lot more hotels in town, shopping malls seemed to be on every corner or block, a lot more traffic and air pollution than before and yet, underneath all of the modern buildings, underneath Istanbul was still the same, cobblestone roads in the old part of town, thousands of years old, the historical mosques, the covered bazaar still teeming with people looking for a bargain, stall owners calling out to passersby to come and look at the wares for sale, the jewelry section still gleaming and sparkling in the lights. The ferry boats still sailing back and forth between Europe and Asia, underneath bridges spanning the Bosphorus, they weren’t there when we were. Old and new in juxtaposition, respecting each other’s space. Taksim Square, an old and good friend, still buzzing and humming with cars and traffic and dolmuses (share cabs) and jockeying for a place in the mess of buses and people. Istiklal caddesi, where USIS used to be, the building sadly no longer there. The street’s upper area now all pedestrianized, except for the old fashioned trams going from the square to Galata Bridge. Where there was no underground transportation, there is now a funicular train that travels only from the square to the area of Kabatas, where the tram system starts. We had only buses and taxis for getting around, and now there is a metro system that goes out to the suburbs and will soon be going from Europe to Asia. The ferry still runs across the water and down to the mouth of the Black Sea. I took a trip on that route in 2006, down to the final stop on the Asian shore, Aanadolu Kavagi, having never done so in the years we lived there. The view was breathtakingly amazing, and people who went there did an amazing amount of oohing and aahing when they finally saw the view. I felt as if I had come home again.
Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone attached to their ears and tapping away on a laptop computer. I revisited the Old part of town, Sultanahmet, filled with all of the historical sights, the Aya Sofia church, the Blue Mosque, the archeological museum and the fabulous palace of Topkapi. I stayed in the area of Cihangir, close to where we lived the last few months before we left. It was all built up and I had a hard time trying to find our apartment and never did see it. I took a tour of the city since I didn’t remember the locations of every place I had been before. I even spoke some Turkish when I got in a cab to go shopping. The water, the hills, the ferry boats, all so familiar and I didn’t feel so much like a tourist when I saw the places we used to hang out in. I ate lunch on Istiklal, and in the restaurants close to my hotel. One place, just next door to my hotel, was where I ate most of my dinners. One night, after having a fabulous meal, I asked to see the owner and compliment him on his food. Well, the owner turned out to be an expat, a woman from San Francisco!
When I look back over the years I spent living and traveling overseas, sometimes I find it hard to believe my family and I saw and did all the things in this book. How many 10-year-old girls from Nashville would have dreamt of doing all that? The places we saw, the people we met, meeting a prime minister, actors, actresses, being in a movie, talking to a world famous author, all of it seems unreal at times, even all these years later. We lived in a neighborhood in Istanbul that had been occupied by Romans, Greeks, and Ottoman Turks and where a fortress built in 1453 still stands! The cobblestones in sultan Ahmet were trod on by the same people. We saw many of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Today I live in the bay area of San Francisco and have been here for almost forty years, the longest I have ever lived anywhere and have moved around at least twenty times from San Francisco to San Diego and back and at least four apartments and houses. I still get wanderlust and have followed it to England, France and Turkey, twice. I still love to fly, although it is not as glamourous as it was in the 1960’s. I still get excited about going to a new country and still get butterflies when the plane takes off and fourteen hours later, I am in another country and off to a new adventure.
************************************************************************************************
Please scroll down for photographs
KIRK DOUGLAS Instanbul, Turkey Melissa, Kurt, and Larry 1964
Blue Mosque
Aya Sofya
Rumeli Hisar
Bosphorus, seen from Balti Limani Apartment 1964
Tower at Yoros Castle
Asian village
On the SS Independence 1963
The Miller Family Clockwise: Melissa, James (Dad), Larry, Kurt, Nell (Mom) and Melinda MELISSA MILLER Author of “39,000 MILES” on her 69th Birthday
********************************************************************* 24 June 2020 -mw
NOTATION: “39,000 MILES” was written in 2000 by Melissa Miller (AIS Class of 1967) and took about four years to complete. The book was authored solely by Melissa.
Although Melissa’s book was never published and at the request from many alumni to read it, she gave the AIS/AES Alumni Association permission to post it (in PDF file) on its website for your reading pleasure. This book can be found on Melissa’s own page: https://aisaes.org/MelissaMiller_Class67.htm
THE MILLER FAMILY: James (Father) Nell (Mother) Melinda, AIS Class of 1965 Melissa, AIS Class of 1967 Larry, AIS Class of 1969 Kurt, AES Class of 1975