Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel
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Library of Congress Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR EDWARD GABRIEL Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: December 19, 2005 Copyright 2009 ADST Q: Today is the 19th of December 2005. This is an interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel. This is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and I'm Charles Stuart Kennedy. You go by Ed. Is that right? GABRIEL: I go by Ed. Thank you. Q: When and where were you born? GABRIEL: I was born in Olean, in western New York, south of Buffalo. St. Bonaventure University is also in Olean. It's a small town, about 12,000-15,000 people, located in the Allegheny Mountains. I was born on March 1, 1950. I lived in Olean until I was 18, when I went to Gannon College. Q: I'm interviewing a man whose name escapes me right now who was teaching ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) at St. Bonaventure's at one point. GABRIEL: I've heard of a couple of ROTC instructors from St. Bonaventure who are in prominent positions today. Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001554 Library of Congress Q: He does crisis management. GABRIEL: I'd love to know his name. Perhaps in the next interview you could give his name and let me know. I didn't go to St. Bona's, but I do know a number of people there. Q: Tell me a little about your family. On your father's side, who were the Gabriels? GABRIEL: My father and mother both have their ethnic roots in Lebanon. My father came here in 1910 as a ten-year-old, so I'm first generation on his side. His real name was Michel (Michael) John Gabriel Bishelany. At Ellis Island the name Bishelany was removed and my father then became Michael John Gabriel. Our last name changed at this point. Actually, he came with his father, and so the whole family's name was then changed, but in Lebanon my grandfather was John Gabriel Bishelany. Q: Do you know where the Bishelanys... What were they up to and where did they come from? GABRIEL: Yes. The Bishelanys were from Salima, Lebanon, which is in the Metn area of Lebanon, east of Beirut, in an area occupied by people of the Maronite and Druze religions. They have been there for more than 500 years. Before that they were from the Bishel, named after the area where the Bishelany family was originally from, which is further north in Lebanon. I know little about that area or our history there. Our family roots are Phoenician, and if you believe the National Geographic, Phoenicians are Canaanites. I would hate to go further in my history than that! Q: What were the Bishelanys up to? GABRIEL: Good point. The Bishelanys in Salima were known for their silk production. The first person to come to the U.S. (United States) from Lebanon was a Bishelany, a distant relative. He came to America in about 1854, settling in Boston. He lived there about two Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001554 Library of Congress years, then died, I believe, of pneumonia. My grandfather was an accountant, and he traveled extensively to France and other places in the Mediterranean region. Q: Your grandfather was the accountant. GABRIEL: Yes. Q: Did you know your grandfather? GABRIEL: No. Only one grandparent was alive when I was born. He was my grandfather on my mother's side. Q: What did your father do? GABRIEL: My father came with his father and two sisters in 1910 from Lebanon. His mother died right after he was born, so his older sister raised him. I believe his mother's name was Asma. He had two older brothers, so there were five all together. The older brothers had come to the United States at an earlier date on a previous trip with their father. The whole family immigrated to the United States in several waves over about ten years, with my dad being the last to come in 1910. They ended up in a little town in Pennsylvania called Eldred, which is not far from Olean, New York. The children became quite prosperoueveryone but my father. Q: What were they doing? GABRIEL: They went into typical businesses for Lebanese at the time. My father's siblings established corner grocery stores and small clothing stores. His oldest brother, Louie, and their children were very successful in the clothing business. Two of Louie's children became doctors, having gone to Notre Dame medical school. The second brother, George, had two sons, John and Tom. John lived in Olean during my early years and then moved to New Jersey. He had several children. I've lost touch with them. Tom had three children. Two, Tom and Dave, still live in Olean, and their sister, Diane, lives in Houston, Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001554 Library of Congress Texas. Tom, my cousin and George's son, followed in his Lebanese heritage opening Olean's only music store, which had the area's first sound booth, in order to listen to songs and albums. John, in his spare time (I do not know what his profession was) played the drums in a local band and actually made bows and arrows for sale and display. My father's two sisters, Famia Abdo and Spidy Mansour, had 14 children between them. Spidy had six children: Haleem, Ester, Selma, Mary, Sam and John. They lived in various parts of western New York, except for Sammy, who lived his adult life in Miami, being the head bartender at the Fountain Blue Hotel. There was about 20 years' difference between Spidy and my father, so not only did she raise him, but it is also widely stated in our family that Spidy was more like his mother than a sister. Haleem went into the restaurant business, and her youngest son, John, became a lifelong teacher in one of our local area high schools. Mary, Ester and Selma were educated but I only knew them when they were older and were raising their children. My father's other sister, my Aunt Famia, settled in Danbury, Connecticut and had eight children: Aileen Shaheen, Edna Michaels, Ester Define, Marsha Taylor, Albert Rishdan, Lou Lou Montessi, Mary Abdo and John Rishdan. Those eight children had more than 50 offspring, mostly still living in the Danbury, Connecticut area. The most famous of those offspring is Bishop Robert Shaheen, who is the head of the Maronite Church in America today. I soon discovered that although becoming an ambassador is an impressive and very high honor, in my family a bishop trumps an ambassador. We were driven by our Catholic religion of the Maronite rite. As with any Catholic family, to have a family member become a priest is not only an honor, but a grace from God. To have that priest become a bishop is an honor bigger than life. The whole family revolves around the bishop and his schedule and his events. It's amazing to think that 100 years after our family came to America, five generations of the Bishelany family still come together at times when Bishop Bob (as we call him) calls us to a wedding, a holiday event or more likely lately, a funeral. Bishop Bob was the first U.S.-born American to be ordained in the U.S. in the Maronite Interview with Ambassador Edward Gabriel http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001554 Library of Congress rite of the Catholic Church, and the first American-born bishop and head of the Maronite Church in the U.S. My father, unfortunately, did not do well economically. He was the youngest of his family by many years. He was 45 years old when he married my mother, who was 38 at the time, and still older when I was born, 50 years old. He was more the age of a grandfather. He tried several professions, driving a taxi cab driver in Olean in the last years of his life. I'll tell you a funny story. I don't know if you've ever seen Bluebird Bus around Washington. They've kind of died off in recent years, but they were a huge conglomerate, a regional bus company in America. The company was started by an Italian immigrant, Joe Magnano, who settled in Olean. Q: I've seen them. In fact, the government hired them. GABRIEL: Well, they actually got started as a small cab company. During the Depression, Joe approached my father with the proposition that he would buy a car and he and my dad would establish a cab company. Joe suggested he would work days and my dad nights. He further thought that if business went well they would buy another car and build a company from there. My father thought that being a cab driver was beneath his status and had dreams of grander things. Well, Joe Magnano ended up with Bluebird Bus Company, and my father ended up working for him as a cab driver, and that's what he did most of his professional life after WWII. He also tried to start a dry goods store and he worked as a laborer on bridge construction and in a factory at Dresser Industries (then called Clark Brothers). He passed away when I was seven. He had a big heart and taught me a lot about tolerance and diversity.