I House Berkeley bag keeping my round the world candle safe
I am at Heathrow about to board my flight that will take me to New York for the Centennial celebrations for I House NYC. My last trip to the city was days before the world was locked down due to Covid. I often reflect how if I had delayed my 2019 trip around the world in my great grandfather’s footsteps by a year it would not have been possible and would likely never have happened.
I am excited to meet old friends and family who welcomed me so warmly on what was a fairly random idea that became a realty through their being willing to meet me and to meet others for the first time for whom I-House had such an influence on their lives that they are making the journey to celebrate.
Harry & Florence were in their 20s when the I-House journey started and from everything I have read,they had incredible energy and commitment to any work they did. It will be a privilege to spend time remembering them in the places they gathered, housed, shared food, music, culture & dance with students from around the world.
I now live in the South West of England in Devon, which is probably more known for its rolling hills, beautiful brown cattle and scones with clotted cream than its cultural diversity. However Plymouth is my nearest largish town, which has a rich sea faring history which ensured some ebb and flow of different cultures, but never in significant numbers. Last weekend I discovered that, as in New York of 1909, when Harry Edmonds met the lonely Chinese Student who inspired the founding of I-House, it is places of study in Plymouth that are drawing in young people from across the world. Global Plymouth is an organisation, which through its monthly international bring and share suppers, attracts a diverse group of locals, academics and students together to eat and forge new friendships.
The supper I attended was celebrating a range of spring festivals, including Nowruz Persian New Year and Easter. There were 22 nationalities represented both in people and the food they had bought to share. As I sat there taking in the atmosphere and watching the interaction, I was thinking about the Sunday Suppers that Florence and Harry Edmonds hosted on and off at a variety of locations including Earl Hall on the Colombia University campus from 1910 until the opening of I-House in 1924. An extract below gives a vivid description of the process and energy required to put them on. In Plymouth a team of about 10 cheery volunteers was helping serve the many dishes from behind a counter, washing up and ensuring everyone was well fed. Creating opportunities for sharing takes energy and commitment. Then as now holding these gatherings it is also an act of faith that people will show up and interact. Back in Harry and Florence’s day there was no social media to spread the word of the event, but they also did not have to compete for attention with ever pinging devices once the supper was underway!
This year I-House New York celebrates 100 years since its doors opened in September 1924. Keeping those doors open and the House relevant has required huge faith and energy from every member of staff, donor, resident and volunteers. How institutions stand the test of time is something I thought about a lot on my 2019 trip recreating my great grandfather’s last world tour, it really is down to the strength of their founding ‘idea’ and all those many individuals who embody, are custodians of, and evolve it. I am very much looking forward to celebrating every one of them in September at the I-House Centennial gathering.
Extract from Harry Edmonds Memoirs recorded by Berkeley University – “Our home was not large enough (for the Sunday Suppers). We must do something downtown. This was at that time when through Mr Dodge and Mr Morgan, I was able to get Earl Hall for this purpose. We started our first series of Sunday Suppers in the fall of 1910 in one of the small rooms that wouldn’t hold more than thirty-five. Our whole idea was to create an atmosphere that would be home-like and not in any way different from the little gatherings we had at our home in the country, except of course, there would be a little more formality with all those students gathered around a table.”“There would have to be a program of introductions, and somebody speaking, and the food had to be abbreviated because there were no food facilities in Earl Hall to draw on. I found after on or two experiences that getting together the ingredients of food from a near by delicatessen was a very expensive operation. What did I do? I took two suitecases of good size and took the L down to Washington Market. There I procured for a fraction of what I would have had to pay on the hill, the best butter, eggs, oranges and apples and so forth. I lugged them with my two strong arms through the “L” and up to Earl Hall.” (had no car)“That was the sort of stuff we put into it. It was physical, mental and spiritual sharing with these young people. Our supper would consist of hot chocolate, maybe some rolls and butter and an apple.”
When International House NYC, on Riverside Drive opened its doors in September 1924 it was 15 years after my great grandfather Harry Edmonds came home to my great grandmother Florence to tell her about his encounter with a lonely Chinese student on the steps of the Library at Colombia University. Getting from the simple Sunday suppers that they hosted for graduate students from around the world to ensure they experienced a little friendship and hospitality, to the impressive building and everything it still embodies 100 years on, was a test of both their resilience and optimism. Whilst is is mainly Harry’s story that survives, I am sure from talking to family that they were both resourceful and driven by the idea of creating a purposefully designed place where students from around the world could live together and learn that we are all more similar than different.
In his memoirs’ captured by Edith Mezirow at UC Berkeley, Harry describes how the idea for International House was shaped by the success of the work that he and Florence were doing, but he did not have financial backing to make it a reality. One thing I have learnt from following in Harry’s footsteps is that he was both persuasive and very definitely persistent. In 1919 Byard Dodge and his family supported the purchase of part of the site on Riverside Drive, but that still left him with the mammoth task of finding the money to secure the rest of the site and actually build the House, which being a time of economic downturn was a challenge. Spurred on by Florence, saying there must be a way, he used celebrity influencers of the day at tea parties to try and raise the money with little success, undeterred he worked on engaging John D Rockefeller, Jr. and in 1921 Rockefeller agreed the ‘site was splendid’ and committed funding the project.
As 2024 starts and I look forward to coming together with alumni from around the world at the Centennial Celebrations in September, I have been reflecting not only on the achievement of an institution that has overcome all the hurdles that 100 years have thrown at it, but also on the fundamental principles that fuelled my great grandparents to make it a reality. They had seen, that if we can only spend enough time together and keep our hearts and ears open we can grow understanding. Harry and Rockefeller were so convinced of this that their quest continued and resulted in the I Houses at Berkeley and Chicago and Maison International in Paris, which in turn inspired all the Houses in the I-House World Wide family. I look forward to re-connecting with many of those who shared their love of their ‘home from home’ with me on my 2019 trip as we all celebrate a 100 years of ‘brotherhood prevailing’.
“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success” J.D. Rockefeller
This time last year, I had left my job and I was finalising plans to set out on my 18 country 25 stop re-creation of my great grandfather, Harry Edmonds’ 1966 world trip. Today 9 months since I finished the trip, on the surface I am back in the routine of commuting into London, doing an interesting new job and it sometimes feels slightly unreal that I did the trip at all.
In my heart though it feels very real. Our choices change our lives and I am fascinated by what happens when we commit to action. Luckily for me the welcome, generosity and international friendship I encountered as a stranger meeting strangers around the world meant I returned from my experience with hope and new insight.
As graduate students around the world choose to go and study they will be changed by what results from that choice. For those who then also choose to live at an I-House, that particular choice, I believe is even more significant. I experienced again and again how the mission Harry dreamt of and convinced Mr J.D. Rockefeller of is lived by those who have lived at an International House. Tolerance, understanding and international friendship were certainly embodied by those I met.
This autumn Paul Volcker who served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for I-House NYC from 1998-2012 along with being Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, died. His service to and belief in the I-House mission is a reminder of how keeping institutions such as an I-House, whether in NYC or Sydney, alive is dependent on a whole team of committed individuals.
I would like to thank everyone who has worked so hard to keep my great grandfather’s dream alive over the last nearly 100 years and leave you as you go into 2020 with this thought from J.D Rockefeller.
“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”
Chris Edmonds one of my lovely Edmond’s cousins recently found these pictures of Charles Wesley and his wife Eva – Harry’s parents (Eva died when Harry was 2) and he was bought up by Charles’ second wife Mini.
Wishing that your 2020 is full of international friendship, new adventure and is healthy and joyful for you and all your families. Keep ‘passing the light on’!
Other snippets
As I have been going back through some of my emails about my trip I have found these lovely snippets which I wanted to share too.
I-House Chicago – Sanjib Basu
“Our correspondence has brought back memories of my life in International House. The Director of the House was Prof. Maynard Krueger, who besides being well-known in his field of labour economics, had been the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party in the 1940 U.S. Presidential election. I remember my first view ever of snowflakes from the spacious lounge and through the tall Gothic-style windows, promptly going outside with an Indian friend, and catching the flakes in our hands. I learnt ‘Pool’ from an American friend at the table in the basement, and ‘Hearts’, a card game, in the lounge. I have long forgotten how to play them though! In a programme arranged by the House, i spent the first Thanksgiving in the home of an elderly American couple in Freeport, a very small town in north-western Illinois, the Hardingers. Just to show how small the world can be, it turned out (a) that my host Mr. Phil Hardinger had been posted in Kolkata as an Air Force pilot during World War Two, and (b) that his daughter, whom i met at the Thanksgiving dinner, had been a room-mate in Texas of the sister of one of my childhood friends from Kolkata. The coincidence seemed quite miraculous.” – Sanjib Basu – Alum Chicago I-House
Orest Koropecky – lived at I-House NYC from 1964-66
These are photos shared with me by Orest. If anyone knows Marilyn Manera in the picture below please do let me know so I can re-connect her with her old friend.
I-House alumna Marilyn Manera on the steps of this ‘International House’ in Providence Rhode Island in 1965Out of the window
I recently joined around 70 I-House NYC alumni and friends in Essen for the annual european alumni reunion. Like most attending I would not normally go to Essen but we came with open minds of true I-Housers and were not disappointed. The beautiful autumn weather helped as we had blue skies for the whole weekend.
Baldeneysee Lake near Essen
Some who joined us had grown up locally and remembered how, as children, a fine black dust covered most things and the air was polluted. Today the area is one of the greenest in Germany and has a great infrastructure of cycle paths and parks. The change in the environment has mirrored huge social change as traditional industries have closed and new employment has had to be created.
Villa Hugel
It is this transition that followed us through our weekend as we visited Villa Hugel home to the Krupp steel family, the Zollverein coal mine (a UNESCO Heritage site) and Museum Folkwang. Albert Krupp was only 14 when he inherited the family steel business with a handful of employees and massive debts. Undeterred he transformed the business to the point where just 10 years laters they had many 1000s of employees across the area. He sounded like a challenging man to live with but he was someone who valued his employees and wanted to ensure they had access to medical facilities and be able to enjoy time outdoors with their families.
It was interesting to learn that we were not unusual in ‘coming from away’ to the area. Now home to over 150 different nationalities, the Rhur area, is one of the most diverse and integrated regions in Germany.
Zollverein Coking plant
I love a factory so I found Zollverein fascinating, the scale is overwhelming and as we walked through the now silent coking plant and our guide described the process, it was hard to imagine just how awful the working conditions would have been. As 5m square slabs of burning coke tipped into railway cars, breaking up into millions of pieces as they did so before going to be cooled by vast volumes of water. Steam, smoke, dust, intense heat, noise… I doubt my children would survive even a single shift in that environment.
Puja Merchant speaking at the Freunde Des International House meeting
At dinner sat next to a Dutch, American man who I nearly met in Oslo on my trip earlier in the year, but now lives in Austria with his Thai, Austrian girlfriend, I listened to a trio of alumni musicians played Mozart to us and looked around the room. I imagined how proud Harry would be of everything that the weekend had been curiosity, connection, care, joy, continuity and conversation. The light was certainly passing on….
A few weeks later, I joined a Friends of I-House UK trip to see Come From Away. A musical written by I-House alumni writing team Irene Sankoff and David Hein about the landing of 38 flights with 7000 passengers from all over the world in Gander Newfoundland on 9/11.
We never know on any one day what might happen and as in the play it is all down to what we do next when something out of the ordinary does happen. It is a play about the generosity and diversity of humanity as well as the darker side of fear of the other and how experiences good and bad shape us. The choices we make in the moment to reach out and find out more or move away or on.
On my way home from the play there was a young girl not much older than my daughter sitting on the bench on the tube stop throwing up. I stopped and asked her if she was ok, she was very drunk but knew where she was headed, what train she needed so I kept an eye on her until I boarded my train home.
International House NYC was founded in the autumn of 1924 and ever since every autumn, alumni around the world hold I-House Days to get together and celebrate its founding. Last year there were 21 events in 13 countries and the NYC alumni team are busy connecting with alumni to schedule this year’s events.
The NYC I-House alumni association was started by Harry Edmond’s secretary in 1925 and as Berkeley and Chicago opened it also covered those Houses too. Back in those days they published a little booklet with alumni information in, which was effectively your passport to friendly alumni around the globe. Eventually as the years ticked by and the number of alumni grew, each House started to look after its own alumni. The NYC alumni association grew to a point when in its hey day there were 100 active chapters around the world. To find out what is planned for 2019 visit https://www.ihouse-nyc.org/news_events/ihouseday/ I hope that we can expand the number of events from last year and get even more alumni involved as we get another year closer to the 100th anniversary in 2024.
Berkeley I-House Steps 1931
Meanwhile Berkeley I-House is celebrated its 89th birthday on August 18th and is adding alumni stories to its history pages. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu/stories/
I-House University Alberta founded 4th September 2004
Newer to the International Houses World Wide family is I-House Alberta, which is celebrating its 15th Birthday with an event on the 8th of September. Sadly I cannot attend in person but I am very honoured to have been asked by Leslie Weigl, their current Director, to speak by video link to the students. We are keeping fingers crossed that the technology will work. Alberta welcomes about 150 students a year, from over 40 countries and whilst it is smaller than many other I-Houses has a very active programme and works hard to make it a home away for home for its residents. https://www.ualberta.ca/global-education/international-house
Also celebrating this year is the International House in Romania, Westgate Studios. It is celebrating 10 years since it was inaugurated. It is the largest House in the International Houses World Wide family, being home to around 800 residents. I am very much hoping to visit it soon https://www.westgatestudios.ro/despre-noi
As I have reflected before keeping an International House running effectively takes a brilliant team who attract a diverse set of residents from as many corners of the world as possible and enable them to create international friendships whilst sharing their cultures. I am grateful to every one of those team members for all their work and passion to carry on what Harry and Florence started.
I woke up today to a message from a dear friend from my MBA, who lives in Hong Kong, sending me pictures of myself in a newspaper article in the South China Morning Post Sunday Supplement.
Before I even arrived in Hong Kong on my trip the well connected family friend I was staying with had decided that my quest could be of interest to the press and contacted Fionnuala McHugh a freelance journalist for the SCMP. Fionnuala and I met when I arrived in Hong Kong and as the story unfolded over the next few days and she attended my Hong Kong event it became clear that the ‘lonely Chinese student’ was the hook. Writing the article took Fionnuala to the I-House NYC Shanghai gala and also to meeting my cousin (another of Harry’s great granddaughter’s) Mira Edmonds who is currently living in Shanghai.
The full article is at the link below and covers so many aspects of Harry’s and my story. Enjoy…
International Student House or ISH in London, one of the two members of International Houses World Wide in London, has always had a royal patronage. The Queen Mother was a devoted supporter whilst she was alive and when she died the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne took over.
To celebrate the 54th birthday of ISH, the wonderful ISH team threw a very British garden party in the gardens adjacent to their beautiful Nash Crescent building right in the heart of London and Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal was the guest of honour. Luckily for us the promised British weather held off so we could enjoy the delicious food and company.
ISH London – is the building visible behind the trees
ISH was founded thanks to the dynamic persistence of Mary Trevelyan, who like my great grandfather Harry Edmonds, encountered lonely international students and chose to do something about their situation. For more background this blog post from the ISH website written by Jilly Borowiecka, who has devoted much of her career to the House, is well worth a read. https://ish.org.uk/the-legacy-of-ish/
Mary shared Harry’s goals of developing tolerance, understanding and international friendship. At the party I was lucky enough to come across The Rev. Tim Brooke, who had worked at ISH in the 1960s, in fact he may well have been there when Harry visited on his trip. Tim worked closely with Mary and so I asked him about her. He described her as being full of energy and enthusiasm, with a love of people rather than the administration and money side of running the House. Luckily for Tim his job was on the people side so he got to see the best of Mary. He shared with me that she always told her team that just talking to residents or alumni was never enough as they must introduce the person they were talking to to at least one other person, only by doing this would they get the ‘snow ball’ effect and ‘the idea’ would spread. I loved this as I thought it was such a simple message but could create such impact.
I spent most of my afternoon talking to current residents. ISH has a mix of undergraduate and graduate students and as you would expect I travelled the world in my conversations from Peru and Colombia, through Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, to Afghanistan and Iran, onto India and Pakistan and into China and Tibet.
The ISH team are doing an amazing job of growing their scholarship program. This year they have 103 scholars from 44 countries and have plans to go to 120+ next year. Working with partner institutions across London ISH the scholars, who would not normally be able to study in the UK, both their tuition and accommodation at ISH funded. https://ish.org.uk/scholarship/
Alongside this great scholarship programme and the brilliant location of ISH, the thing that stands out for me is the wonderful team that bring the whole experience of ISH to life for their residents. Yesterday I saw them in action, how they love to celebrate and also how they value every member of the team. Princess Anne seemed also to pick up on this as she took the time to acknowledge and chat with those staff members featured in a video about ISH’s work. The team definitely care about the work they do welcoming young people from across the world and making their time in London life changing.
A young academic from Syria gave the speech, he had been helped to come to the UK by CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics) https://www.cara.ngo and was living at ISH. His speech was a touching description of how being at ISH had transformed his life and of gratitude for the love and care of so many and for the new friends he had made from around the world. In his speech he shared this lovely Pericles quote: “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Harry and Mary have both left so much woven into the lives of so many….
Nicholas Kahale who I met who is both an ISH and an I-House NYC alum
This week started well with an email binging in with the fantastic news that the University of Sydney leadership have postponed the move of I-House Sydney residents out of their building at the end of 2019 so the current House could be pulled down (with no concrete plans to re-build it).
Whilst the plans for what happens next are not yet clear, at least there is now time for Jessica Caroll, the current I-House Director, and her team to work with the University to shape a clear plan.
Jessica and her very passionate and devoted President of the I-House Sydney Alumni association, Ros Madden, have been galvanising support from alumni and current residents since the announcement last year, to bombard the Vice Chancellor with reasons to re-think. Their hard work and all the very well written and moving letters from alumni seem to have worked, which is wonderful.
I-House Sydney is one of 5 international Houses in Australia (Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong and Darwin). It was opened in June 1967 after a massive fund raising effort by the Rotary clubs across Sydney. The first director was Graeme Graaff. I know that he met with Harry Edmonds on a number of occasions including this one in 1977 at the 50th anniversary of I-House NYC.
On my trip I met with wonderful I-House Sydney alumni in Thailand, Hong-Kong, Manila and Malmo. Whilst the House is smaller than its US counterparts, holding about 200 residents a year, it still has the same impact with its fully catered dining hall helping residents quickly make new international friendships.
My partner Chris, keeps asking when we are going to Australia to see the Houses there, so now we have this good news, hopefully I will get to Sydney and be able to see the House as it is now and then be able to come back in the future and see its next exciting incarnation.
Thank you again to all those who have campaigned to keep this important part of University Sydney and International Houses World Wide open for business.
I have been back from my trip two weeks now alongside reconnecting with friends and family and deciding what to do next, I have been trying to organise materials from my trip.
One of my original goals was to try and collect oral history stories whilst out on my trip. So I was delighted to get a message from two NYC alumni, Erica Fugger and Cameron Vanderscoff, both graduates of the Oral History Masters at Columbia University, who were both also keen to capture video stories from alumni.
I have had a story telling thread running in my life for about the last 15 years, doing some weekend courses and attending story telling festivals (they are wonderful uplifting things if you have never been you should) and joining gatherings of the Narrative Leadership group here in the UK. I was never quite sure how this thread might weave its way further into my work, but the trip seemed an obvious fit.
So Erica helped create some basic templates and questions to help alumni reflect on camera and I set off full of enthusiasm. As is often the case the practicalities proved more challenging than expected. With my partner, Chris around for the first few events, we did well as he could be dispatched with the iPad and an alumni to capture stories from the willing. However on my own, bar a couple along the way, I failed. Reflecting back trying to meet new people en mass and also overcoming my own reluctance to be on video, ‘so why would anyone else agree to do it?’, prevented me from achieving what I had hoped.
Last night I was organising the videos I do have to share them with Erica and Cameron and was watching them back.
Karoline Klose in the Soros room at I-House NYC recording her video
Regret at not having tried harder washed over me as I watched Karoline Klose describe how salsa dancing was one of the many gifts I-House gave her and how it has allowed her to meet new people no matter where she is in the world or Donna Lurie describing her time at I-House Berkeley and her reaction when her husband Joe Lurie got the call to say he was going to be the new Director of the House. Stories told in people’s own words are so powerful and engaging.
Donna Lurie at I-House Berkeley recording her video
After my moment of regret, I reminded myself that my trip was a beginning not an end so there is still the possibility to realise this ambition. Erica and Cameron continue to be keen to be part of capturing the magic, particularly from those whose lives have been long and fascinating and being realists will not always be around to tell their stories.
On my trip people asked me a lot if I would be writing a book about it. Perhaps it is not a book that is the legacy of the tour but a combination of materials and media that try to convey the importance and success of the I-House idea in stories which can be used to expand the number of Houses around the world.
In the recent memorial for David Rockefeller, Daisy Soros, NYC alumna, said that her main surprise was that I-House was not more well known. This was my reflection too so I want to see if I can change that.
How you can help – capture your significant I-House story
I would love you to record on your iPad, Android, iPhone or other device a short c2 minute piece about your time at I-House.
How to Record Your Story: To contribute to this collection, please follow the directions below to record a video message:
Using your camera on your phone or iPad swipe over to the Video tab and hit the camera reverse symbol to the right of the screen to make sure it is set it to selfie mode.
Make sure that the camera is oriented in landscape (width) mode rather than portrait (length) mode by turning the phone or iPad to the right.
Set your phone or iPad on a steady table and sit in a chair or hold it at arm’s length, so you are centered on the screen.
Sit/stand in good lighting so your face is fully in view, but not directly in front of a bright light or window.
Speak directly into the camera and make sure that your surroundings are not too noisy.
Next, choose a question to answer and record the number on the sign in sheet (we have used I-House below but if you have been at Goodenough, or ISH London / DC or other of the International Worldwide Houses we do want to hear from you too):
How did you learn about I-House?
What brought you to I-House and what memorable activities were you involved in?
Describe the first day you arrived at IH. What were some of the sights, sounds, smells, or conversations you first encountered?
Share a story about an individual or moment at I-House that change you as a person or shaped your worldview.
What cultural exchanges or celebrations were most memorable?
Speak about a moment in history that you experienced while living at IH.
How did your time at I-House impact your career or life trajectory?
Who have you kept in touch with from your IH days?
What advice do you have for current or future I-House residents?
Anything else you’d like to share?
Hit the red center button to record. Begin speaking after the numbers at the top of the screen start counting up.
Offer an introduction and answer one of the questions listed above. Please keep stories to no more than 3-4 minutes in length.
Your introduction should include the following information:
Your full name
The I-House you lived in and the years you were there
Today’s date and location
The question number you are answering
When you are done with your storytelling, say goodbye and hit the red record button again.
Once you have recorded it – please upload the video & the release form to a dropbox or similar and share with me on alice@e-work.co.uk OR email me and we can work out the best way to get the video to me (Please don’t try and email it to me as it probably won’t get through)
100,000 Grains of Sand 