#internationalfriendship – Page 3 – 100,000 Grains of Sand

I-House New York

05/01/201914/03/2019Tagged #FlorenceEdmonds, #grainsofsand, #grainsofsand19, #HarryEdmonds, #I-House, #I-HouseNYC, #internationalfriendship, #internationalhouse1 Comment

Friday January 4th 2019

My tour got ‘officially’ underway as I met with alumni, staff and residents at International House New York. We met in the Home Room which has portraits of both Harry Edmonds and his first wife Florence Edmonds, my great grandfather and grandmother so they were watching over me as I shared my thoughts with the group.

One of the things that I have noticed make I-House gatherings really interesting is not only the mix of nationality, women and men but also ages. So our oldest attendee was 81 and our youngest were teenage children of a Colombian resident. Whilst alumni do have a close affiliation to those who lived at the House with them in their ‘year/s’ they are just as interested in meeting those who were there before or after them.

A subset of those who gathered in front of Harry’s portrait

After my talk, there was a spontaneous request to find out more about who was in the room and what their reflections were on their I-House experience and what people were doing today. That curiosity about others and wanting to reflect and learn also seems a key trait of those who really embrace their time at I-House. One gentleman from Haiti was reflecting on the meaning of ‘home’ and the possibility of being a citizen of the world rather than just one place and certainly most of the shared experiences spanned more than one country or even career.

Harry talked about how it was the output of activities that I-House residents take part in rather than the activities themselves that produced the understanding, tolerance and international friendship, but there is no doubt that the shared experience of ball room dancing, language exchanges, Ice Cream socials or nights in the Pub provide the glue.

Being at the start of my trip, I really had no idea what reaction I would get to my personal pilgrimage. So far it has been warmth, gratitude, appreciation and curiosity, quite overwhelmingly so.

Vineet Dhindsa Sidhu, Emily Wakeling, me and Julie Pape in the Soros Room

Story snippets… from this event

I can not possibly capture all the stories that have or will be shared with me but at each event I will try and capture some stories that were shared and either amused or resonated with the group.

NYC Blackout from Gary Smoke, alumni – He was returning from a trip out of town by bus and NYC was hit by a blackout. At the time the Port Authority was a pretty grim place and when he arrived there was no way for him to get back to his home in Long Island as the trains were not running. Not fancying sleeping at Port Authority he decided to head to I-House. He described how he arrived, the door was opened, he was given a candle and warmly invited in. I think there was also quite a party atmosphere, which he enjoyed before returning home once the blackout ended.

Envelope Entry from Gary Smoke, alumni – When Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York died in 1979, his funeral was going to be held at the church at Riverside Drive. Gary saw that the funeral was going to be attended by 4 US Presidents and as the church is only a stones throw from the NYC House he wanted to attend. He went to the I-House Director and asked him how he could get in. The Director said that it was, obviously invite only, and showed Gary his invitation. The invitation came in a fancy envelope and Gary was able to persuade the Director to give him the envelope. On the day of the funeral, he walked assertively through the door to the church with the invited dignitaries and waved the envelope confidently at the security guards and was admitted!

A Russian Evening: With the help of Yelena Grinberg, we gathered a good handful of NYC alumni for an evening of Russian food and drink.

Yelena Grinberg, Sherman and Vineet Dhindsa Sidhu, Anita Haravon, ??, ??, Joyce Fan, me, Chris Swinhoe-Standen

Vineet Dhindsa Sidhu, Anita Haravon, me, Chris and Sherman Dhindsa Sidhu

Where we ate: Russian Vodka Room 265 W 52nd St, NYC

On correspondence

03/01/2019Tagged #grainsofsand19, #I-House, #internationalfriendship, #internationalhouse, #internationalunderstanding, #writinglettersLeave a comment

Letters are an important part of Harry and International House’s story. Harry was a prolific and entertaining correspondent by letter right through his 96 years. His letter writing really took off when he took on a role at the YMCA at Leigh University when he had graduated and he had to raise the money for his salary. He discovered that if he wrote to people and continued to engage with him he could get them to give a little more each time. This was his first foray into fund raising and certainly stood him in good stead.

His letters show real warmth, wit, passion and care for others and luckily for me give a record of his thoughts and work. I believe there are hundreds if not thousands more in the archives at I-House NYC and also with various family members. He typed most of his letters too, mostly very neatly with few mistakes a blessing as his handwriting is difficult to decipher.

In this email age, I do wonder if my children or grandchildren want to piece together events whether they will have such a rich resource to do so. There is also something very touching about letters. Two of my favourite letters discovered so far are about Harry’s granddaughter Sandy, who he was very fond of. The first is when she is 13 months old when he takes the time to write a letter all about what she can now do and how much pleasure it has given him to see her grow and learn.

“I am so very fond of you and I have seen you grow from a tiny baby so small that when you came home from the hospital ten days after you were born, your little feed rested in the palm of my hand and your head was in the crook of my arm.”

The other letter is to my father about his visit with Sandy, then aged nearly 6, to the New York Zoo. It talks about how they ate tomato sandwiches and ice-cream and the animals they saw.

“About this time it began to rain. But we had bought our umbrellas, and while all the people had to flee to shelter, Sandy and Grandfather put up their umbrellas and walked about in the rain. It was lots of fun. The people without umbrellas were grumpy, we could see that, as were also some of the animals that went inside.”

My mum writes to all her grandchildren and they do write back, they love getting her letters when they are away from home. As part of this project I have also written letters as well as emails. Some have had lovely replies and some have never been replied to, but I hope they were read. Reading Harry’s letters I am mindful that correspondence with someone over time can bring joy, solace, empathy, encouragement and love to both parties.

Understanding

31/12/201831/12/2018Tagged #grainsofsand, #grainsofsand19, #I-House, #internationalfriendship, #internationalhouse, #internationalunderstanding, #personalpilgrimage, #understandingLeave a comment

Mrs Frank L Babbott was invited to join the Board of I-House NYC in 1925 and I have a copy of a letter written by her in 1974 to Howard Cook in the run up to the 75th anniversary celebrations.

She writes of a memory of one board meeting: “We were discussing the acceptance or rejection of an offer of the Gideons to put a bible in every bedroom. My naive reaction was an affirmative rely to their generosity. At that point then the Wise Ones (referring in particular to Mr. Cleveland E. Dodge and Mr. Frederick Osborn who were on the board at that time) countered with the suggestion of having re-printed excerpts from the volumes of great religion as included in Dr. Charles Elliot’s “Five Foot Book Shelf”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics Therein lay an opportunity to prove our respect for the beliefs of others. Thereby students from non-Christian countries could feel at home among the selections from their own holy book. Because of no tinge of proselytizing the students might be more inclined to explore religions other than their one, finding likeness as well as differences. This passing recollection emphasises the constant fact that every decision was thoughtfully beamed toward international understanding”

As we move into 2019 how will your decisions over the next year be beamed towards international understanding?

Happy New Year!

Tolerance

29/12/201829/12/2018Tagged #DelilahBeasley, #grainsofsand, #grainsofsand19, #I-House, #I-HouseBerkeley, #internationalfriendship, #internationalhouse, #internationalunderstanding, #toleranceLeave a comment

This scarf of New York landmarks including the Statue of Liberty belonged to my grandmother, Harry Edmonds’ middle daughter Margaret. Sadly, even though she had grown up at International House and was surrounded by Harry and Florence’s ethos of tolerance, my memories of her are of someone who had very set views on who she would and would not tolerate, to the point of being uncomfortable and embarrassing. Her influence on me, if any, has been that I determined to be curious and interested in people no matter their background, religion or country of origin. I am however curious about what it is that either encourages us to be tolerant or to choose to be fixed in our views. I will never know what the switch was in my grandmother, but I do believe that International House allows for that exploration and hopefully residents are touched with a new level of tolerance as they go out into the world.

Joe Lurie kindly shared his informal history of I-House Berkeley with me again last week and as I was reading it I was struck by the piece about an amazing lady Delilah Beasley who was a black journalist on the Oakland Tribune in the 1930s. There was a great deal of protest at the House being built and the idea of having somewhere where people of all nationalities and races and both men and women living was very controversial. Delilah was never a resident of the House but she turned up when there was a big protest (c800 people) and passionately advocated the need to let the House be built. She also took on the local property developers who were unhappy about the House going up. She was in my view a champion of tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delilah_L._Beasley

International Friendship

24/12/201824/12/2018Tagged #Educationwithakick, #grainsofsand, #grainsofsand19, #HarryEdmonds, #I-House, #internationalfriendship, #internationalhouse, #internationalunderstanding, #LeadersQuest, #OSCARFoundationLeave a comment

As Christmas approaches here in the UK, I have been thinking of the International Friendship part of my aim for my trip. Whilst my life has not been quite as international as some of the I-Housers I have already met, I have been very fortunate to have worked and lived in a number of different parts of the world.

My trip is an opportunity to connect with new I-House international friends, but is also allowing me to meet up with old friends too. I love my friends here in the UK, but there is something really special about meeting up with friends in other countries, it nearly always involves new experiences. By reaching out and catching up with friends on my travels I can honestly say I have had some of the most enriching times of my life and I hope have bought something to their lives too.

About three years ago I went on a trip to China with an organisation called Leaders Quest who create amazing leadership quests for NGO and business participants and I met Ashok Rathod, founder of Oscar Foundation http://www.oscar-foundation.org in Mumbai India. They work with children from slum communities changing lives through football and education. Three years on this encounter has bought me so many new things and friendships, as I am a trustee of the UK side of the charity. The feet in the picture are kids from our Jharkhand project.

My Christmas request for anyone taking the time to read this is to remember your I-House friends and to reach out and say hello to them and whenever you are travelling and have a spare evening, breakfast or lunch slot, why not spend it with someone you have not seen for a while and ‘pass the light on’.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful Christmas.