India 57/58 Air India Flight

August 20, 1968.

India 57 and 58 Biographical Sketches

Please see the attached scan of the India 57 and 58 Trainees Biographical Sketches.

India 57 Summary (1968-70)

by Lois Schneider, May 5, 2022

June 1968 PC training for India 57 (I-57) started at Brattleboro, VT at the headquarters of The Experiment in International Living as a health and nutrition teacher at Basic Training schools of future primary school teachers. Destination: Tamilnadu.

Another group, India 58 (I-58), training to be English teachers in Bopal, Madhya Pradesh, trained with us. India 57’s emphasis was learning the Tamil language, cultural lectures, and health/nutrition teaching techniques.  Once in country, the group learned practical skills i.e. how to build cooking stoves.

On August 28, 1968, we flew on Air India via London, Brussels and Beirut to New Delhi arriving in the middle of the night. Our group had been given trunks. Customs wanted to inspect the trunks but had no way of cutting the bands around them. After damaging one trunk trying to open it, the officials decided not to inspect the trunks at that time. At the end of service, trunks were sent to home addresses in the U.S.

After a week in New Delhi, we traveled to Madras (now Chenni) in an air conditioned train coach. Training continued in Madras with placement in families. Lois M. was in the Titus family. Mr. Titus was the Director of Education. Ruth M. stayed with the K Mohanarangam family. Mr. Mohanarangam was head of the Tamilnadu Department of Education. Each day volunteers left their host family’s home, traveling by public transportation, to meet at central training site. Friendships were made and served as support during the two years spent in India. To this day, April 2022, Lois is in touch with the daughter in the Titus family who now is living in Copenhagen.

In September each volunteer was assigned to a school for two years. Most of the women were  at religious schools while the men were often at state run schools. Most lived at the schools, and were placed alone, not in pairs as was common in previous groups. Lois M. was at the All Saints Basic Training School in Trichy where 180 young women lived for eleven months of the year. Ruth was at Seva Mandir Basic Training School in Porto Novo (now Parengepette). 

Lenny Robinson in Madras (now Chenni) and Tom Arens in Bangalore were our staff. Lenny visited all the volunteer sites at least once during their stay.. Once a month payment would be received via postal order for about 500 rupees. One of the I-57  volunteers stationed in Ooty married at the end of the initial yea in India and stayed on. There was occasional communication between the volunteers.

Lois M. had a transistor radio but in 1968 there were no cell phones or personal  computers. On that radio, she and headmistress Mrs. Charles listened to the landing of the two American astronauts landing on the moon, July 20, 1969. Lois was assigned to Trichy; she lived at the boarding school, and hired a cook for meals but sometimes ate with the students. She also had a dhobi (washerman). He and his wife visited with their donkey to pick up wash to take to the river. It was returned ironed neatly. Her responsibilities included gardening. Early in the morning after breakfast, the students would weed the garden with short hoes before being at study in study hall at 7:30. Lois M.taught the health and nutrition syllabus did not teach English. She occasionally had a music class and often had USIS films checked out from the Madras U.S.I.A. to show the students. They especially liked the films about the Kennedy family.

Ruth M. taught Health and Hygiene, English and blackboard drawing. She helped with the after school sports program and supervised the library. Ruth lived in the Basic Training School on the Seva Mandir compound. She ate at the teacher’s mess and did her own daily laundry.

Occasionally she would have the washermn who came to the school do bigger and heavier pieces of clothing.

Gladys Gilbert taught in Usilampatti. She returned to complete a master’s degree in public health and then became a family planning specialist with the Department of State. She was killed in a plane crash in Ethiopia along with Congressman Leland and some of his staff.

Walter and Linda Gantz were stationed in Ranipet, but also worked in Arcot. They completed their two year assignment. Walter is currently “interim Dean of Media School at Indiana University.”

Karen Rohrwasser was assigned to Ooty, a Hill Station and was housed in a convent next to the girls’ training school. As she had a master’s degree in special education, and the girls were training to be teachers, she was able to put her education classes to use. She says the two years impacted her greatly. She married in India at the end of her two year tour. She had a Sikh wedding and says the groom arrived on a white horse and they walked around a fire three times to make it official. There was also a mass so her training students could attend a wedding festivity. She lives in Clifton Park, NY. (as of 2022)  Her husband died at age 57.

Richard Frasca extended several years in India and later returned to “complete a Ph.D focusing on Tamil ritual theatre that reenacts Tamil language episodes.”  He is a professor of South Asian Studies and Creator and Founder of the Harvard University Tamil language program. His current focus is on Dalit studies, “as it relates to Tamilnadu.”  Rich has several publications.

Other volunteers (info can be added or current info edited)

Linda Gantz

Bruce Kaukas

Stuart Bussey

Peter Pinnola

Anthony L.

(Tony) Wolf

Samuel (Sandy) Sloop

Shannon M. Neil

The following may not have gone to India after training:

Mary Bill, Charles Buffett, Mary E Evans, Adrienne Kendall, Eliz McGree, George Monaghan,

Andrea Wiegard, Stephen A Shakman