Paula Foege Oral History

Interview Transcript
	   
This is an interview with Mrs. Paula Foege about her experiences in the
West African Smallpox Eradication Project. The interview is being conducted
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, on
July 13, 2006. This is a part of the 40th anniversary reunion of the West
African Smallpox Eradication Project. The interviewer is Victoria Harden.

Harden:     Mrs. Foege, could we start by your telling me briefly about
           your childhood and pre-college education; growing up; and what
           influenced your thoughts about what you should do in life?
Foege:           I was born in Chicago, Illinois. My family moved when I
           was 4 years old to Los Gatos, California, and my early memories,
           then, are of that. It was a very simple time. My father was a
           salesman, and he traveled to San Francisco every Monday and came
           back every Friday. I just remember it as a quiet time with
           neighbors, and going to school, small schools. Then from there,
           we moved 3 different times in California, and ended up in Palo
           Alto, where I went to high school.
Harden:     Were there any particular people in your life-your mother,
           ministers, teachers-anybody who inspired you as to what you
           might want to be?
Foege:           I think my teachers very much inspired me. From my very
           first memories, I wanted to be a teacher. And back then, there
           weren't that many vocations that were actually available for
           women, but that was always my love and my goal. I love children.
           At a very early age, I would babysit and play school.
                 My mother was a stay-at-home mother and my very closest
           friend. Her parents were very influential. They had come from
           Norway. I had a friend who had 3 sisters. I would say I spent
           the majority of my time at her house.
Harden:     Tell me about going to college, and how you met your husband.
Foege:           Well, I went off to college. My grandfather was a
           minister, and we were involved in the Lutheran church. My older
           brother by 3 years went to a Lutheran college in Minnesota, and
           I decided I would like to do that also. But I didn't want to go
           to the same college that he did. We had taken a family vacation
           up to the Pacific Northwest, and I really just loved it. And so
           the Pacific Lutheran College was in Tacoma, and that's where I
           chose to go. It's surprising to me that I did that because I was
           a very shy child, and to make a complete break from home and
           family was not characteristic of me.
                 But I got on the airplane, took off by myself, got a taxi
           when I arrived, and went off to school, where I think 2 days
           later I met Bill [Foege]. And he stood out because he was so
           tall. He was a senior, I was a freshman, and was a prankster
           even then. We had been to some parties where you get to know
           other people, and he was not supposed to be there; the parties
           were for freshmen. And he was casing out the new girls coming in
           with the freshman class. And so I met him. I didn't actually
           meet him at that party, but he stood out. Later on that week,
           coming out from the cafeteria, he was with some of his friends,
           and they had bets going on. "I bet you can't date the first
           woman who comes out the door," and it happened to be me. And so
           I said no. I don't know why I did; I just said no, that I
           couldn't do that. And he kind of followed me home, and made
           friends with my roommate, and I finally did date him, then. And
           I was only 18 years old.
Harden:     Only 18. When did you-all marry?
Foege:           We married when I was 20, so 2 years later. Quite
           surprising to me, my parents said yes and had no objections.
           Bill had completed 1 year of medical school; I'd completed 2
           years of college. And so we married December 23 because it was
           the only day he could make it, and we moved up to Seattle. I
           finished my undergraduate degree in the University of Washington
           while he was going to medical school.
Harden:     Now, I have just talked with him, and he was telling me a
           little about your moving around. When he finished medical
           school, he came down here to do the EIS training at the CDC, and
           then you went to Boston for him to get a Master's of Public
           Health at Harvard. I believe you had a child at some point along
           the way. What was it like for you?
Foege:           Our son, David, was born when Bill was an EIS Officer in
           Denver. And those were very quiet years, very simple compared to
           now. I had taught, a year before David was born, and then
           decided I would like to stay home with the children, which I
           did. It was somewhat difficult moving around because it was hard
           to have sustained friendships. But with the children, that made
           it easy because I would meet other mothers with children the
           same age.
Harden:     At that point. Now, it shifted pretty dramatically, though,
           didn't it, when he went to Nigeria, and you all were living in a
           very small village. Tell me about living in a small village and
           having a toddler.
Foege:           Well, it was good I was young because we just stepped
           right into it and just accepted it. The people of the village
           were just so kind to us. We would go to a market and people
           would walk up to us and give us, you know, like sixpence. This
           was just amazing to me because they had nothing. We didn't have
           that much ourselves-we were missionaries at the time-but we did
           compared to the people of the village.
                 It was extremely hot. We had no electricity. And even in
           the cool season, the lowest temperature was probably 75° at
           night, and the humidity was very high. And we slept under
           mosquito nets, which was difficult because it was so hot.
Harden:     Where did you get your water?
Foege:           Oh, my goodness. We hired a young man, and that's all he
           did all day. He had two 5-gallon drums-or 10-gallon drums, I
           can't remember-one on each side of his bicycle. And he would
           bicycle out to the water hole and bring water back for us. And
           then it wasn't fit to drink; it wasn't even fit to wash in. And
           so we had a stove, which was propane, and it went all day long,
           boiling water. So not only was it hot to begin with, and high
           humidity to begin with, but also we had this added to the house
           all day long, as well.
Harden:     And I presume if you had to go get your water, you didn't have
           any sewage systems or indoor plumbing for toilets.
Foege:           No, no. No, there was an outhouse, and I did not use it.
           We had a special little potty situation set up in the house, and
           then we would deposit it out in the outhouse.
Harden:     How about your child?  What was it like having a baby?
Foege:           David was 2 at the time, and believe it or not, it wasn't
           difficult. He played with the children in the village. The
           reason we were living in the village was to try to learn the
           local language. And he taught them little sayings in English,
           something about a cereal. We had seen the advertisement on
           television before we came. We went out in the village 1 day, and
           all these little children were sitting on the ground, and they
           were going, "We want Cheerios," or something of that sort. So
           the children had no problems communicating with each other, as
           children do. They just played together.
Harden:     Were you lonely?
Foege:           Yes. Yes.
Harden:     Lonely for friends your own age?
Foege:           Yes, and lonely for family.
Harden:     And lonely for family.
Foege:           Yes. It was a situation in which we were together as a
           family all day long, so that was helpful. Bill and I would go to
           language lessons together. There were other missionaries in the
           area who didn't live in our village, but lived in other
           villages. So we would all get together for our language lessons,
           and that was helpful.
Harden:     Now, as the political situation started heating up, you and
           your son, I believe, moved to Lagos, and then Bill had to get
           out fairly suddenly.
Foege:           Yes, right.
Harden:     How worrisome is all this for you at this time?
Foege:           Well, while we were in Enugu, and people were so kind to
           us; it was not frightening. There was high sentiment against the
           English at that time, but not against Americans. So we felt
           quite comfortable. When we were evacuated, Bill was actually
           working for the smallpox program. He was on loan from the
           mission, so that we had made close friends, Dave and Joanne
           Thompson [David M. and Joan Thompson] and Paul and Mary
           Lichfield. The women and the children were all evacuated
           together. Bill describes-perhaps he did in his interview-how he
           watched the airplane. Every seat in the plane was taken up with
           a mother and a child or two, and so we were heavily weighted
           down. So he watched the airplane, like, slowly, slowly try to
           gather height. And then we were only in Lagos for a short period
           before we were evacuated to the States. So it was difficult
           leaving our husbands behind and not knowing exactly what was
           going to happen, exactly what was going on. I had faith that
           Bill would handle himself well, and I know he told you how he
           went back and forth between the two fighting areas.
Harden:     Yes. When you came back to the States, it was the summer of
           1967, if I am correct? And you all were delighted that you were
           coming back to civilization, only when you got to New York you
           found out it was having some problems. Do you want to tell me
           that story?
Foege:           I can't say how many women and children there were, I
           don't know, but a good many, probably 80. The pilot could only
           fly so many hours so we hopped from country to country, trying
           to find a second pilot, so that they could then take the long
           journey across the ocean. Once we had, our first stop was Puerto
           Rico, and we all had to get out of the plane. W all had to
           gather our luggage and go through customs. And by then, our
           nerves were pretty frayed. You know, children were crying,
           everybody was tired, and people were complaining, "Why do we
           have to do this?" and whatnot. At that time, we had two
           children. Our second son was born when we were in the States,
           but we had returned to Nigeria. So I have, you know, one child
           on my hip and another one, making sure he stays close to me, and
           gathering all our luggage and trying to get all our papers
           together and whatnot. Bill had already done much, much traveling
           around the world at this time, and my thought was, "Well, this
           is one place I've been that Bill hasn't been." So it was worth
           it.
                 When we arrived in New York, it was summertime and it was
           hot. And we were put up in a hotel in which the air-conditioning
           system was broken. But the heating system wasn't. And so it must
           have been like 100° in our hotel room. And then the next day, we
           all scattered out to our separate homes.
Harden:     I understand there was a problem with the bus. Was this the
           same trip?
Foege:           That was a different trip. I know it was because Bill was
           along. Did Bill tell you about that trip?
Harden:     Yes, he was telling me some about it. I thought I might hear it
           from your side, your perspective.
Foege:           Yes. Well, we arrived in, again, New York. And the bus
           that we were put on was not working properly. So they put us all
           on the bus, and they couldn't get the bus started, and so they
           asked the men to all get off the bus. So all the men got off the
           bus. Here, again, it was like 90° and probably midnight. And all
           the men, then, were to push the bus so it could get a jump-
           start. And we got on, and they went a ways, and the driver did
           not have enough gas in the bus. So the situation was, do you
           stop, or do you go? Do you stop and not be able to get the bus
           started again, or do you just go and run out of gas? And so, he
           finally decided he needed to stop for gas, and he filled up. And
           then they couldn't get the bus started again. They were trying
           to get us to our hotel so they sent out different cars and small
           buses to pick us up, and they said, "All the men go on this
           side, and all of the women and children go over here," and I was
           like, the way this trip has been going, I'm not being separated
           from my husband. So I think they took all the women, and all the
           men and me and the children went in another vehicle.
Harden:     They don't prepare you in college for this kind of thing, do
           they?
Foege:           No, they don't. No.
Harden:     After you came back here in Atlanta, then did you-all go back
           to Africa during the duration of the smallpox program?
Foege:           Well, we went back for the relief program. If I recall
           correctly, I don't think Bill was involved in smallpox at that
           point. I think he was just involved with the relief work.
Harden:     This was the survey of malnutrition?
Foege:           Yes. Right.
Harden:     And you and the children went with him?
Foege:           And we went with him. To me, an interesting point on that
           is that we started off in the village, with no electricity, no
           running water, under mosquito nets-a really fairly
           unsophisticated situation. And then we were in our village
           mission compound, where we had only running water. And then we
           moved to Enugu, and we lived in a very small flat. And then we
           had running water and electricity. We didn't have air-
           conditioning. Our salary was paid by the mission field, and not
           by CDC. And that was very nice. And then finally we moved to
           Lagos, where we were staying in somebody's apartment who was on
           leave. It was very luxurious for us. So we had very different
           living experiences in our two years in Nigeria.
Harden:     Did you have servants at any point? I know you did not
           originally.
Foege:           We did, originally. His name was Lawrence, and he did the
           cleaning and the washing. I did the cooking, but he did
           everything else. He was a wonderful young man. When he first met
           us, he thought we were brother and sister, and that we were just
           children, because we were so young at the time. So he was a dear
           man, and really, really special with our children.
Harden:     I understand that it's kind of difficult for Americans in many
           ways, when they come to Africa. Some people feel very unsettled
           about having all these servants; they don't feel like they
           deserve them. But other people feel like, "Gee, this is great.
           Why should I go home?" Did you see all of this?
Foege:           Well, I was so grateful for Lawrence to help me. I don't
           think I could have managed everything on my own the way it was.
           And then he came with us when we went to Enugu, so he was with
           us for just about 2 years. I was grateful for him, and I didn't
           feel embarrassed or guilty to have him working with us. He
           became like a member of our family, really. He was probably only
           about 5 years younger than we were at the time. Then he followed
           us to Enugu, so he worked there, too. I continued to do the
           cooking, which was no small feat because everything was made
           from scratch. And he baked the bread for me, but other than
           that, I did my own cooking. When we were in Lagos, we did not
           have servants. There was really no need for it. What was very
           difficult for me was re-entering the United States.
Harden:     Why? Why was that difficult?
Foege:           Well, I was preparing for the culture shock in going to
           Nigeria. But I don't think other than the loneliness, that we
           really suffered much from culture shock. I was not prepared for
           the culture shock in coming back to the United States, where
           everything is at your fingertips. Everything is really almost
           overwhelming, just bombards you.
                 In Africa, we had a nice, quiet life, and Bill worked
           hard. He traveled a good deal, and that was difficult for us as
           a family. But life was sweet, and slow, and people were very
           generous to us-with us, and to us. Very, very friendly. And I
           found in coming back, you don't just step right back into your
           old life. People have gone on, and it takes a while to fit
           yourself back in again.
Harden:     Did you find yourself impatient with people in the United
           States when they complained, for example?
Foege:           I suppose, yes. People at first had an interest in what
           our life was like, but they were soon, you know, back to. . .It
           was almost, you know, like a "sweep it under the rug" kind of
           attitude. And, of course, they had not had the experiences that
           we had, so, you know, you tell a few stories and then it's on to
           life as usual.
Harden:     How would you characterize the impact that these experiences
           had on your family and on yourself?
Foege:           It certainly made a difference in our lives. Our oldest
           son still remembers Africa, and the children had later
           experiences in India, so the two situations together made an
           even stronger impression. But our older son was 4 when we came
           back home, so that's still quite young. But he does remember a
           good deal. I would say it gave our children a tolerance for
           different styles of living, different religions, certainly the
           impact of poverty compared to what it's like in the United
           States. Empathy. Empathy for other people, definitely.
Harden:     Before we stop, is there anything else about this program that
           you would like to say?
Foege:           Well, the program was wonderful in many areas-in helping
           people, in discovering new ways to handle different health
           programs, in the people that we met, who were basically not
           people who were out for what is life going to give to me, but
           what can I give to others. And that had a big impact on all of
           us.
Harden:     It was an idealistic time, I perceive.
Foege:           It was. It definitely was. And it's so exciting to be here
           now and to see some of these people we haven't seen for 38
           years.
Harden:     And I thank you very much for talking with me.
Foege:           You're very welcome.