Friday's Faces From the Past: My Aunt and the Foreign Study League

My maternal aunt, Jo Ann (Sister Jean Marie) Guokas, had the opportunity to travel with the Foreign Study League (FSL) for many years.  Her first trip was in 1969.  She started out as a counselor, recruiting 8 to 15 students to participate in this early study-abroad program.  In exchange for supervising them on the trip, all her expenses were paid.  She traveled with FSL the next three summers, all four years (1969-1972) under the leadership of Father William Kidwell, a priest and instructor at Houston's Strake Jesuit College Prep (where my brothers went to high school).

She didn't travel with the FSL in the summer of 1973, but the following year, she became an FSL leader, where she served the next nine summers.  Below is her ID card from the summer of 1975:

As a leader, my aunt was responsible for recruiting the counselors for her group, and (as I previously posted), in 1977, she recruited her sister - my mother - as a counselor (plus the 8-15 students my mother supervised).  In the summer of 1982, she managed to arrange for my youngest sister Mary to accompany the group - for free!  Here they are in Rome:




I thought this next picture was pretty cool - patches from different cities and countries she visited pinned or sewn onto my aunt's nun veil!

© Amanda Pape - 2019 - e-mail me!