Archive - February 25, 2023

  Marjorie Mitchelmore was a twenty-three-year-old magna cum laude graduate of Smith College when she became one of the first people to apply in 1961 to the new Peace Corps. She was attractive, funny, and a smart woman and was selected to go to Nigeria. After seven weeks of training at Harvard, her group flew to Nigeria. There Marjorie and the other Trainees were to complete the second phase of their teacher training at University College at Ibadan, fifty miles north of Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. By all accounts, she was an outstanding Trainee. Then on the evening of October 13, 1961, she wrote a postcard to her boyfriend in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here is what she had to say: Dear Bobbo: Don’t be furious at getting a postcard. I promise a letter next time. I wanted you to see the incredible and fascinating city we were in. With all the . . .