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| "Life in a Dacha: An American Family in Moscow" by Erica Collins Steffee |
| Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | | Event Time: | 7:00 pm |
| Fee: | FREE |
| Lead Organization: | Blount County Public Library [More Events] |
| Location: | Blount County Public LIbrary |
| Locale: | Blount County |
| Main Website: | http://www.blountlibrary.org |
| For More Info: | Joan VanSickle Sloan |
| More Information: | Scroll Below for the Long Description of this event |
| Category: | Arts and Culture -- History / Historic Sites [More Events] [Similar Events] |
Long Description or Press Release:
Maryville native, Erica Collins Steffee, will speak about “Life in a Dacha, an American Family in Moscow, 1949-50,” on Tuesday, March 9, 2010, at the Blount County Library.
Erica’s father, Ralph Collins, was a professor of German and French at Maryville College in the 1940s, when the State Department recruited him to serve in the Foreign Service. He spent 22 years in the Foreign Service, specializing in Soviet affairs. In 1967 he returned to Maryville College as chairman of the language department. He and his wife Maria Collins were active members of the community until their deaths in the 1990s.
While the Collins family was in Moscow, Stalin decreed that foreigners’ children would no longer be allowed to attend Russian schools. At the request of the American and British Ambassadors, Maria Collins created a school for English-speaking children, which numbered around 15, from preschool through fifth grade.
This school, the Anglo-American School of Moscow, has just celebrated its 60th anniversary. The Collins family was invited back for the celebration in October 2009, and Erica gave a presentation about living in Moscow in 1949-50.
Erica will speak about her family’s “Great Adventure,” as they accompanied her father, Ralph Collins, on his two-year assignment to the hardship post of Moscow. US
Government reports from that time reveal why most American Embassy personnel did not take their families to Moscow: “In Moscow there are no provisions for education of foreign children… Two general ideas should govern what is brought to the Soviet Union: 1) NOTHING is obtainable there, and 2) it is cold, both indoors and out, a good deal of the year.”
Erica Collins Steffee was born in the old Fort Craig Hospital in Maryville. Her father was a professor of German and French at Maryville College at the time. When he took a position with the State Department in 1945 the family began a peripatetic life of travel and adventure in Europe and South America. When Ralph Collins retired from the Foreign Service in 1967, he returned to Maryville College as chairman of the language department. He and Maria were active members of the community until their deaths the 1990s.
Erica returned to the United States to finish high school and attend college. After graduation from the Eastman School of Music she taught piano and music theory. At age 40 she went back to college to get an MBA degree and worked as a business consultant to people starting new businesses. Now retired, she devotes her time to her grandchildren and to documenting the family history.
In 2003 Erica and her husband, Bill Steffee, published the memoirs of her parents, covering the years that the family lived in Moscow. She will tell more about that experience during her presentation, offering a fascinating glimpse into a foreign world.
Free and open to the public, the program will be at the Blount County Public Library, located at 508 N. Cusick Street, Maryville.
For further information about other library programs or services, call the library at 982-0981 or visit the Web site at www.blountlibrary.org.
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Blount County does not discriminate based on race, color or national origin in federal or state sponsored programs, pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000d). |
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