WHO WE ARE
A FEATURE HIGHLIGHTING THE ‘OUTSIDE’ LIVES OF THE MANY VARIED AND INTERESTING MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION.

—by Lois Chazen

Karis Hall began traveling at an early age. When she was one year old, her family moved from Ohio, where she was born, to New York City. Her father was a relief worker during the Great Depression. The family accompanied him to New York, where he earned an M.A. at the newly founded, New School for Social Research. While her father was a student, her mother, also a social worker, miraculously found a job to support her young family. After graduate school, Mr. Hall joined the American Red Cross and was transferred where needed in the mid-Atlantic and southern states. By the time Karis entered Mount Union College in Ohio, she and her brother had attended 17 schools in 17 different places.

Karis Hall

The Halls were transferred by the Red Cross to a military base in Heidelberg and remained in Germany from 1950 to 1953. Karis thought that it was a great opportunity to travel and study in Europe. The American army of occupation following World War II was in residence at the time, and our military presence expanded in Germany at the outbreak of the Korean War. The situation was further complicated by the Cold War. Immediately following their arrival, the Halls were welcomed with emergency evacuation instruction.

With Germany as home base, the Hall family spent holidays traveling to other European countries including Denmark, France, and Greece and North African Morocco. During the school year, Karis attended the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the University of Grenoble in France, gaining fluency in German and French. Upon her return to the United States, she continued her studies in history at the University of Wisconsin, where she completed her B.A. and earned an M.A. in Modern European History.

In 1956, still keen on travel after completing her studies, Karis applied for a project in Iraq sponsored by the University of Wisconsin. She spent four months in Baghdad as assistant to three professors who were agricultural economists working on an agricultural and land use study in collaboration with Iraqi researchers. Through the team’s efforts the nomads were taught modern farming techniques and land use.

Karis reports that Baghdad today bears little resemblance to the Baghdad she knew then. “It is a much larger, more cosmopolitan place now,” she said. “The palm trees and Tigris River remain, but new construction—Saddam Hussein’s vast palaces, government buildings, hotels and bridges—constitute an entirely new and different city.”

While working with the Wisconsin researchers, Karis learned to navigate the Arab world. When the project ended, she exchanged her first-class air ticket for tourist class and used the money saved to fund an extended tour of several countries on the way home. She spent seven weeks touring the Middle East visiting Persepolis and Isfahan in Iran, and numerous cities and villages in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Visa restrictions at the time precluded a visit to Israel. With some guidance from an American lady missionary and the comforting vigilance of the American Embassies in the countries where she traveled, she got on very well.

 

Karis Hall in Baghdad

“It was a great opportunity to travel and learn about an area I knew nothing about first hand. It was a time when Amman and Cairo were quite provincial—Amman, the modern city it is today, was not even on the drawing board. They were unsophisticated, regional towns just beginning to develop. Beirut was decidedly the most European of the places I toured. French was spoken widely. It was so Western. I felt very comfortable there. You have to realize that since I knew no Arabic, it was difficult for me to find places. The street signs were in Arabic or Persian. Yet in spite of the fact that this was 1956—almost fifty years ago—as a young woman, often unaccompanied, I was not thwarted or disadvantaged in any way. Of course, I often visited and toured with friends in diplomatic and university circles whom I met when I was working in Baghdad. It was a time when there were many fewer travelers. The American Embassies could keep track of those few Americans visiting within their jurisdictions.”

Continuing westward, Karis spent several weeks in Turkey, the ancient Peloponnesus and other parts of Greece, as well as southern Germany and Denmark before her return to the United States.

The Iraqi land use study made Karis aware, when she was in Egypt, of the land reforms Gamal ‘Abdal Nasser had made. Although his regime was harsh and undemocratic, he had enacted land reforms on his own initiative, similar to those recommended by the University of Wisconsin study. She likened it to her experience at Amnesty International, where she has been active for more than twenty years. She is that organization’s specialist on Serbia and Montenegro. “Yugoslavia was held together under the often repressive regime of Tito,” she explained. “The Serbs and Croats lived together for generations without bloodshed, often within the same small village. As soon as Tito was gone, old religious, class and territorial problems re-emerged.” Three years ago, Karis made a personal journey to the region, spending many days in Prijedor, a multi-ethnic village in the Republic of Serbska in Bosnia. There she heard and saw evidence of horrific crimes among former neighbors. “The details are too gruesome to recount,” she added.

By the time Karis returned from her travels, her parents were well settled in Wisconsin. Her mother had started an antiques business. Karis began her teaching career in New York City at several private schools: the Calhoun School, Trinity and Birch Wathen [now, Birch Wathen Lenox]. However, it was her first school, St. Sergias, a Russian Orthodox primary school, which seems to evoke the fondest recollections. The school was housed, coincidentally, in the former Park Avenue home of George F. Baker, a past CEO of what is now Citibank, the same George F. Baker memorialized on a plaque at All Souls.

Karis related a story about her first assignment at the school to lead the opening prayer each day. The prayer was spoken in Russian. Not being conversant in Russian, she wondered about the meaning of the words. After a week or two, she learned that it was the the Lord’s Prayer. From then on, she realized that the cultural differences were less than she had at first imagined.

Shortly after she started teaching, and with the prospect of large blocks of free time in the summer, Karis began to assist her mother in the antiques business. Her sources were in the US and England. Soon, she was participating in antique shows nationwide. Until recently, she retained a booth at the New York Antiques Center. Coordinating with her mother’s interests, she specialized in eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century American tableware and furniture.

“That took a lot of energy. I was in the antiques business for many years and I certainly enjoyed it. It was a good way besides traveling, to learn history. It also provided a good income. Now, I have cut back considerably on these activities. However, I will continue my mail order business in Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates.” A cheery, confident woman, Karis puts the events in her life in perspective with world events at the corresponding time as one might expect of a history teacher. Though She retired from teaching fifteen years ago, she continues to keep current in her field and is an avid reader of biographies and historical literature.

Karis has attended All Souls Sunday services regularly since the 1960s and periodically goes to meetings of the Women’s Alliance and Women’s Reading Group. Earlier, she was active on the church’s Religious Education Committee. When asked about the derivation of her name, she said it was Greek (), meaning grace and charisma (another Greek word, .) This is an appropriate as well as pretty name for a graceful, attractive woman.

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