| April,
2003
The Baumanns
By Karen Faulkner
Bill and Betty Baumann are certainly two of Powelton’s
best known citizens, in spite of their tendency to
take off for other corners of the world for years
at a time. Theirs is a great story.
They met on a blind date in college, fixed up by
a friend who knew both planned to loin the Peace Corps
when they graduated. Bill was hoping for India, Betty
for Panama, but before they were assigned, they realized
that wherever they went, they wanted to go together.
They married and went to Columbia, where their work
was helping villagers participate in cooperative development.
Thus began a lifetime of facilitating economic and
community development among remote peoples.
Immediately after their Peace Corps assignment ended,
however, they allowed themselves, or, rather, Bill,
to be recruited to manage an emerald mine in Colombia.
(The combination of his fluency in Spanish, his familiarity
with machinery, and his ease with the villagers who
worked in the mines made him attractive to the mine’s
owners who managed to arrange a visa designating him
as a gemologist.) Bill was equipped with four Dobermans
but rejected the various arms he was offered. He was
supposed to keep employees from stealing emeralds
and to reduce the violence that erupted whenever a
new vein of emeralds was discovered. The obvious solution,
he and Betty realized at once, was to treat the workers
better, and they were able to make some progress in
this direction, but working for rich New Yorkers who
owned the rights to the emeralds wasn’t really
what they wanted to do. They left after a year with
the distinction of being the only managers never to
have been shot at, and drove from Panama to the States
in a VW beetle.
Puzzled by how the U.S. had changed in their absence
from 1966-69, they wanted to work somewhere where
the revolution of the sixties was happening. Someone
suggested Philadelphia, where both were able to get
jobs with the West Phila. Mental Health Consortium.
Bill noticed Powelton while driving to evening classes
at Temple; they came to the Powelton Neighbors’
Fair the year of “know
Your F.B.I. Day,” met Julie O’Shana,
who invited them to her house and easily convinced
them that this is where they should buy a home (with
the big money Bill was paid to manage the emerald
mine!). Just as they were finishing work on 3408 Baring
Street, they were invited to go to Mexico to work
in an AESO Latin American program intended to expose
the remote Otomi people to well-intentioned foreigners
who helped them develop ways of dealing with technocrats
and bureaucrats who were starting to pay attention
to them.
They returned to Powelton three years later, and
their son Emil was born in 1976. while he was small,
Bill and Betty took turns working as witnesses for
peace in Honduras for refugees from El Salvador. Impressed
by the practicality and effectiveness of the Mennonites
they met there, they visited the Mennonite community
in Akron, PA to learn more about them. Recognizing
their expertise, the Mennonites offered them a job
in East Africa locating artisans to develop products
for regional and international markets. (Betty was
deemed adequately Christian, but Bill, who preferred
less orthodox practices, was rejected until the matter
was referred to an outside party. Since accepting
Bill, the Mennonites have hired Muslims and Jews!)
Off they went, this time with Emil, to Africa, where
they worked in Nairobi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan,
Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti as the first representatives
in Africa of the Mennonites’ 10,000 Villages
program. This original Fair Trade program purchases
work from artisans at fair prices which enable them
to educate, feed, and house their families and sells
the work in stores in the U.S. and Canada. Since their
first exposure to Africa, Betty and Bill have worked
with tribal leaders to collect, document, and curate
their cultural artifacts so they can educate outsiders
about themselves. They also developed an educational
exhibit,”Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary People”
which traveled around the U.S. And Canada for two
years and created an educational East
Africa Center in West Philadelphia where displays,
activities, and speakers introduce visitors to East
African nomadic life. The Center’s will reopen
in June at its new permanent location at 3809 Pearl
Street.
A year ago, the Baumanns traveled
to the Middle East to explore possibilities of working
with craftspeople in that area. Theywere stationed
in Amman, Jordan and hoped to return soon to work
with artisans from Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. The U.S.
war on Iraq makes that impossible. Of that war, Betty
says the only positive thing is that it will create
an opportunity for people to demonstrate their concern
for the people of Iraq by going there to help them
rebuild their lives. The Baumanns may do just that.
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