Kathleen MacLeod Oral History Interview
Interviewer(s): Julius Sztuk
Interviewee(s): Kathleen MacLeod

Julius Sztuk: Today is October 17th, 2019. My name is Jay Sztuk, RPCV Fiji, and I'm going to be interviewing Kathleen MacLeod, who is a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran from June 1964 through June 1966 in group four, and she was in the TEFL program. Kathleen, tell us about your background and how you came to be a Peace Corps volunteer.

Kathleen MacLeod: I grew up here. I'm a native San Diegan, grew up here, low middle class family, very loving family. I have a sister that was two, two of us in the family. And I've learned to appreciate my upbringing as I've gotten older, when I encountered people who weren't so blessed. I went to school here all the way through, even through college, and I was. My parents could afford to send me away to college for one year and that. So I chose, I looked around, where can I go for the same money? And I picked Mexico City because I thought that would be an exotic place. Let me try something new. So I spent a good part of the year there. So that, and I had, so I had known Spanish from high school. So that was a very, a good experience because I had some knowledge of the background of the language there.

And so as I was going through college, I didn't date. I didn't date in high school, I didn't date in college. And at the time, the women, you're always supposed to get your MRS degree, as we would say back in the day. If you haven't had it by then in college, you, you may be out of luck, you know. So at that time, and, you know, then Kennedy was elected and I got excited about him. I saw him when he came to San Diego in 1963 when he was campaigning and got really excited about his candidacy and his presidency. And I remember him talking about the Peace Corps and what you could do for your country.

So that, that was all it took for me was to follow up on it. You know, in the spring, I guess, before I graduated from college. So that's really what it was. It was just, uh, it was just a patriotic duty in a way, is why I joined it. And I didn't know Iran at all. I had to go look it up on the map. Didn't know anything about it.

Julius Sztuk: So you didn't have a preference for Iran?

Kathleen MacLeod: I didn't.

Julius Sztuk: Like that.

Kathleen MacLeod: I didn't have a preference. I just, well, where in the world, you know, I didn't have any particular interest. I thought they would send me to a Spanish speaking country was my thought, because I had known Spanish from high school, but I wasn't a native speaker. So maybe that's why. I don't know. I don't know how they pick their people. I have feeling it's just, I don't know how those decisions were made.

Julius Sztuk: Wherever they needed someone.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, I think so, what was coming up and you had this background. I don't you know, I don't know how it was. It was really gearing up, though, to be quite an active program then. Yeah. So I was accepted and was delighted. Oh, how fascinating. I've got to read more about that.

Julius Sztuk: So now you had already gone off to school in another country, so your parents were supportive?

Kathleen MacLeod: Very, yeah.

Julius Sztuk: And how did they feel about you joining Peace Corps?

Kathleen MacLeod: Fine. They were very supportive. Yeah. Yeah. My parents were very eager to get me to experience life, go out. And it's a wonderful world out there, you know, go out there and explore it. So they were very supportive.

Julius Sztuk: And maybe unusual for the.

Kathleen MacLeod: For the time.

Julius Sztuk: In the sixties.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. They were, as I said, they could have, all they could afford was one year away to college. So make the most of it. And I just decided to go down there and so.

Julius Sztuk: Do you think your experience of living in Mexico maybe made you more, more likely to join the Peace Corps since you had?

Kathleen MacLeod: Well, I think it yeah, I think it probably helped. It wasn't so scary, you know. I think so. I think that helped. But I did though, I didn't at first. I did not want to go out by myself in a rural area. I knew that I didn't. I don't think so. I think I want to be around some other people, but so that was part of my early decision. They assigned me to Tehran for about six months so.

Julius Sztuk: So how long did that process take from application to?

Kathleen MacLeod: I don't remember. I think it was in the spring. I think.

Julius Sztuk: But did it go pretty smoothly?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: No hiccups or anything?

Kathleen MacLeod: No. Yeah. It went very, you know, they had to interview. They'd send the FBI out to everybody and interview your neighbors.

Julius Sztuk: And background checks.

Kathleen MacLeod: Background checks. I mean, that was something I did. So, yeah, I don't, it went just fine so far as I know. Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: Okay. And so then you were accepted.

Kathleen MacLeod: Mm hmm.

Julius Sztuk: And where did you do your training?

Kathleen MacLeod: At University of Michigan in their English language institute there.

Julius Sztuk: So they weren't doing training in country then?

Kathleen MacLeod: No, this is, no, uh uh. We were there for three months and had, um, I don't know, what was it, 4 hours a day of Farsi, I think. And, you know, obviously get the history of Iran or U.S. relations in, and the history of Iran actually. Briefly, it goes on for so long. You know, we just got the overview of the different age, you know, the different eras and the different periods there. But, uh, and some of the politics, we got that. That's where I learned, we learned there about the, um, the CIA's overtaking of the, you know, that caused the coup of the democratically elected Mossadegh.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: In '53. And that hadn't been publicly revealed too much. But we, researchers knew it and we were to be informed of that so that, for us to, you know, be aware of it, if it might come up during our training, I mean, during our Peace Corps experience so.

Julius Sztuk: Now this was the fourth group to go to Iran.

Kathleen MacLeod: Mm hmm.

Julius Sztuk: Were most of them teachers?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes, we were all TEFL.

Julius Sztuk: And how many people were in your group?

Kathleen MacLeod: I've got the group, I've got our book here. I think we were close to 100, I think. And I think we ended up 74 or something that went to Iran I think. I think, something like that.

Julius Sztuk: Big group.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, it was a good size. There was another group just, we, just started a week or two later and they were in, what do they call it? Community development. They were, they were men, all men, in Logan, Utah. So we go by, you're group four or group five, you know, and it's just. They were just, or they arrived three weeks later, something like that. You know, it was kind of confusing. I get this. I guess at that point, Peace Corps didn't quite know how to number groups or how to discern one from the other. And later on they stopped numbering them all together. I guess it just.

Julius Sztuk: [inaudible]

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, yeah. Because we related to our group.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: But I mean there are some later ones, they said we didn't have any numbers so, so we've now made our own numbers so we can separate.

Julius Sztuk: So you could keep track.

Kathleen MacLeod: Keep track of them now that we know because, you know, Iran. Peace Corps was only in Iran for 14 years. So it's, uh, you know, it's a good study, I think, for researchers.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, for that, for that time period. Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: So you had language training, culture training, and history. Did they, did they bring people from Iran to, to help teach, native speakers?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes, they were students. We, in fact I keep up with them. We keep, they're very active. Yeah. They were the, the way they taught Farsi from that institute, that English language institute there in Michigan, they used what they call the aural-oral method of teaching a second language. And so we learned Farsi that way. And we also were, that was the way we were taught how do you teach English as a second language. So it worked both ways. One for us to learn how to learn a second language, and then in turn we were taught how to teach English as a second language. And they used, I guess it's a linguistic term, I don't know. But they use, they're called informants. When you have a native speaker of a language who helps you in your, you know, in your spoken, you know, your accent and how you speak and you hear it. But they were called informants.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: And they were all native speakers of Farsi. They were students from Iran who were coming here to go to college typically. And, uh, then we had a linguist who would show up in class. I don't know how often, but periodically to give you. They taught us how the language was structured and gave us the clues about how you do it. The native speakers didn't necessarily know that, you know, formally. So the linguist gave us the structure of the language and then they would, then the informants would grill us or drill us that day on lesson, how what we were supposed to learn.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: And we had another one where, yeah, taught us, um, Iranian, the history of Iran. I don't know if he was a professor here or he just became one. I'm not sure. But he was. He wasn't an informant, as they say. He was one of our academic teachers. Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: So as you were going through this training, did you get more and more excited about going to Iran?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Julius Sztuk: No reservations?

Kathleen MacLeod: No. No. Yeah, it was a wonderful experience.

Julius Sztuk: So when training was over, you were ready to go?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, we were ready to go. We came back home for a couple of weeks, I think. I think that's what it was. Two weeks to get your stuff together and you'll all show up in, uh, Kennedy Airport. And we all convened there and then flew. I forget the route. I don't know. It's a, it's a routine one. I think you go to Frankfurt and then Beirut I think. Maybe Istanbul, maybe. No, maybe Beirut. And then you go into Tehran. But you always, you land at like midnight or 1:00 in the morning.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: It's the way most of the flights go there. I don't know what, but that's about. I guess it's just the way the timing is of things. But, um, but it was a long flight, you know, all these delays and stuff along the way. But you get there and everything was all lit up in the morning.

Julius Sztuk: At the airport?

Kathleen MacLeod: Uh huh.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah. So your first impression of the country then, since it was dark, I guess you were, you were probably anticipating.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, I don't know.

Julius Sztuk: The sunrise.

Kathleen MacLeod: Right. You didn't. I don't have much of a different impression. Like, see, I could see it was desert. There wasn't much greenery. Um. Yeah, but then the next morning, of course, you're in a big city and you hear the taxis going, you know, all that. They have all the horns and all that. So quite noisy and busy.

Julius Sztuk: So what was Tehran like in those days? Was it a pretty developed and pretty modern city?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty developed. Right. And pretty big too, although it's growing more and more.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: So it was, it's just a big city and, and so I got, you know, not, I just wasn't comfortable going out into a smaller town. I didn't know where I'd be, you know. And you always were warned about what the role of women is in a Muslim country. So I wasn't sure how comfortable I would be. But after being in Tehran, I mean, I didn't get acquainted with Iranians there. I got all tied into the, uh, the embassy.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, because there were.

Kathleen MacLeod: A lot of.

Julius Sztuk: Of other expats or?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, expats. Well, military. There's a lot of a big military presence in Iran.

Julius Sztuk: So then your, your social contacts were mostly those Americans?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes, Americans and our other people. And I was, I roomed with two other Peace Corps volunteers in Tehran. And so we were the crash pad for people coming in from, you know, other Peace Corps people coming in from out of the area and coming in for whatever medical exams or whatever they were there for. They would just crash at our, in our apartment. So that kept us really linked into Peace Corps people and the embassy crowd. And of course, I, not ever having dated, you know, and I get to the embassy bar. $0.25 a drink. Oh, my gosh, look at this, you know. So I liked the socializing there.

But, and I remember I was taught, I was teaching. I was assigned to the school of two. Well, I first taught the sanitation workers, they call them sanitation engineers. I don't know. They were part of the Shah's. What did he call that? Sapati danesh, I think. No, that's for the teachers. Sapati something. Anyway, he was training people to go out in the villages to get Iran more modernized. So these people were like public health engineers looking at the sanitation systems in the village. And so I was, I don't know why I was, why they need English, but I was teaching them English as a second language.

And then I also taught, I was assigned to work with the UNESCO's School of Social Work. They were funded there to school social work. These were students, Iranian students, who were planning to go get their master's degree in social work in the U.S., so they needed English. So I was teaching them English as a second language. And anyway, and then I was tutoring. I taught, I was tutoring a Minister of Education. And I remember that was the clue I had to you'd better get out of this city. It's, you're not going to really get the full benefit of what Iran's like, because I was tutoring this minister, and I remember one time I resented having to leave the bar to go tutor because I was having such, so much fun.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: And I said, wait a minute, you're here to learn Iran, about Iran, not to socialize with Americans. You'd better get out of this place.

Julius Sztuk: Right.

Kathleen MacLeod: So I asked for a transfer after six months.

Julius Sztuk: Temporarily strayed off course there.

Kathleen MacLeod: So that's when I was transferred to Gorgan, which I had a much more fulfilling experience.

Julius Sztuk: But you did, uh, how long did you work in Tehran?

Kathleen MacLeod: About six months.

Julius Sztuk: So you had interaction with your students.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, but not socially outside of that.

Julius Sztuk: Right. But how did you find the students? How did, were they accepting of you?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, they actually. Yeah, they were. But they also wanted some favors, you know. They didn't want to have to come to class and wanted me to sign off on their, their certificate that they were going to be good at school. Yeah. It's just, it's how.

Julius Sztuk: Really?

Kathleen MacLeod: A lot of things.

Julius Sztuk: Just wanted you to sign off on it.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah. Because they didn't want to go to class and they just.

Julius Sztuk: Did they try to bribe you at all?

Kathleen MacLeod: Eh, sort of. Sort of, you know, and I didn't like that. I didn't like that position, to be in that position of trying to help them along when they didn't want to come to class or something.

Julius Sztuk: So being in the city, were these students from maybe upper middle class?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes, they were used to privilege and having. Yeah. So that was one thing I didn't like about the college at that level. That college level, they wanted some. You know, I didn't. I don't think they bribed me. I don't remember that. I just didn't like even like the question. Come to class, you know, that's our. That's the way we, we don't, we're not used to that. The system here, maybe it's changed. I hope not. But, anyway.

Julius Sztuk: And was Peace Corps okay then, when you asked to, you asked to be reassigned?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes, I did.

Julius Sztuk: Peace Corps was okay with that?

Kathleen MacLeod: They were okay with it, yeah. They had apparently had a request from the, I guess they had enough places to send me and I. So there were two men from my group already in this town of Gorgan. They were teachers too, and so they roomed together. So I wasn't going to be isolated. I would be in the same town with them, uh, or city actually. It was probably 10,000 people. And I would be living, it was all arranged, I would be living with a, um, a midwife who, um, you know, was living alone so.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: So they provided your housing?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yes.

Julius Sztuk: Told you where you had to live?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah. So that worked out. It was a wonderful experience.

Julius Sztuk: She was Iranian, she was local?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah. Yeah. A wonderful experience with her.

Julius Sztuk: Uh huh.

Kathleen MacLeod: In fact, she just passed away a year ago at 80, she was 86 or something, here in Orange County.

Julius Sztuk: No kidding.

Kathleen MacLeod: She got out. She and her family got out when the Shah was, you know, with the revolution, when the Shah was booted out. So she came.

Julius Sztuk: So you were still in touch with her?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, that's another story. It's a wonderful story, actually. I had, uh, sort of lost touch. She, well, put this. Would you turn it off?

Julius Sztuk: Alright.

Kathleen MacLeod: So she marries the, um. She's married to a Zoroastrian surgeon in town and they have a baby or she gets pregnant and she's excited. She thinks that I brought her good luck because I came to town and she meets this person and marries and has a child. And so she wants everything to be Iran, American on the, for this baby.

Julius Sztuk: Oh.

Kathleen MacLeod: Diapers, stroller, everything. She is, I brought her good luck. So she wants everything to be shipped in from the U.S. Now, they have, relatively they have a lot more money than my parents did, than I did, than grew up in. You know, he is a surgeon and Zoroastrian, which means that they're the merchant class in Iran. They're like similar to the Jewish merchants in other parts of the world. They're the original, I don't know if you know about Zoroastrianism?

Julius Sztuk: Not much.

Kathleen MacLeod: It's the original faith of Iran. And it wasn't till the caliphs came in there and the Arab invasion that they then became Muslim. So. Uh, they. So he's a merchant, he comes from a merchant, you know, he's a surgeon. Anyway, so I had my parents, asked my parents to send, to send her. Would they send the things to them, what she wanted for this baby to be born? So my, my parents agreed and they went out and shopped, bought a baby carriage, all this stuff. And, you know, and then they had to ship it and it came in and they had to ship it by airfreight and they dropped it by helicopter or something right in the embassy compound.

Julius Sztuk: No kidding.

Kathleen MacLeod: A big box like this, because it had the baby carriage and. Got it shipped out to Gorgan, which is, I don't know, 8 hours away or something. Anyway, the bill comes and it was around $400, which was a lot for my parents at the time. It was more for the shipping than the goods were.

Julius Sztuk: Mm hmm.

Kathleen MacLeod: So I'm asking, you know, they thought that would just be rich Americans. It would be a gift from the U.S., from them, you know.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, so it wasn't understood?

Kathleen MacLeod: It wasn't really understood at the time. So I said, well, my parents really can't afford this. Really, they can't, you know, he was a working man. And I advocated for them and they said, oh, well, we don't have the cash either. So how about, well, do you think they'd accept a pair of carpets? So, and I have right them here in this, in the living room. And I looked and I said, sure, I think so. I'll ask them. So I wrote down. I said, Mom, you know, they are valuable carpets. I think you'll get your money's worth for 400 bucks. So they accepted those in exchange. But she was just delighted to have all this stuff and she could parade it around with her baby when it was born, when he was born.

So I, she had, I had a special place in her heart all of her life. And after Peace Corps experience, um. Eh, we wrote, we wrote, we spoke both some Farsi and some English. Her English was pretty good actually. Not so much the writing, but we could make ourselves understood. But after Peace Corps, you know, the writing, I don't know. Life goes on, you know, don't write as often. And I'd have to have a real, write the simple sentences for her when I wrote her so she could understand it and to read it. Anyway, we kind of gradually didn't write for a while. And, and this is '64 to '79 now. So that's what, 15 years, I guess? '66.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: That's about 13 years actually.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: 13 years. So, and it had been, I don't know, a while that I hadn't written her and right after the, the, the, um, fall of the Shah or the, the Iran Islamic Revolution.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: All of a sudden everybody's out now. Oh, the news is all over and I thought, oh my gosh, how are they doing? Where are they? So this is about six months later. So, I mean, I kept wondering, I guess I should write her and I didn't. And anyway, so this is such a bizarre connection. So one day I worked at the county of San Diego and I'd always take my lunch to, uh, to work, a brown bag, and I would sit out on the wharf and watch the water on my lunch hour. And one day I was going out to lunch to do the same, and ran into these two women. I know them, had never had lunch before, and they said, come to lunch with us. Eh, I got my brown bag. Thanks for the offer but. No, come! But where are you going? Oh, we're going to this place over in, down near the airport. Now, that restaurant, well, I've never been there. Well, come. No. Come. Well, why not? They're nice people. Okay, I'll go.

So we get in. It was interesting, this the way the restaurant was set up. You walked in and you go through the, like a buffet and you pick what you want. Then you go sit down and they call your number. They put everything together. It's how you do. You walk through and see what you want. You're in line and around this buffet. So I walked in and then I'm looking around. All this sudden I heard Farsi behind me. I hadn't heard that [speaks Farsi], you know? And I'm going, well. And I go, wow, what? These three men were behind me. Oh, I mean, really quick kind of thing and not much. And so we each went to our respective tables with the group. I said, I'm going to go talk to them. I get up and walk across the restaurant. And I said, I'm just interested in Iran. You know, I, I'm concerned about friends in Gorgan. Really? We have, we're from Gorgan. And it turns out they were related to the woman I.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah?

Kathleen MacLeod: And I went.

Julius Sztuk: Wow.

Kathleen MacLeod: My God, you know her, you know, and. And they said, yes! I said, well, she knew me as Kati. That's how they would say it in Iran. You're Kati? We've been trying to find you. Mehtari is right here in Orange County.

Julius Sztuk: No kidding.

Kathleen MacLeod: And we've been going through all the phone directories trying to find you. Well, my name is oddly spelled, so it's not surprising they couldn't find me. You know, you have to get it spelled right. And I said, oh my gosh. What? She said, what? She's right here. And so, I mean, they went, oh, they went back and I got excited. And I just. How does that happen? Anyway, she came down the next day from, drove down, and we got all reconnected.

Julius Sztuk: Wow. That's amazing.

Kathleen MacLeod: And we've been connected ever. That's. And I'm, I couldn't work that, well, how does that? These two women, they just were compelled to invite me to lunch. We never had lunch since, you know, I know there's no reason not to. It's just, it's circumstances, didn't happen. And but they were, they were messengers or something. It was amazing. And we've been in touch and in the sun. And all these years, I'd go visit them, especially when, when they had, during the Iraq war and all, her husband, they had got out. And of course he couldn't practice medicine here. So but it. So yes, I kept up with her.

Julius Sztuk: It's a great story.

Kathleen MacLeod: It's a, I mean, how does, just that I was, we were supposed to meet. I mean that's really. It's almost, I'm Unitarian so I don't really, but it makes you wonder.

Julius Sztuk: You got to wonder.

Kathleen MacLeod: You got to wonder about what's out there, you know. So I don't, I don't question any of it after that experience, you know.

Julius Sztuk: She must have known that you were from California.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, she knew that much. And she went to here. You know, there's a lot of Iranians in Irvine.

Julius Sztuk: Sure.

Kathleen MacLeod: And so, yeah, she's, her son is there growing up now, and she has two sons and very American. And yeah, she, yeah, she's a wonderful person. And the other thing about my living with her was I would go out with her to the villages when she was doing deliveries.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: So that was a great learning experience for me as a young woman then, you know. And, uh, so you learn all about the plight of women, you know, and not having contraception and can't plan births and, oh my God, it was just. Oh, what horrendous circumstances, you know. And she had a clinic. She was very skilled. I said, my gosh, if I were ever in a situation that I needed a delivery, I'd go to her. I mean, really, she would do a lot of them. She knew what all the risks were and knew when to get them into a doctor. And oh, she was really very on top of her profession.

And so at one time I was over there in a clinic. I'd go there after school, after I was teaching and just be with her because I could talk with women and stuff who were waiting for their prenatal care. And she said, you got to see this, come in here. Well, this woman had a, I didn't, I didn't know what it was. I mean, I'm 22. What is that? It was her whole uterus had prolapsed, so it was hanging out like a scrotum, just hanging there. I said, my God, what? She said, well, that's what happens when they work too, have too many children and they work too hard in the fields. They just break down like that. We got to get her to the surgeon, which is her husband, of course, in the hospital.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: So, I mean, he didn't do delivery. She says, oh no, she knows him. I don't deliver babies. I call her in when one comes into the hospital. She did it all. But he would do the C-sections, of course. But anyway, it was, so I learned a lot about from that. And one other one. She would go and she was monitoring a woman in labor and she kept saying, oh my God, this baby, the heartbeat is going down. And it was going on way too long. She needs a, he needs a, we need a C-section here. I think it was placenta previa or whatever. And, um, and the husband wouldn't do it. You know, this baby is, the heartbeat is just struggling too much to be born. Nope, I'm not going to have a broken vase of a wife. Didn't want this.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, the.

Kathleen MacLeod: He didn't want her the surgery. He didn't want the scar on her. So she didn't get the C-section and the baby died.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, that's sad.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah. So that's the, that's what she was dealing with. So all those.

Julius Sztuk: And she had to have the husband's permission?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: Wow.

Kathleen MacLeod: So. Anyway, those are the kind of things I remember, this. Oh, I guess I should have said when I was at the UNESCO School of Social Work, I was sent to a contraceptive clinic in Tehran, in the south part of Tehran. And they were giving out IUDs then. I didn't know anything about all that, but that's why I said, IUDs? Well, since then, I've learned that, someone told me who knew the field more than I did, that, you know, those were, they were testing IUDs on Iranian women through the UN.

Julius Sztuk: Really?

Kathleen MacLeod: They weren't testing them in U.S. women. They used third world women to test the devices, you know?

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: These are things they couldn't get approved through here. So I thought, man, that wasn't good. But anyway, I did learn about that as a contraceptive method. I have no idea if they worked or not. I don't, I don't know the research on it, but because there were some IUDs that weren't, didn't work out at all, so they were pulled from the market. But anyway, what, the reason I mentioned that is that when I was living with that. Well, that was the other part. I had to, when she married the, um, surgeon, I was part of her household. And so I said, oh, I'll just go to another house. You're, you know, you're getting married now. I'll, I'll go with, I'll find another place. You know, you have your own private life now. Oh, heavens, no. You're in Iran. You're part of my household. You have to come.

Julius Sztuk: So you moved in with?

Kathleen MacLeod: I moved with them. I had my own room. They had another room, but I lived. So I was part of her household. I came with her. So anyway. So she was. So they socialized with, with a lot of the medical community basically.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: There were several physicians and the educated people in the town. So.

Julius Sztuk: So now your social circle went from being the embassy folks in Tehran and the expatriates to being all Iranian?

Kathleen MacLeod: Pretty much, yeah, pretty much.

Julius Sztuk: Was your Farsi pretty good at that point?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, it was. It was pretty good. Yeah. I could, yeah, I could carry on conversations at the table and stuff and, uh. So and then I had my two, the two Peace Corps people in my group. They had their own house, so I'd go and visit them. So that's another story about how I was regarded, you know, when I'd go visit them, you know.

Julius Sztuk: Oh. Didn't look proper?

Kathleen MacLeod: Pardon?

Julius Sztuk: Didn't look proper?

Kathleen MacLeod: Right, it wasn't proper. I was, you know, the image of me then would be, oh, she's going over to visit them because she services them. That's why Peace Corps sends women into Iran, to service the men there, you know, but.

Julius Sztuk: So tell me about the town of Gorgan and what your living conditions were like, what the houses were like. Did you have electricity?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, yes. Yes, we had electricity. The houses were, I don't know, sort of a, what do you call them? Kind of a stucco type thing. They were stucco mud, I guess, with, uh, well.

Julius Sztuk: Not primitive at all?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, no, uh uh. I had water and electricity. You did have a community bath. You didn't bathe. You had, you went to a public bath to bathe once.

Julius Sztuk: Bathhouse?

Kathleen MacLeod: Bathhouse once a week and or so how often you went. And so that's where you bathe. The bathroom and the toilet. So that was probably the most hardest to adjust to because they were, they're like holes in the ground, they're like a hole in the ground, and you squat over them. So that, you know, that can be a challenge if you have to squat for very long. Oh my God, your legs get wet, you shake. But anyway, and they. I could show you. And it's up, I have it up here. I could show you one. They don't have toilet paper.

Julius Sztuk: Right.

Kathleen MacLeod: They use kind of a ewer. It's a ewer.

Julius Sztuk: Pitcher.

Kathleen MacLeod: A pitcher of water. And I never got, I never could visualize how that was done and never, um, so I just never adjusted to it. So when we learned about that in training, so they said, you better be prepared with a lot of toilet paper if that's what you want to use. So people had whole duffel bags of. You could get it, you know, you could buy it. But I did. I have that. But it's just, that's some of the misconnections, you know, the misread. You think you don't have to. But one man had a whole huge duffel bag.

Julius Sztuk: Not taking any chances. So, and your job there, when you were in Gorgan, you taught at a school?

Kathleen MacLeod: Uh huh. Girls school, high school.

Julius Sztuk: High school.

Kathleen MacLeod: Girls school. And started, because my field at that time, I was trained as an elementary teacher at San Diego State. So I had a certificate. So that was my interest. So I did start some, you know, girls classes informally after school. So. Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: And, uh, how did you find the students there and do you get, uh, did you enjoy the?

Kathleen MacLeod: I did. They were eager to learn. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I liked them a lot. Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: Very loving. They're just the most hospitable people.

Julius Sztuk: And the other teachers, were you well accepted by them?

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, I think so. I had an awkward exchange once. They had, they, they could have men teachers in girls schools.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: They could. And I remember going into the teacher's lounge once and there was a man teacher, you know, you try to greet them and all that. And I did. You know, it's real awkward. Where do you sit? Do you sit right next to them or sit one over to be rude? You know, it's just one of those socially awkward things. So I sat next to him and I should be friendly. Oh, that was wrong. He gets up and moved away from me, so I learned that little social thing. So I could get along with day one. They really did want some distance between men and women.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah. Any other cultural observations? Different things that were big revelations to you?

Kathleen MacLeod: Uh. Well, yeah. You know, in the terms of what women are, they're sort of a. Marriages are arranged. So the midwife would say, hey, you know, this chief over here in this village would like you as his wife. But I told them, she, she would interfere for me, knowing that I wouldn't be, they wouldn't be interested.

Julius Sztuk: You weren't interested.

Kathleen MacLeod: But I did have an experience with, a direct experience. And this was from a Zoroastrian person who was a friend of the surgeon. And it was an awkward exchange. He came, comes there, and I was told this man wants to meet me. Whatever, he wants to talk to you. So he comes in. Okay. Sitting in the living room, we can talk. No, he's says, no, I want to talk privately. Well, the only private room I have is my bedroom. Well, let's go talk there. Okay. So, you know, I had a couple of chairs in there, so we sat down and talked. He said, well, I just want to tell you, I'm here and I come from a well-to-do family. I went to school. This was in English. I went to school in Chicago. Do you know so-and-so in Chicago? Well, no, I don't. Well, you know, I know them.

I am, I come from a wealthy and good family, and I've checked you out at the Peace Corps office. You come from a good family. And he said, I'm here and I'd like to marry you. I want to offer you a proposal or marriage. Well, I knew he was connected. I said, gosh, how am I going to get out of this? So we chatted a little more and. I can put you in a villa in the, I don't know where it would be. You know, you'd have a wonderful life with me. I would treat you well and you would have what you wanted. I have enough money to support you. And I said, well, let me think about it for a couple of days. Well, am I getting, going to get out of that? So. Okay. As long as you say yes when I come back, that's fine.

Oh, I don't know. I remember going and talking to Jack and David. They were in the village, you know. And I said, oh God, I don't know, how am I going to get out of this, you know? And they were laughing at me. I don't know what to say. And I was real close to them. We had gotten close through training. And anyway, in a couple of days I went back and meanwhile, he had checked with Peace Corps. I don't know if that was true, but he said he did, and I don't know what Peace Corps would tell him. But anyway.

And so he asked me and I said, you know, I have these two friends. They were in Peace Corps training with me. They mean a lot to me, and I intend to keep them for my rest of my life as friends. Would you allow that? These are men, they're dear friends to me. No, you could not do that. I said, well, I'm going to have to turn you down really. These, these men, these are my friends and I can't give them up for a marriage. So that's how I got out of that. And he saved face and.

Julius Sztuk: Cultural difference.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, yeah. So that was that. So that was my experience with that man. And I do keep up with them actually.

Julius Sztuk: The Iranian folks that you worked with must have had some impression of what America was like or what Americans were like, right? Did you find that, um, they might have had some misconceptions and did those things change after they got to know you? Or do you think you changed their impression of it?

Kathleen MacLeod: I, I, it's hard to say. I certainly explained. You know, that we're all rich. You know, the U.S. is Hollywood and all this and that, you know. And the other thing is they were convinced that Johnson killed Kennedy. Convinced.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: It's the way it happens. The second guy wants in and he just had him done in. I couldn't change that perception, but.

Julius Sztuk: Something that might happen there.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, right. Yeah, they were, just couldn't ever get over that one. So, and they, I was. They were, it's a very hospitable culture. I mean, it comes, I think from a culture of the desert. You don't want to be left out there. It's pretty harsh. So they take all kinds of people in and they just are welcoming. It's a wonderful kind of part of their culture. To this day they like Americans. To this day, even despite our government, you know, what? What do you call it? Detente, not detente. What's the opposite? You know, the opposition they have. They love Americans as people.

Julius Sztuk: Right.

Kathleen MacLeod: And there were times, though, I must say, and I wasn't there, just I hear from people who served later, ten years later, like Skip Auld, he may tell you that experience. Um. That's when they were in some towns where we were, they were inundated with ugly Americans. They came in with like Bell Helicopter.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah, all the corporations.

Kathleen MacLeod: Corporation. Brought them in. Now they were working. I don't know what they were doing. Somebody told me they had, they were working on helicopters from Vietnam or something. I don't know. But there were huge airfields of helicopters in Isfahan. Someone said there were 10,000 Americans in Isfahan and they were. Now, this was way, a whole later experience. Views about the U.S. had changed then, and they didn't, because they were very disrespectful of their culture, very disrespectful. You know, you'd have the wives of these helicopter repairmen running around jogging in their bras, in their tights, you know, just going down the streets. And, you know, you don't dress like that.

Julius Sztuk: Mm hmm.

Kathleen MacLeod: Just ugly American stuff. They weren't acculturized.

Julius Sztuk: Not Peace Corps.

Kathleen MacLeod: Not Peace Corps. And they would have dogs and, oh, what is that? You know, and so the Peace Corps volunteer has a very hard time. And as the story goes, I don't know. There's some differences about why the Peace Corps left three years before the, the revolution, and in part because of they just couldn't, they just couldn't overcome the bad image of Americans.

Julius Sztuk: Well, what was the standard of living in the country? Like you were in towns where people were middle class, but so was the overall standard of living pretty good or was there poverty anywhere?

Kathleen MacLeod: Well, it was growing. There was, there was poverty in some of the villages, yes. But, you know, and he was, the Shah was sending out the education corps to get teachers out and in the villages and getting the health care out, you know. So the standard then, they did have poor villages and a lot of people there wore their chador. In the cities, it was a mix. The Shah's father, he's the one in 1942 or something like that when he came in, he, uh, would, you know, he just decreed no more. We're going to be modern. Just like that. And we're not going to have. He came in '28, I think died in '42, something like that.

Anyway, during his time he decreed you shall not be seen in public with your chador on. Women could not be seen in public. They were traumatized. You know, they just, it was like being nude. They just wouldn't go out, a lot of them, until the younger ones started coming along in school. But then you still had more devout people. Girls would come to school with their, they're more villagers and they had lower incomes and stuff, would come and wear their chador to school. So you had a mix of in these towns.

Julius Sztuk: So if the standard of living was relatively high and education and stuff would Peace, was Peace Corps' main goal there English, teaching English?

Kathleen MacLeod: Well, they had, they wanted that. They needed to know that so they can engage in the, with commerce. But they did have the, as I said, they had architects going in working on public parks and they had community development more in the villages. Yeah, they had both. It was both. They had a real mix. They had two professors in the university. They were part of that. And of course then they didn't want to be displacing Iranian teachers. So that was a touchy issue.

But Iran is a pretty educated. Now I don't think Iran would qualify for Peace Corps. I think part of our goal then was part of the Cold War with being close to Russia. So I don't know that Iran was as desperately poor as some other countries that we could have gone to. But there was a strategic interest in having Peace Corps there at that time.

Julius Sztuk: Sure.

Kathleen MacLeod: So and of course, we're always thought we were spies, CIA spies, you know. So that was part of it.

Julius Sztuk: So looking back, what do you think were your, your main accomplishments there?

Kathleen MacLeod: Just friendship, just really, maybe a few people.

Julius Sztuk: Personal relationships.

Kathleen MacLeod: Personal relations. Yeah. That's, I don't know. People learned some English. One young girl was determined. She just hung around me. And I'd love to catch up with her, that student. She says, I am going to marry American and go to the U.S. So I want to know English so I can talk to them. All right. So she was really a good student, but I heard she did finally met somebody in the Army. She was able to, but she was not respected very much because she. You're not supposed to be that forward with men in that culture, you know, but she. She knew she didn't want to be part of this. And she, I think she finally married one. So I would love to catch up with her and see.

Julius Sztuk: I hope it worked out for her.

Kathleen MacLeod: Hope it worked, yes, so.

Julius Sztuk: So do you have any regrets about your service?

Kathleen MacLeod: No, I don't think so. It was such a learning experience. It was, shaped, it, that shaped every single facet of my life. That experience.

Julius Sztuk: Did it?

Kathleen MacLeod: Everything.

Julius Sztuk: Peace Corps had an.

Kathleen MacLeod: Enormous impact.

Julius Sztuk: Since the early sixties.

Kathleen MacLeod: First love life. I never had dated before. Oh, I learned about, I became, ultimately became a Unitarian because I lived in, at the time she, she was Muslim and she marries this Zoroastrian. What's that? Two different religions. I wasn't even supposed to date Catholics growing up. I was, what? Here we weren't supposed to date Catholics. And there's, what am I here for? These are two different religions, for God's sakes. And they're, they're further ahead than I, than we, than San Diego was. And their whole social group, as I say, they were all physicians. I mean, it was broader intellectuals too. I, we, they had Baha'i friends, Assyrian Christians, Armenian Christians. They had, as I say, Baha'is. They had Jews from a kibbutz that were over there advising Iran.

Julius Sztuk: So it opened your eyes to a bigger world.

Kathleen MacLeod: Bigger world. And my faith, I said, well, I can't be a Christian if all these people are going to hell, there's something wrong. If that's what it, to be a Christian, they have to be condemned. I, oh, no, there's, I have to rethink that. So that was my opening to becoming, it took me a while, but I eventually got to be a UU at 48 or something. And then, so I got my faith. Oh, my career.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: Because I had worked in this. Oh, I didn't. Oh, no. There's, there was a benefit. So living with this medical community and learning the plight of women and not being able to plan or space their children. And I had now worked in this clinic in Tehran that was trying to start now with IUDs. So because of my one-to-one connections with the, with some of the physicians, particularly women, women gynecologists there in the town, I said, you know, you might want to check out this School of Social Work because they are giving contraception out. So I gave them the contact from the school.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: And so and then later I heard, yeah, we got some contraception for our patients.

Julius Sztuk: Cool.

Kathleen MacLeod: So that was a benefit, I think, besides. But that wasn't my, that was just an aside. It wasn't my job, you know, it's just that you get into these things if you're kind of open to it and you see an opportunity and how you can fill a void. So.

Julius Sztuk: Well, you said Peace Corps influenced your career. What did you go after?

Kathleen MacLeod: So after that, I ended up working in what they had then, the War on Poverty. I worked in a poverty program. And then so somebody advised me because I had a teaching credential. Oh, that's the other thing I know. I ended up, well, the end of the story about my career was I ended up going, ultimately going back to school in public health.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: Someone told me, you should be a public health educator. You could do that.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: So I checked into it and I ended up in public health administration. But then at the county, when they had a CIDA program, I applied and I put on there and I had, did get a, it was ultimately a master's in public administration, but it was with a specialty in health care, community health care. And that, and I mentioned that I had worked in Peace Corps and got involved with family planning from that experience. And so I ended up, the county saw that on my resume, and says we need somebody to administer our federal Title X program. So that was my career and got into that whole thing. And so it helped my, my, so it helped in my career.

Julius Sztuk: Mm hmm.

Kathleen MacLeod: Dear friendships, my whole life that's around, you know, keep up with our informants, the Iranian teachers and my friends here. And so it helped my social life. Uh, my views about foreign policy, because I learned about the Mossadeq and our nasty CIA work that we do undercover and how we let down, you know, we don't live up to our values, you know, around the world. And so, yeah, it's every, I can't think of anything that it didn't, hasn't had a positive effect on it.

Julius Sztuk: Great.

Kathleen MacLeod: So.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah. So you don't have any regrets at all?

Kathleen MacLeod: No. No. I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. It was a whole world change for me.

Julius Sztuk: And over the years, have you ever had occasion to talk to somebody who is considering Peace Corps service? And what would you tell them?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, I said, be, oh, but by all means, it was the biggest, changed my worldview. Oh, be sure to go, you know, you'll. Yeah, be sure. They have no, you know, it just, it's, it's, so it's such a benefit to young people, especially if you're young I think. Maybe old people too if they go in. But especially I think it was coming of age experience, too, I think is part of it. But it was, yeah. And I eat, my cuisine, I eat Persian food all the time.

Julius Sztuk: Oh, that reminds me of a question.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah.

Julius Sztuk: One of the things that, uh, that people think about when they consider Peace Corps is, oh, I got to eat weird stuff, you know. Did you, would you have any, uh, were there any kind of foods that you just?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, they have, their food is wonderful. It's an exquisite cuisine.

Julius Sztuk: You didn't run into anything that we would consider weird?

Kathleen MacLeod: Well, yeah, they had the sheep. What is it? The sheep testicles or something that they grill. And you can eat that on your rice. I said, well. I think your kidneys and that stuff.

Julius Sztuk: And what was your favorite food?

Kathleen MacLeod: Oh, man. They have a lot. They have stews and khoreshes. I don't know. It's wonderful food. The people can really, it's really exquisite, the spices and the way they cook. My favorite, I don't know. Khoresh, really. You know, they have one like. They cook, they make stews with whatever vegetables are in season. So it could be eggplant. And then they make a stew of it and eat it with very little meat, basically, because they can't afford much. But eat that over rice. And the rice is wonderful. So it's just, we were lucky to be in Iran. I've heard of people's other, other countries is their diet isn't that interesting.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah.

Kathleen MacLeod: I've heard. I visited Belize later and I knew they had volunteers there and I was eating their food. This diet, oh my goodness, is so limited, you know, but. Oh, no, ours was just robust.

Julius Sztuk: Rich.

Kathleen MacLeod: Very rich, yeah. It's very Middle Eastern, but it's, they have their own variety. Yeah. Have you had Iranian food ever?

Julius Sztuk: I've had Middle Eastern food, I don't know anything specifically, but I love Middle Eastern food.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, it's, it's a little different, but it's wonderful. Yeah. Right.

Julius Sztuk: Any other thoughts or last thoughts or stories that you'd like to share?

Kathleen MacLeod: I can't think of any. I think I got. Oh. Oh, the other one I told too. Oh, that's the other thing is that it saved my life.

Julius Sztuk: Peace Corps saved your life?

Kathleen MacLeod: Peace Corps, well, Iran. Iran physicians. I had, that was the other thing. My health too. And one day I went to a village where another Peace Corps volunteer was. I mean, he's written a book about his experience actually, this person that lives in a village. His name is Tom Klobe. And I went to visit him, took the bus out there. [phone rings] That's supposed to be low. Yes. Took a bus to see Tom Klobe and walking through a village. His was a real village, you know, kind of, I don't know, mud huts and things. Walking through the village to his, where his little abode was, there was a shepherd coming down the street, the alley there kind of, it's not much of a street, it's all dirt and stuff. And so he comes and the sheep, they just pass you and they, you know, they make way for you and get around you as they're going. And that's, that's what I attribute it to.

So a few days later, I don't know when it was, all of a sudden I got this, um, what I thought was a flea bite on my leg, and it would get itching and itching. And of course, I live with this midwife and I don't know if I got, I wasn't feeling well, and she came to check on me or, I don't know, I've got this fever. She said, oh, you've got a fever, what is going on? I said, I don't know what it is. Looks like I've got an infected flea bite here. And she looked at it and she said, oh no, that looks like, in Farsi it's called black wound. Looks like black wound. What's that? So I go to my dictionary and look it up and she gave me the Farsi word. Anthrax. Anthrax! So she, of course, she called Peace Corps doctors, you know. And so I said anthrax.

And she called all the, you know, they're in this medical community and they come in and a couple doctors, ah, yep. And they have some powder. I don't know what it was. They poured it on there. And I get over it and, you know, get over the thing. And of course, the Peace Corps people, they came. They looked it up, oh my God, you're dying. And they come and say, how are you? How are you? And all. I said, well, that's what they said, it's black wound. And of course, I called Peace Corps and he's calling. Oh my God, what if Congress hears about a Peace Corps volunteer dying of anthrax, you know?

Julius Sztuk: They probably wanted to medevac you.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah, right. And so they talked to them, the other doctor. Nah, she's fine. We did, you know, we dealt with it. So later on I said, oh, it wasn't that. It couldn't have been. That's deadly. So later on I came back here and I had to go to a regular doctor and I told them about it. He said, no, I bet it was.

Julius Sztuk: Yeah?

Kathleen MacLeod: I bet it was. Don't doubt that. They see it all the time. You get it from sheep.

Julius Sztuk: So they know what to do with it.

Kathleen MacLeod: They knew what to do with it. He said that you probably got it when you went to the village. A sheep, it was on a sheep skin and he rubbed you as he went by in that, that shepherd, as he went by and the spore got on you and that's what it was. And he said, there's. I've since learned there's two kinds of anthrax, a topical one, and then the one in your lungs, which is the fatal one. But he said, you know, there was a case he had read. There was a case in Ohio or something. Somebody got that and they didn't know what it was and he died. So you were lucky. They knew, they treat it all the time. So.

Julius Sztuk: Well, I don't know if you'd say Peace Corps saved your life or almost killed you.

Kathleen MacLeod: Right. So that was the other thing. It was good to, eh. Or I was guilty, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but I was lucky. Yeah. So.

Julius Sztuk: Great. Well, you had a great experience and very interesting interview.

Kathleen MacLeod: Thank you. Thank you, Jay.

Julius Sztuk: You have anything else?

Kathleen MacLeod: No, I don't think I have any.

Julius Sztuk: Okay.

Kathleen MacLeod: Yeah. Do you, have you interviewed anybody.