Marlis Gildemeister papers

Marlis Gildemeister was born on May 16, 1917 in Miraflores, Peru, the daughter of Anita B. Gildemeister. Her full name was Maria Luisa Gildemeister, but she went by Marlis. She graduated in 1945 from the Relief & Reconstruction graduate program at Haverford College. In this program, she was was a student of Douglas Steere, who created the program. Gildemeister served with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Austria for 18 months beginning on March 13, 1946. She served again in Vienna, Austria, starting in November of 1956, for three or more months. Some of her assignments included helping displaced persons in Germany who had received their American entry papers prepare for the adjustment to life in the United States. After working with AFSC, she raised beef and grew timber on her family's alpine farm in Austria. By 1961, she was back in Peru and involved with family and business matters there, including caring for her parents, so she did not continue working with AFSC. Gildemeister remained connected to Haverford College by providing support to the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship and a gift to help fund the Douglas and Dorothy Steere Professorship in Quaker Studies. She died on May 11, 2017 in Austria.