Globe-trotter, 91, has lifetime of keepsakes
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Author: Jennifer Strange (Mail Tribune)
Released 19 March 2008
Sam Whipple is a little less agile than he was 70 years ago as a globe-trotting, adventure-seeking new teacher.
At 91, he's got glaucoma in one eye, occasionally has to jog his memory and goes a little slower onto one knee when reaching behind the fireplace to find a travel treasure. But that's all just the price of a life well-lived.
Sam Whipple, 91, of Ashland, has nearly 1,000 silk ties and many other mementos collected during a lifetime of global travel. Photo by Jamie Lusch.
He still lovingly tends his lush garden, plans trips far and wide, walks the neighborhood and corresponds with fellow travelers from exotic corners of the planet. And every morning, Sam Whipple takes his place on the tree-lined parking lot outside his door and does his tai chi.
"I've done it religiously, every day, all my life," says the Ashland resident, who spent most of his working life in the Middle East, North Africa and Japan. "I'm getting a little ancient but I'm still pretty lively and let me tell you — I'm a real character; I'm not shy."
Whipple's treasures adorn every surface in his modest home. Antique brass Arabian coffee urns line the hearth, Japanese paintings elevate the bathroom to the heights of Mount Fuji, a vintage lamp from the British Embassy in Tokyo sits on a Tunisian trunk, a wall groans under black-and-white photographs by a now-famous rogue photographer named Ilo the Pirate whom Whipple hung out with in the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
Then there are personal accolades. In the hallway is a gathering of plaques, letters and photos of Whipple himself, receiving a teaching award, cutting a ribbon, directing one of seven Christian nativities he produced in the middle of a Muslim region.
"People say 'Wow!' when they first enter my apartment and most people enjoy all the mementos," says Whipple. "It's like a museum and it certainly reflects travel. I've been called a global citizen and I do recommend all of the places I've been."
Born in 1916 in Lewiston, Idaho, as one of six kids who lost their mother and were abandoned by their father, Whipple honed a sense of observation and opportunity early on. At 10, he was taken in by a generous couple in Clarkston, Wash., where he finished high school. Then it was on to junior college in Fullerton, Calif., followed by Lewiston State Normal School, where Whipple graduated from the teaching program with high honors. His first job found him teaching three children in a one-room schoolhouse in Ray's Ferry, Wash., on the Grande Ronde River.
In 1943, after teaching in Washington for five years, Whipple was drafted into the U.S. Army. Upon his discharge a year later, he took the first of many jobs that started a lifelong love affair with overseas travel: He became the first American certified teacher for the Arabian American Oil Co. in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
"In 1945, no American women or children were there and not many teachers were willing to go there either," said Whipple. "When the company asked me about the job, I said where in the hell is that? Nobody knew where Saudi Arabia was then."
With nothing but financial dreams about the oil that lay under its surface, Saudi Arabia was still primitive — roads were nothing but oil strips and the population was largely poverty-stricken.
"They were just building up — I had just one boy in my classroom the first day," Whipple remembers. He lived in a company bunkhouse, dragging his mattress to the roof at night in hopes of catching a cool desert breeze.
During his 11 years in Saudi Arabia, the enterprising teacher set up the base school, became principal of the Ras Tanura school and helped develop several other satellite schools.
After resigning from Aramco in 1954, Whipple returned to the U.S. for a brief sojourn, then moved to Iran to teach school for Esso Standard Oil bases. Then Exxon hired him to teach in Tripoli, Libya, for 12 years.
Among Whipple's keepsakes are 13 passports. Photo by Jamie Lusch.
"I've seen Saudi Arabia turn into a rich country and Qaddafi become the ruler of Libya," Whipple says.
Firmly in the grips of a relentless international travel bug, Whipple continued his global profession even after retiring from his Middle Eastern and North African assignments. This time it was Japan that called — beckoning him to teach an annual course in conversational English.
Vacations from teaching found Whipple boating down the narrowest part of Africa's Nile River, studying history at the University of Beirut, wintering in Morocco and crisscrossing Europe in a Volkswagen Transporter.
"And I've gone to five summer Olympics in my day — first in Rome, then in Tokyo, Mexico, Germany. Montreal was the most recent," Whipple says. "So I consider that quite an accomplishment."
While globetrotting, Whipple was mailing cases of souvenirs to his adoptive mom back in Lewiston. When he'd come home, he'd open the boxes and tell tales of the ebony elephants he'd found in Nairobi, the gigantic brass dinner tray from Marrakech, the Syrian messenger's bag and hundreds of silk ties he's collected over 70 years.
"My ties — I've got boxes and boxes and boxes of lovely, lovely ties," Whipple says wistfully, fingering the satiny silk that populates his bedroom to the point of practically enclosing the Japanese mattress that serves as his bed.
"I like the novelty ties, but the designer ties are my favorites," says Whipple, who scoured haberdasheries, flea markets, street stands and shops the world over for worthy additions. Now more than a thousand ties — from Armani and Versace to Johnny Carson and the Metropolitan Opera — beg to be admired.
Friends have turned some of the ties into a quilt, others into a wall-hanging. But what's a 91-year-old man to do with the remaining 999 cravats, to say nothing of three rooms packed and stacked with other valuable collectibles?
"I don't really have any family who would be interested in these things," says the never-married Whipple (he almost got hitched twice but "the first came with a mother-in-law and the second died of Alzheimer's"). "Everything's really gorgeous. I guess I'd like to sell it all, but it would hurt me to lose it, you know."
Somewhat surprisingly, Whipple is considering a large-scale sale of his mementos and is contemplating running an ad saying, "The Tieman is Ready to Sell!"
Jennifer Strange is a freelance writer living in Central Point, Oregon; you can reach her at jlstrange@hotmail.com.
This article was originally published in the Mail Tribune of Southern Oregon. Permission for reprinting was granted by City Editor Cathy Noah.