The Mistress of Chocolate

Doña Josefa of Chocolate San Juan leaves a sweet legacy 1931 – 2013 “The ´clap-clap-clap´ I would hear in the evenings finally got the best of my curiosity and I knocked on her door. She told me they were ´torteando chocolate´ or making chocolate tortillas and invited me in. I was hooked from my first cup. Doña Josefa was a […]

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Walter White Jr. 1930 — 2011

by Martin Leadbitter Walter White Jr.—humorist, socialite and inventor—died in January this year, aged 80. Walter was the life and soul of the original anglophone ex-patriate community in La Antigua Guatemala, and his passing is felt as both the loss of a friend and as the loss of a symbol and unifying force. For almost 30 years (“I came down […]

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David L. Jickling

“What a fine, gentle, pleasant man he was,” recalls Luisa Wheeler of Doña Luisa’s on 4th calle, where David often enjoyed ice cream or morning coffee after checking his e-mail at a nearby internet service. Ken Veronda, another friend, added, “David leaves fond memories of his curiosity and a body of research and writings of Antigua.” David died on April […]

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Remembering Ambassador George R. Andrews

(1932-2010) one year later by Luke Slemeck In memory of my second father, loving husband of Helga, proud father of Christina and Courtenay, grandfather of Sebastien and friend of every dog and animal everywhere. A man who lived and enjoyed a rich, rewarding and fulfilling life that touched every continent on Earth. U.S. Ambassador George R. Andrews of Baltimore, Md., […]

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Anthony Wayne Berger 1944-2010

Wayne Berger, a versatile genius who spread Guatemalan voices over a radius of thousands of miles, has died in Jerusalem. He was 66. Wayne’s office always reminded me of the inside of a tackle box. But if you looked closely, you saw more than just books on biblical languages jumbled on shelves with coils of wire and spare parts for […]

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Dr. Lee Valenti 1928-2010

Dr. Lee Valenti, who like Huckleberry Finn fled from American consumerism’s attempts to “sivilize” her, has died in Panajachel. She was 82. 
The former literature professor left her job at New York’s Hoffstra University in 1975, after long involvement in anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements. With her divorce complete and her children grown, she arrived in San Miguel Allende, […]

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Dr. John Cheatham

Dr. John Cheatham passed away Monday afternoon, Nov. 2. He succumbed to a heart attack while climbing Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, USA. Hiking was a favorite recreational pastime. He recently climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and had made multiple trips to the Grand Canyon. This year, he completed a 50-mile hike from the canyon’s south rim to the north […]

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Thomas Griffin

Tom Griffin, Lake Atitlán’s resident Elvis impersonator and yodeler, has died.  The longtime resident of Santa Cruz la Laguna was 76.  He was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas. Lake Atitlán expats called him “Mississippi Tom” to distinguish him from another Texan, also named Tom, and because he settled in Mississippi in the sixties after stints in harvesting wheat, […]

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Patricia R. Cornell

Patricia Rainsford Cornell, 83, a resident of La Antigua Guatemala and Cape May Point, N.J., passed away on April 28 of cancer. Over the last 15 years, Pat lived much of the year in La Antigua, where she taught English to Guatemalans, volunteered at the library, and helped with many other activities. Pat grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pa. During […]

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“Shirtless Jack” Clinton McGovern

Jack Clinton McGovern, 64, beloved teacher and movie lore expert, has lost his battle with cancer. The Tarzan novel he was writing remains unfinished. Around election time in the United States, people would tell him, “I know whom you are voting for!” Though Jack could not vote in 1960, he canvassed for his namesake, Jack Kennedy. Twelve years later, he […]

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Bruce Barclay

Humanitarian, entrepreneur, and one of the founders of Modern Panajachel Bruce Barclay, founder of a worker’s paradise in Panajachel, has died. The New Yorker of Jewish heritage was 60. After arriving in Panajachel in 1978, Barclay had a vision for the east bank of the San Francisco River, which bisects Panajachel. He purchased the upper riverside and created a magnet […]

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