The Washington, DC. (and NYC, and London) Dalrymples


Will and Elena, Dan, Dana and Helen Dalrymple

HELEN AND DANA DALRYMPLE

Helen and Dana Dalrymple live in a small brick house at 2825 Arizona Avenue in the far corner of northwest Washington, D.C., not far from the Potomac River (Virginia border) and the Maryland state line.  They bought the house in 1970 when Helen was pregnant with eldest son Dan for $41,500 (which seemed a princely sum at the time) and moved in in late October that same year.  Guess what?  They still live there (along with more than a few mementoes belonging to Dan, such as paintings/drawings, ephemera, and the former kitchen cabinets)!

Helen and Dana met in 1965 in the elevator (honest!) of the high-rise apartment building in southwest Washington where they both lived with roommates.  Dana was working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as an agricultural economist and Helen worked in the Senate for Leverett Saltonstall (R-Mass.).  Dana had his B.S. (1954) and M.S. (1956) from Cornell University, and earned his Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Michigan State University in 1962.  Helen graduated from Bates College in 1961 with a B.A. in American government.

 They have two sons, Dan, now 30, and Will, 26, who are living in New York City and Bexley, Kent, England, respectively.

Both Dana and Helen continue to work for the federal government.  Helen has worked at the Library of Congress since 1967 (with time out from 1981 to 1987 when she was writing books with a former colleague) and is now in the Public Affairs Office.  Her official title is Senior Public Affairs Specialist; unofficially, she is deputy Public Affairs Officer. She thinks about retirement occasionally (the extra time would be lovely, but the loss of income would not), but as long as she enjoys her work (and her boss) she will probably stick it out for a few more years.

Dana is still officially a USDA employee but on fulltime detail to the Agency for International Development (AID).  He started working with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), centered at the World Bank, soon after its inception in 1972 and is now one of its "grand old men."  The United States, through AID, is a major donor to the CGIAR system.  The CGIAR now sponsors 16 international centers around the world, focusing on research on different crops to help feed developing countries.  Dana works with both the CGIAR central offices and the centers themselves on policies, programs and budgets.  Through the years, Dana has had an opportunity to travel to most of the centers and to attend international meetings in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.  Helen has tagged along twice when the meetings were attractively sited (Canberra and Dresden). 

Dana continues to enjoy his work and is NOT thinking about retirement anytime soon.  And it's probably a good thing; because after nearly 30 years he is beginning to get the hang of the job!

 

DANIEL WHEATLEY DALRYMPLE

Dan is the focused member of the family.  He has always known what he wanted to do, and he just kept going until he got there.  He is a collector (oy vay!) and an artist and is now happily living in Brooklyn and working as a carpenter and props man for the Joseph Papp Public Theater in lower Manhattan. 

Dan graduated from Parsons School of Design and the New School in New York City in 1993.  After stints working at (and reorganizing) a used book store in Camden, Maine (where a piece of his heart still resides), a couple of years building Mardi Gras floats in New Orleans, and traveling around the country in a van, he returned to New York to pursue a career in art.  The theater seems to fill the bill for him, with lots of interesting people and work that keeps him challenged (like building a ten-foot-high head of Julius Caesar out of wood-framed papier mache; creating a lifelike seagull whose wings move).

Dan always has a bunch of other projects of his own underway, as well from hunting down offbeat historical details about the city and the neighborhoods where he lives and works to compiling an excruciatingly detailed genealogical history of the Wheatleys and the Dalrymples by writing to and visiting long lost relatives all over the country.

Call him if you are visiting New York!

WILL, ELENA, KATE & TOM DALRYMPLE

Will (William Douglas) and Elena (Ghiringhelli) Dalrymple live in a 19th century row house in the village of Bexley, Kent, about 30 miles southeast of London with their daughter, Kate and their son, Tom.  They were married in July 1998 and bought their house in December 1999.  Elena is the Acting Deputy Editor of a glossy magazine for new mothers called Pregnancy and Birth, and Will is Assistant Editor of a magazine for businesses called Mind Your Own Business.  They both work in London.

Will and El met at Will's high school in Washington, D.C., when she was visiting a friend who was an exchange student there.  They kept in touch over the years, while he went off to Cornell University and she to St. Hilda's at Oxford.  They saw each other every summer, and by the time they were both graduating in 1997, it was clear that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.  Fortunately, Elena's mother had a flat (that's an apartment for you Yankees) in Sidcup, outside of London, so they lived there from June 1997 to December 1999.  During that time they both completed graduate programs in London: El in periodical journalism at City University, and Will at Imperial College, University of London, for an M.S. in the history of science, technology and medicine.

When Will and Elena aren't working, they spend a lot of time modernizing their Victorian-era row house, and they travel to warm, sunny places whenever they can.  Elena grew up in Milan, and she misses the sun.  Her mother, Ann, is British and comes to London frequently; her father, Gianni, is Italian and also travels frequently as a contractor working on large computer systems.