Shakespeare Club meets
William Morgan Shuster was the subject of The Shakespeare Club meeting on October 11.
submitted by Joan Gaughan, The Shakespeare Club
On September 27, the Shakespeare Club of Manchester opened its 2022–23 season with lunch at the Over the Edge restaurant. The main business of the Club was to catch up on the events in each member’s life during the summer. Rosemary Whelan gave an update on the condition of her son, Paul, still held in prison in Russia. She told us of her daughter Elizabeth’s visit to the White House to plead for Paul’s release and her report to the Whelan family that, although Elizabeth found President Biden to be very warm and supportive, negotiations are frustratingly slow.
Chris Kanta passed out the colorful program booklets for the coming year that she had designed and had printed. Among the topics to be covered are: Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, Writing Short Stories, Fabric, A Visit to Sicily, and Color. At our meeting on November 22, Manchester resident Betty Cummings will tell us about the Seventeenth Governor of Michigan, Charles Croswell. Since many dates are open, we discussed a number of possibilities where we could engage local residents in their areas of expertise or interest.
At the meeting on October 11, Joan Gaughan’s talk was on the mission of an American accountant, Morgan Shuster, to Persia (now called Iran) at the request of its newly constituted parliament to straighten out Persia’s chaotic finances. His mission was thwarted by Russia and Great Britain, who saw Iran’s financial independence as a threat to their own imperial ambitions in the region. After six and a half months, Shuster was forced to leave and the new parliament was destroyed by Russian forces; many of its members were killed or forced into exile. However, the Shuster mission left a measure of good will among the Iranian people for Americans that has never fully evaporated.
During the roll call, each member was asked to identify a kindness that someone had done that was unexpected. The answer of several members — surprisingly in this time of “polarization” — was that there were too many to remember.
The Shakespeare Club meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month from October through May at 1pm in the library of the United Methodist Church. New members are, of course, welcome. Shakespeare would be delighted.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login