Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2008-055-001
Betsy Markland Schwartz served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala from 1963 to 1965 on rural community development projects. She was in training at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. Once in Guatemala, Schwartz was assigned to the town of Quezaltepeque with two other new volunteers and initially worked in a CARE school lunch program. After several months, she married a fellow Peace Corps volunteer and the couple was reassigned to Flores in the northern Peten region. When Betsy became pregnant, the Peace Corps moved them to Aldea Lo De Bran on the outskirts of Guatemala City where she worked on Spanish literacy, health and sanitation, and building latrines. She eventually gave birth while still serving as a volunteer. After Peace Corps, the young family spent six years in Colombia and Ecuador. Schwartz went back to Guatemala for a visit in 1995. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, March 1, 2008. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).