From Edward Borins '61

LTW liked to meet the students and their parents before they began their year abroad. I was a shy, protected teenager, somewhat fearful of my pending experience. I remember LTW as a polite, red-faced gentleman, and felt relieved after we had met, but still quite nervous about leaving my safe and sheltered Forest Hill Village life. I was leaving a school whose student body was almost one hundred percent Jewish. My experience with non-Jewish students was virtually nonexistent and suddenly I found myself the only Jewish male in the entire class at Neuchâtel. LTW was very interested in all religions, especially Judaism and this gave us much to talk about when I was with him. He invited me to give a talk to the student body about the history of Judaism and the state of Israel during our overseas voyage. I, in turn, learned much about Roman Catholicism.

 

I was raised in a well-educated but unsophisticated family. The first visit my parents made to Europe was while I was in Neuchâtel. LTW was a man whose life fascinated me and I was eager to learn from him about travel, art, architecture, religion, food, wine, and fine hotels. Along with teaching me about the finer things in life, LTW also taught me to care about the less fortunate. He was a very generous man, who would always be sure that the restaurant and hotel staff were adequately tipped. He apparently came from a family of means and would subsidize students who were unable to pay the full tuition at the college. He had a dry sense of humor and loved to joke with the everyday people he met on his travels.

 

I was fortunate enough to be asked by LTW to return to Neuchâtel two years after I had graduated to assist in leading the summer tour. This certainly changed my life, as it was on this summer tour that I met one of the students, Eva Bohlig, who became my wife. We married three years later and now, after fifty-two years of marriage, three children, and six grandchildren we live happily in Santa Fe, NM.