Service, Caroline Schulz, 1909-1997.

Biography

Caroline Edward Service was born November 30, 1909, in Kansas City, Missouri, the third daughter of Col. Edward Hugh Schulz and his wife, Katherine Muhleman Schulz. Her father was a career army officer who had graduated first in his class from West Point in 1895 and went on to a career in the Engineers Corp, retiring from the Presidio in San Francisco in 1938.

Caroline attended Oberlin College, receiving a B.A. in 1931. There she met John Stewart Service, known as Jack. They were married in Haiphong, French Indo-China in 1933, en route to Service’s first assignment at the Consulate in Kunming. A daughter, Virginia, was born there, and a son, Robert, when they moved to Beijing. Following a tour of duty in Shanghai, Caroline and the two children were repatriated to the United States in late 1940 and spent the war years in Berkeley, Calif., with Caroline’s parents. Following the birth of their third child, Philip, in 1945, the Services served two years in New Zealand. While there, Caroline became a good friend with Lisa Green, wife of Marshall Green. They corresponded almost continually for the next 50 years.

In 1950/51, Caroline and the children spent a year in New Delhi waiting for Jack to join them. He had been caught up in the McCarthy-inspired purges of government officials and was fired from the State Department in December 1951. The Services moved to New York for five years where Jack worked for a steam trap company and Caroline contributed to family finances by working in a jewelry store. In 1957 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Service reinstated. Their last post was in Liverpool, England.

In 1962, the Services returned to California. They lived for many years in north Berkeley, before moving to a retirement home in Oakland in 1986. Caroline accompanied her husband on four trips to China beginning in 1971, and wrote a few articles. She was also an amateur poet. Caroline Service died in 1997.

Written by son, Robert E. Service, 10 February 2002.

From the guide to the Caroline Schulz Service Papers, 1919-1997, (The Bancroft Library)