Obituary of Mark Ward

DIAMOND POINT: Robert Mark Ward, 97, of Diamond Point, NY, passed away peacefully at his home on May 28, 2025.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Mark Ward was the son of Walter Earl Ward and Marion H. Boss. He graduated from East Aurora High School in 1944 and attended Wesleyan University in 1944-45.  He served in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II and then returned to Wesleyan University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949.  He later continued his education at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, graduating in 1961 with a Master’s degree.

Mark‘s love of and appreciation for the Adirondack Mountains developed early in lifee, while on hunting and camping trips with his father. After college, Mark‘s curiosity and adventurous spirit also led him to travel the world while working on Norwegian Merchant Marine freighters.  After a year at sea, he helped his parents to settle on a small farm in Diamond Point which they had bought as a retirement home in 1947. The family maintained a subsistence farm there.  Mark also worked as a sawmill laborer and carpenter for several years in Lake George and Warrensburg.

In 1956, Mark met Ruth Schwalb while both were working at an AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) Quaker work camp in Berlin, Germany, helping to repair homes damaged during World War II. They moved to Paris, married, had a son and then returned to live in the United States in 1958.

In 1961 Mark went to Washington, D.C. to join the newly created Agency for International Development, where he worked for 28 years until retiring from the United States Foreign Service in 1989.

He served USAID in Egypt from 1965 until 1967, then transferred to the USAID Mission in Lahore, Pakistan.  After serving in Pakistan until 1971, he returned to the United States and spent a year as a Princeton Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.  Mark then worked four years in Washington, D.C. in various regional as well as program and policy planning positions. From 1977 to 1981, he served in Morocco, and again in Egypt from 1987 to 1989, when he retired from USAID.

During the 1990s Mark joined several contract consulting teams hired to evaluate USAID project activities in renewable energy development in Africa.

After Mark’s retirement from government service, he and Ruth joined a senior housing cooperative in Berlin.  He enjoyed travel, historyy, writing, and numerous house renovation projects – always taking a hands-on role himself. 

Mark is survived by his wife, Ruth Ward; his son Alexis Ward (Catherine Ventura Ward), his daughter Beatrice Ward; his grandson, Lucas Ward; and his cousin, Susan B. Merk. Many further members of Mark’s extended family as well as close friends around the world are now joined in remembrance.

Memorial contributions in Mark Ward’s name may be made to Doctors Without Borders at www.doctorswithoutborders.org.

Services will be private and at the convenience of the family.

Please visit www.alexanderfh.net for online condolences and guest book.