ROOTED DEEP IN IC SOIL

The Glassware Shop of my Grandfather
 manned by my uncle  Mohyeddine

Some time in the past during the first world war year of 1916, an American foreigner, window shopping in the back street of what is now the Beirut Municipality Building, known then as the Glassware Souk or  القزاز)  سوق ,) went into a shop and was welcomed by a ten year old boy. The American shopper struck a conversation with the young boy and was impressed by his outspokenness and eloquence. In those days, foreigners living in Lebanon had to speak the Arabic language to be able to get along. Upon asking the owner of the shop, the boy’s father, of the school he sent his son to, he got the answer that it was one of the local “Sheikh” schools the Moslem residents of Ras Beirut used to send their sons to. The shopper advised the shop owner to send his son to the then preparatory school of the American Syrian College. The shop owner went by that advice and that is how my father Salaheddin Omar Yamout joined the Preparatory School of the American Syrian College. I do not know what exactly the name of the school was then. Definitely it was not the International College, now better known as IC. A couple of years back, I was fortunate to obtain my father’s transcript from IC (Fig. 1 below.) No heading for the name of the school appears.

Interesting thing about this transcript are the grades that my father got. Highest in ethics and lowest in Turkish and French. The teaching of the Turkish language was mandatory then, as Lebanon was still under the Ottoman rule.  It reveals his character as a highly ethical Arab Nationalist, a family trait. Also interesting is the nomenclature of the progress of class grades. It starts from II Grade, III Grade, IF, IIF to IIIF. I guess the F stands for “Freshmen” contrary to the present referral of Freshmen as the starting year at University level.

My father would tell me that during those days, the principal knew the names of all the students. He used to reminisce his association with his teacher Farid Medawar ( One of his daughter later became Mrs. Thomas Schuler.) Mr. Medawar was my father’s ideal teacher, and in addition to teaching, he used to organize a theatrical group of the school and teach them the fundamentals of acting.

Salah Yamout Boy Scout 1921

Likewise, one of his reminisces involved a young boys’ prank in class. It happened during one of the daytime recesses after the teacher and students vacated the classroom in Bliss Hall. One of the student who belonged to the prominent Salam family, a brother of the late Saeb Salam, arranged with a shepherd whose sheep were grazing on campus to have his sheep herded into the classroom. So imagine the reaction of the teacher when he came back to the class, opened the door to get in, and rather than face students on their seats waiting for him, he is swarmed with a flock of sheep rushing to get out. One thing that strikes me about this story though, is the presence of a shepherd with his sheep on campus. Tells how much the campus was an open place at that time. None of the security issues that plague our times.

My father loved and knew by heart and used to sing to his last days the song “Stop for the Hours are Flying.” In those days, as in ours, it used to end with “Ever live our AUB,” revealing the affiliation of IC with AUB. From time to time, I would spot him murmuring with enthusiasm to himself  VICTORY….. VICTORA ……….  V..I..C..T..O..R..Y and I would know that he was relishing one of those sweet moments of the victory of their football team over some other visiting team.

I have here with me shown below a picture of my father as a 15 year old boy scout holding his patrol flag (dated 1921.)

Graduating Class of 1924

My father graduated 1924 from class FIV. His grades for this class do not show in the transcript above.

Below is a photo of the graduating class for that year. My father is first row second from right.

Notice how the students were all well attired…. suits, neckties, bowties, you have to remember these are students of what now is equivalent to Bac 1. Notice this class FIV is referred to as  (إستعدادي الأحداث قسم  الرابع الصف.)

My father later joined AUB and graduated with a BA in 1930. To be able to support his studies at AUB, he went to the village of KARAK in Jordan and taught in a Bedouin school for one year mostly of the Al-Majali tribe. He had to dress as a Bedouin as shown below to be accepted by the Bedouin community.

A funny story my father recounted to me that happened during his teaching year at Karak. It shows the consequences one met when trying to plant an IC tradition in the inlands of Arabia.

Dressed as a Bedouin Teacher
circa 1927 

My father wanted to form a group of boys for a school choir to sing the Arabic national songs of that time. He tested his students one by one for the quality of the voice and picked those who qualified to from the group. The morning of the second day there was a lot of commotion outside around his residence. Bedouins on horses were circulating his residence in the way we see Red Indians circulate a caravan in western movies. They were calling for “he whose name is Salah” to come out. As it turned out, my father had failed to pick the son of the tribal chief to join choir.. This was considered a big insult to the whole of the tribe. The only retribution was for the son of the tribe chief to join, a viable way out of this quagmire.

Members of the Faculty
Preparatory School
circa 1935

After graduating from AUB, my father taught at IC sometime in the thirties. I d not have the date. Following the track of his beloved teacher and mentor Farid Mudawar, he again organized theatrical groups of students for extracurricular activities. The photo below shows him with other members of the faculty. Among his colleagues who should be in this picture but I cannot identify were Shafic Jeha, Musa Suleiman, Atef Karam, Faiz Assaad, Ahmad Qawwaf, Alexandre Wuthier, and Emile Najjar. All were there except Ahmad Qawwaf when I joined IC in 1952, Four of them taught me. My father is front row seated second from left.

After graduating form AUB with a BA in 1930 and joining the IC faculty in the thirties, my father married, lost his wife five years later, worked with IPC (Iraqi Petroleum Company), came back to AUB for two years as a student and obtained a BScE in engineering, travelled to S. Arabia, came back to Lebanon and worked with the Ministry of Public Works as an Engineering Inspector, and passed away in 1968 at the age of 62.

It was my father who initiated me into IC, where I joined in 1952 to graduate BacII 1958. The French teacher Monsieur Alexandre Wuthier who I suspect to be the tall man in the middle of the picture above, taught my father and 35 years later myself. He would always comment to me “Yamout, your fazer was better zan you.”

Eventually, I myself was able to initiate three of my children Sani, Sawsan & Karim into IC.  To continue the chain, Mr. Nadi Nader, who taught me math for both Bacc classes also taught my son Sani.

We are now three generations of IC and the fourth is on its way Inshallah, all thanks to the chance delving of that American foreigner, probably a teacher, into my grandfather’s glassware shop a hundred years back and my father being there at that time.

I have dwelled mainly on my father’s association with IC, not much on mine or my children’s. While there are many individuals around to reminisce on my period and that of my children, not much for the period of the generations before.

Recently, I received from my second cousin Hassan Yamout, who knew Daniel Bliss Jr., a letter he received from Bliss written in 1962. In this letter, Bliss mentions a very good boy Yamut boy he taught at the Junior Department of AUB in 1920. A scan of the excerpt of this letter is attached.  It aches my heart that my father, who died six years later in 1968 never saw this letter. How happy it would have made him and made us all.

Life has its ways. 

Ziad Yamout