Remembering Molly Bartlett: ‘Lovely, Delightful, An Inspiring Icon’
Molly Bartlett, wife of advisory trustee and former AUC President Thomas Bartlett, died last week. Read her obituary here.
“Anyone who knows the history of AUC understands that few families have given as much of themselves or done more for the institution over that many decades as the Bartlett family, whose contributions began in 1963 and continue to this day. None of that would have been possible without Molly,” said President Ahmad Dallal in his condolence message to the AUC community.
Molly first got to know Thomas Bartlett as a graduate student. “I went to Duke University and got a degree in sociology and then on to Stanford to graduate school where I met Thomas A. Bartlett. And we got married in three months,” she recounted in a 2013 oral history interview by the University Archives.
Molly was an active and energetic member of the AUC community. Her dedication and warmth set her apart, and that is how she is fondly remembered by those who knew her, including family, friends and colleagues.
“Mom’s life was defined by empathy," said AUC Trustee Richard Bartlett, managing director of Resource Holdings. "She could relate to anyone and saw value in everyone. Mom’s gratitude for her own life fueled her energy to make the world a fairer place for others.”
Tim Sullivan, provost emeritus and former political science professor, admired Molly's sincerity and amiability. “Over a period of many years, we found Molly to be a kind, generous and unpretentious person who was incredibly supportive of family and friends,” he said. “She was a gracious hostess, a good listener and was very comfortable to be with. She will be greatly missed by everyone who had the privilege of getting to know her.”
Shahira El Sawy '65, '91, dean emerita, shared similar sentiments: "Molly was an admirable person and a good friend. Whenever she came to Cairo during the Board of Trustees meetings, she would make it a point for us to meet together with other mutual friends."
“My Career Has Been Hostess”
During President Bartlett’s tenure in the 1960s, Molly and her husband searched for apartments and villas in Maadi to house American faculty members and their families. She also furnished these apartments and helped international faculty settle in, as Lawrence R. Murphy recounts in his book, The American University in Cairo: 1919-1987.
“Molly and other faculty women helped decorate apartments in other residential sections fairly near the campus for faculty members, graduate assistants and teaching fellows. They also prepared a manual called ‘Hand-Me-Downs’ to help foreign families adjust to Cairo and gave orientation sessions for newly arrived faculty members and their families.”
Molly recalled those days in her oral history interview: “[Abdel Messih Meawad, the longest-serving employee in AUC’s history] and I together spent a lot of time trying to find faculty housing because what was happening was that American faculty members would come and then they were on their own to find an apartment. And that was really quite difficult, and so Abdel Messih and I — particularly Abdel Messih ’cause he spoke Arabic — would find an apartment and then he and I together would furnish [it]. And that wasn’t easy in those days because nothing was being imported and you had to have furniture made by hand. … You didn’t just go into a furniture store and buy a sofa. But we had fun.”
It wasn’t only faculty apartments but the campus as well. In AUC Tahrir Square, the antique and exquisite furniture that was in the Palace Building, Office of the President and Trustees Room was bought by the Bartletts. “In those days, the official policy was to do everything modern and so beautiful — Louis Quinze furniture,” recounted Molly. “So there was this lovely villa in downtown Cairo, and they were going to smash it down and build a tall building. … It was gorgeous [with] a very large salon and had the furniture that is now in the Trustees Room and some of it is in the president’s office. … As you walk out of the president’s office, [on] the opposite wall, there’s a lovely door [from that villa made of] inlaid wood — different levels of wood carved and then ivory … and mother-of-pearl inlaid as well. … magnificent.”
Describing her work at AUC during her husband’s tenure, Molly said, “My career has been hostess.”
Molly was proud of her husband and his accomplishments, having served as chancellor of the State University of New York, University of Alabama System and University of Oregon System as well as president of the Association of American Universities, Colgate University and, of course, AUC. “He was the youngest American president ever. I don’t mean … here, the University. I mean in all of the United States of America,” said Molly.
She recounted the time when Thomas Bartlett was interviewed to be chancellor of the University of Alabama System: “They were very hospitable and said, ‘Surely Mrs. Bartlett, you can sit and listen into this interview.’ … They looked at Tom’s resume, and one of them said, ‘Dr. Bartlett, you have an interesting resume. The only rank you’ve ever had is president.’”
Beyond her “hostess career,” Molly helped recruit and locate American administrators for the New York Office, one of whom was the late Mark Linz, former AUC Press director who served the University for nearly two decades.
Even after the couple left AUC, Molly continued to be engaged. In the early 1980s, she represented AUC in Washington, and she, along with Trustee Thomas Bartlett and President Richard Pederson, managed to secure EGP 18.75 million grants for AUC from the U.S. Senate to meet expenses. They also “launched a concerted effort to familiarize State Department, AID, and other administrative officials, as well as congressmen, senators, and their staff with AUC’s services and needs and with the desirability of meeting those needs through an endowment. Mrs. Bartlett’s work established a solid groundwork of understanding and sympathetic attitudes that laid the foundation for future progress,” noted Murphy.
Molly Bartlett: AUC Memories
‘Egypt Changed [Our] Lives’
At the end of President Bartlett’s tenure in 1969, Molly said, “I don’t want to ever leave Egypt,” which was a “complete flip-flop,” as she described, compared to when the couple was due to arrive in Egypt and didn’t know anything about the country.
And people in Egypt loved them back. “Oh Molly! She was lovely … delightful, really delightful. Their house was open to everybody, and they were very sociable. … Everybody knew them. … They were really, very popular,” said Amina Taher El Lozy ’67, ’72 in a 2014 oral history interview with the University Archives. Taher, who taught English language and writing at AUC from 1972 to 1992, would go for a walk with Molly every day in the Gezira Club when Thomas Bartlett served as interim president in 2002-2003.
The couple's warmth is what made them so popular. "Tom and Molly would host regular meetings with faculty and staff throughout the year at their home in Zamalek when Tom was interim president. This was unprecedented," said El Sawy. "Molly would interact and converse with them, showing a genuine interest in their careers and well-being. It exemplified how much she was part of the AUC family. Tom and Molly both encouraged cultural activities at the University. This played a big role and contributed [significantly] to what AUC is now."
Personal gestures also affected Molly's friends and colleagues. "Tom and Molly attended our wedding in 1967. My husband was then AUC's chief engineer," reflected El Sawy. "Molly told me that our wedding was the first time she danced with one of her sons. Richard Bartlett shared a photo of the wedding during the dinner event in Tathir in October 2021. I was very touched. This is the last time I saw Molly, and I will always cherish and remember that day. Another thoughtful gesture by Molly was that after my husband's passing, she visited my young sons and me at our home on Mother's Day, and we had a cake together. It showed how much she cared for us all at AUC."
The couple’s time in Egypt and at AUC not only affected them but their sons as well. “It was very important to our children to have had that experience. When we went back to the United States, they were very aware of the differences … in the world that when normally you’re a 12-year-old, you wouldn’t have a clue,” Molly said. “I remember them in Maadi jumping up on a donkey cart and riding along for three or four blocks and jumping off and saying ‘shukran’ and off they [went]. ... They rode their bikes and were on their own. But because we were so fortunate to be living in a very open, safe, small place.”
And the Bartlett sons grew to be engaged with AUC. Richard Bartlett served as three-time chair of the Board of Trustees and is the first and only chair emeritus in the University’s history, and Paul is a longtime supporter of the University. “Egypt changed their lives when they were little boys, and so I think they feel very pleased to be doing something here,” reflected Molly.
As a gift to AUC, Molly and President Bartlett donated the fountain on the Tahrir Square campus. “We wanted to leave something behind when we were leaving, … and I went down to Khan E Khalili,” said Molly. “I cannot tell you where, but there was a fountain for sale! Imagine. And so we bought it. And there it is. And it’s still doing fine. Alhamdulillah.”
The Bartletts’ contributions to AUC are everlasting. In 2011, Richard Bartlett established the Molly Bartlett Endowed Scholarship in his mother’s name to cover the full expenses of talented public school students who wish to attend AUC. Molly personally met many of the scholarship recipients and followed up on their progress and success.
The Bartletts have also supported numerous other scholarships, AUC Press and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad. They have donated to the renovation of Ewart Memorial Hall, which Molly described as “the most beautiful room in Cairo” and where two seats bear the couple’s names. They have named the student lounge, or The Bartlett Room, on the New Cairo campus, in addition to other ways of giving back to AUC, the most recent of which is attending the University’s 2019 centennial celebration and President Ahmad Dallal’s inauguration in 2021. “I recalled how honored and moved I was that AUC’s fourth president and his spouse made the journey to Cairo to be there. It is a reflection of their profound connection to AUC,” said Dallal.
The couple’s service to the University was recognized at a special dinner in their honor at the 2021 Board of Trustees meeting in Cairo.
‘This Will Be Exciting. I Want to Stay’
Full of life, Molly liked to experience new and different things. “We had a tent out in the desert,” she said. “We’d go out there, … take a couple of other kids and spend the night out in the middle of nowhere with our tent. It was quite a different place than now.”
Even during the 1967 war, when the U.S. embassy urged all wives and children to leave the country, Molly told her husband, “Oh, I don’t want to leave. This will be exciting; I want to stay.” She had to leave, of course, and went to a Greek island. “There was no way in those days that we could talk to our husbands by phone; there was no email or anything like that. [Thomas Bartlett] would telex occasionally, and then the people in the office in New York would call and let me know what he was saying.”
Molly was also known for her red, two-seater sports car. “I got a little red Fiat convertible,” she said. “I drove the convertible myself, and it took us, at most, 20 minutes. We were never delayed. The highway between Maadi and downtown Cairo was mostly agricultural.”
Rowaida Saad-Eldin ’75, ’88, senior assistant to the AUC president from 1990 to 2005, reflected on those days and on Molly as a person: “The stunning lady who arrived on campus in her small red car was Mrs. Marie Louise Bartlett, wife of Dr. Thomas Bartlett, president of AUC at the time. Mrs. Bartlett was not only a devoted wife, but she was also the president’s accomplished business partner and invaluable support. Mrs. Bartlett continued to be passionately engaged with AUC and its community of faculty, staff and students until the last day of her rich life. She was loved, admired and respected by all. Mrs. Bartlett was, and will remain, an inspiring icon in the history of AUC. May God bless her benevolent soul.”
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Molly Bartlett’s quotes in the story are from her oral history interview conducted by the University Archives in 2013.
