Cameron Haskin Sanders Jr.

Cameron was a Foreign Service Officer specializing in international conservation. He served in Baghdad, Rotterdam and Brussels (NATO delegation) as well as the State Department headquarters in Washington DC, and a year at Columbia School of International Affairs in New York.

He retired from the Foreign Service after 18 years to accept a fellowship at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he earned a master’s degree. He went on to work for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global conservation network organization, establishing and leading its North American regional coordinating office in Washington.

Cameron was also active in cultural and environmental groups: he chaired the Washington Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Council of the College of Preachers at the Washington National Cathedral, where he also served on the Cathedral Chapter. He served on the board of the Center for Marine Conservation (now the Ocean Conservancy), Friends of Tregaron, and the International Committee of the New York City Ballet.

He was a son of Cameron Haskin Sanders and Helen Ingersoll Sanders of Cincinnati, Ohio. Early American forebears included Governor William Bradford of Plymouth and Jonathan Edwards, the New England theologian. [His father, Cameron Sr., was a noteworthy horseman and served in the National Guard Cavalry reserve duty under Pershing on the Mexican border in pursuit of Pancho Villa. Returning via officer school in Montgomery, Alabama, Cameron Sr. frequented the Officer's Club and was a beau of Zelda Sayre, who later married F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cameron Sr. served in WWI as an artillery officer and continued as a lifelong military reservist, as executive officer of the Ohio State Guard, rising to the rank of Brigadier General.]

Cameron (Jr.) survived polio as a child but went on to swim for Cincinnati’s acclaimed Walnut Hills High School (1950). He then received a degree in French Literature from Ohio’s Kenyon College (1955), where he was social and rushing chairman for Psi Upsilon and active in campus theatre.

Cameron served two years in the Air Force, in domestic air defense ground control, followed by a year traveling in Europe, mainly in France. He then worked at LOOK magazine in New York for two years before joining the Foreign Service.

In 1961, he married Betsy Tucker, daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. Luther Tucker, in Cincinnati. Their first Foreign Service posting was to Baghdad, where their first child was born during an attempted military coup.

Cameron and Betsy spent many happy family summers in Cape Cod. They shared a lifelong love of sailing, travel, wine and gourmet food. Cameron was also a keen skier and an avid reader.

Betsy died in 2019 on the eve of their move to Ingleside at Rock Creek, where Cameron would live for the rest of his life. Their son Cam died in 2022.

Cameron is survived by their children Helen, Marcia and Nick; in-laws Julian, David, Erika and Kim; and grandchildren Jamie, Katherine, Emily, Jojo, Ben, Lillian, and Simon.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to: The Chapel of St James the Fisherman. PO Box 1334, Wellfleet, MA 02667. https://www.stjameschapelwellfleet.org/

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