Peter Sebastian remembers when he met his wife, Harvel, in New York. "It was pretty mundane — we were on a double date that had been arranged by friends, and not until we switched partners did it get better. Ten days later, Harvel and I were engaged, and we got married six weeks later," he says. The couple will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this December and have shared the world together.

Peter Sebastian served as an international diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service for more than half his life. His last assignment was as the ambassador to Tunisia. Before that, he was the interim deputy ambassador to Morocco, where he had three different diplomatic assignments. He also worked in France and Ethiopia, and spent many years living in Central Africa.

"I was sent to Africa during the Cold War when the colonial empires were giving the African colonies their independence. My first embassy office in Bangui was a thatched hut," Sebastian said.

It was Sebastian's ability to speak French, German, Italian, Spanish and English that led to a career in the Foreign Service; as the 84-year-old said, "I was born in Berlin in 1926, so I learned to speak several languages as a child."

According to Sebastian, he moved to the Chicago suburbs in 1941 and attended Maine Township High School. He was drafted into the Army during World War II, where he served in the Philippines and Japan. After his military service, Sebastian took advantage of the G.I. Bill and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago.

"After I graduated I moved back to New York, where I made a living as a translator, and that's when I decided to take the Foreign Service exam," he says.

Harvel Sebastian, who is 81, speaks English, Spanish, Arabic and French. She is a social anthropologist and planner with degrees from American University, the University of Virginia and has done masters degree studies at the London School of Economics. Her training in social structure coincided perfectly with her husband's international work.

"It's so interesting to see how certain groups of people have managed to overcome such difficult situations for such a long time," she said.

Although the couple have lived all over the world, Santa Fe was the place they chose to spend their golden years. As Peter explains, "When it came time to retire, we made a list of things that were important to us: We wanted to live in a small, face-to-face community with a decent climate, that was both cultural and had access to an intellectual community — and Santa Fe has it all."

It was Harvel who introduced Peter to Santa Fe back in 1950, when he came here to meet her father, who was a surgeon in town. In 1933, Dr. William Elton Huddleston settled in Santa Fe after receiving his medical degree in Manchester, England. He was raised on a ranch in West Texas, so he enjoyed living in the rugged outdoors.

"My parents had divorced, but I would come to stay with my father every summer," Harvel says. "He had built a little cabin in Hyde Park on a ledge above a stream. Every weekend we would go there, where we cooked over campfire and kept the butter and lard cool in the stream — it was heaven," Harvel remembers.

The Sebastians agree that they've had a remarkable journey together.

"One of these days I'm going to put all of the photos from our international travels into an album," Harvel said.

Ana Pacheco's weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Sunday. She can be reached at 505-474-2800.