John Ordway, 89, Diplomat Whose Travels Took Him Off The Beaten Path

It wasn't enough to show the kids the pyramids of Egypt.

John Ordway packed them up again soon after to take them to Mexico's ruins for comparison.

Mr. Ordway, a diplomat and adventurous world traveler, died April 17 at his Seattle home after a long illness. He was 89.

His first job for the State Department was as a vice consul in Havana. He moved on to posts in Ceylon, Burma, England, Argentina and Iran. His career later included heading the U.S. Information Agency office in Turkey and being economic- and social-affairs officer to the United Nations. Before his retirement from the Foreign Service in 1969 he was consul general in Palermo, Italy, and Winnipeg, Canada.

Even after retirement, Mr. Ordway and his wife, Alice, continued the travel adventures he began as a restless teenager.

When he was 17, Mr. Ordway and a younger brother built a log raft to float through the Delaware Water Gap, now a recreational area near Shawnee, Pa.

After graduation from Princeton University in 1931, he was off to Mexico to buy a horse for a four-day ride through the countryside. At the first village he came to, the people turned out to marvel at the traveler in their midst. They told the naive young traveler this was bandit country - just a few years after the rebel terror of Pancho Villa, the brutal general whose forays extended north as far as New Mexico. A shoemaker who had business in the next town on Mr. Ordway's itinerary offered to ride along for safety.

Mr. Ordway was comfortable off the beaten path, taking local transportation. He traveled by donkey to remote areas of Iran that once had been home to the Assassins, a Muslim sect that gave its name to political murder.

Mr. Ordway was born at Fort Rodman, Mass., the son of an Army colonel. The family moved to Fort Worden, near Port Townsend, when he was a small child. Adventure then was a ferry trip to Seattle.

Like so many people, Mr. Ordway had a difficult time settling down to one thing in college, said a stepson, Geoffrey Matthews. He'd always been interested in languages and foreign cultures, and when a college friend mentioned the Foreign Service, he realized he was through casting about for a career.

He eventually learned to speak some French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Persian and Russian. He met Alice in a language classroom in Turkey. After a year, when he learned he was being transferred to Mexico, he asked her to marry him.

"I was about 11 when they got married," said Matthews. "He was a father to me. I was just getting to really know him when he took us to Egypt to see the pyramids. Then he took us to Mexico to see the pyramids there. He was always very interested in showing the kids the wonders of the world."

The couple retired to a home in Ballard, where Alice Ordway grew up and where many in her family still lived.

During retirement the couple continued to travel, driving to Panama and touring Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Jordan and Europe on a trip that took them around the world.

His last big trip was a drive with his wife down the coast of Yugoslavia and through Greece. He was 80.

While in Split, Yugoslavia, the Ordways ran into a political demonstration. "The only thing we could determine that they were shouting was, `Democracy! Democracy!' " Mrs. Ordway said. "While some Americans might have retreated to their hotels, we marched along with them. We found they even enjoyed stopping to talk to us and having their pictures taken."

Mr. Ordway loved golf and played Inglewood Golf Course regularly.

He is survived by his wife; son, Eric Ordway, New York City; stepchildren Matthews, Galveston, Texas, and Janet Jonak, Kent; seven grandchildren, and a sister, Nancy Jameson of Key West, Fla.

Services were Saturday. The family suggests memorials to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.