Dr. Frank Chalmers McClanahan ca. 1914

In an Ancient Land by Grant Victor McClanahan Order book from Lulu Marketplace

In an Ancient Land

A young American doctor and his wife, Helen McClanahan, journey in 1915 to Egypt, where they settle and Dr, McClanahan becomes a mainstay and eventually the chief of Staff of a hospital in Assiut, where the need for medical services is pressing.

Early in the three-and-a-half decades of their sojourn, after he opens a new clinic in Luxor, Dr. McClanahan serves the team of archaeologists wo make the most celebrated discovery of the century in their field: King Tutankhamen'a tomb. The doctor meanwhile becomes an intimate of Lord Carnarvon, the British royal who funded the expedition.

During these same years, Helen McClanahan makes a home for her husband, gives birth to two sons and loses and infant daughter to illness, all the while writing her mother and siblings in Ohio of the joys and travails of their life as American missionaries abroad.

Grant McClanahan, the younger of the couple's two sons, who became a distinguished career diplomat, has written a colorfully evocative account of his parents; lives, highlighted by his mother's lively letters home, and a remarkably vivid account of his owen budding consciousness as the youngest member of the extraordinary family in its exotic setting.

The flyleaf of the book In an Ancient Land
A Memoir by Grant V. McClanahan
ISBN 978-0557-1 7892-6

Children of Dr. Frank Chalmers McClanahan and Helen Jane Smith:

F1 Dr. Frank McClanahan, Jr., born December 25, 1917 in Tanta, Egypt, died August 19, 2009, in Greensboro, North Carolina; buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery at Neligh, Nebraska; married 1943 Phyllis Jeanne Phillips.

F2 Grant Victor McClanahan, born October 22, 1919 in Tanta, Egypt; now lives in Washington, D.C (2010); two grown daughters.