Rare American in Iran recalls her 50 years there

Written by Kazi Mahmood

Wednesday, 12 May 2004

GHARA TEPE SHEIKH, Iran: Virginia-born Louise Firouz made Iran her home half a century ago. Now 75, she runs a stud farm in the remote northeast and has watched the turbulent transformation of her adopted country from U.S. ally to arch-foe.

She moved to Tehran in the 1950s to marry a young Iranian aristocrat, but the family's privileged existence changed dramatically with Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, followed by the deprivations of its eight-year war with Iraq.

Firouz faced financial hardship and even spent time in jail but won fame in the equestrian world for her work in rescuing an ancient breed from extinction and setting out to show its link to the thoroughbreds that run on Western race courses.

She has watched Iran go from a U.S.-allied monarchy to an Islamic state that has denounced America as the "Great Satan."

"I've been down and up again, several times," Firouz said, sitting by an open fire in the simple brick house where she now lives alone. As she reminisced, darkness fell on the vast steppe outside, where wolves roam.

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