by Elizabeth Cook
ecook@salisburypost.com
Nancy Shirley of Salisbury brought the unrest in Egypt home for her friends Monday by posting a request on her Facebook page.
“Pray for my sister-in-law Susan and nephew John who are flying out of Cairo today and for my brother-in-law John who has to stay,” Shirley wrote.
Susan Shirley, the sister of Nancy’s husband, David, has lived in Egypt several years. She is a business consultant who works with international clients. Her husband, John Speaks III, has worked for the American Embassy in Cairo for seven years. He is an undersecretary in the economic/political section.
“They have always felt safe there until now,” Nancy Shirley said.
Dissatisfaction with President Hosni Mubarak has erupted into protests and violence on the streets of Cairo in recent days. John Shirley is considered essential personnel at the embassy, so he must stay, but the family decided it would be better for Susan and 6-year-old John IV to leave.
By Monday evening, Susan and her son were safely out of Egypt and she was responding to the well wishes of people in Salisbury on Facebook.
“You are all very sweet,” she said. “My son, John and I are in Istanbul on our way back to the US.”
Susan Shirley said the unrest had yet to reach her neighborhood in Cairo.
“We did not feel unsafe in our home, and we were fine, and far from the demonstrations,” she wrote. “The looting was starting to come a little closer to home, and our son found the gunfire more than a little unsettling. Since the school is closed anyway, here we are.”
Today, they hope to reach New York, where Susan Shirley’s daughter, Morgan Russell, 18, is a freshman at Columbia University.
Contact Editor Elizabeth Cook at 704-797-4244.