Sutherland Family to Be Reunited in S.F.

The daughter of freed Middle East hostage Thomas Sutherland eagerly awaited his arrival here Monday evening for a reunion that will bring the entire family together for the first time after six years of separation.

“My dad and I haven’t had that much time to go over what each of us has been going through,” Ann Sutherland said. “I think that will be the first thing.”

Her father, 60, was scheduled to arrive Monday evening from Dallas-Ft. Worth, where he stopped en route to California from Frankfurt, Germany. In Texas he said he looked forward to spending Thanksgiving at his daughter’s home in Berkeley.

“It’s going to be absolutely wonderful,” Thomas Sutherland said. “There just isn’t enough time in the day to catch up on everything that’s happened.”

Speaking to reporters in Texas, the former hostage said he would go back to Lebanon someday if his family and the government let him.

The American University in Beirut, where Sutherland was dean of agriculture when he was abducted June 9, 1985, was shattered by a bomb recently and needs rebuilding. “I would like to be part of that if it’s possible,” he said.

Eight and a half months pregnant, Ann Sutherland could not fly with the rest of the family to Germany after her father was freed last week along with British clergyman Terry Waite.

The phone was ringing constantly as she finished last-minute preparations before her father’s arrival. She said she will let him pick the dishes for Thanksgiving dinner but had bought him a big jar of orange marmalade--his favorite.

Father and daughter spoke on the telephone this week, and she has caught glimpses of him on television news shows.

“I thought of all that has happened while he was in prison,” Sutherland told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ve gotten married. Had a child. Got my degree. I felt, gee, this is terrible. I shouldn’t be doing all this.

“I felt a little guilty. But my father told me on the phone that he was really proud how we all carried on, not breaking down. He was always a strong guy,” she said.