Clayton Lane, a commercial attaché with the United States Embassy, married Dorothy Bent (daughter of George P. and Clara Ames Wingate Bent) and the couple lived in many different places in the first half of the 20th century. Dorothy wrote prolifically to her mother, father, and sister Muriel about her experiences, first in Vienna (1927-1928), then Warsaw (1928-1935), Johannesburg (1938-1941), and then in New Delhi, Cairo, and Beirut (1944-1947). Dorothy describes the culture of being the wife of an attaché and talks about traveling throughout the countries she's visiting, but does not touch much upon the political situations within each place.