Meet the Geithners

From the Cape Cod Times

Peter and Deborah Geithner are the parents of secretary of the treasury department.Cape Cod Times/Merrily Lunsford

ORLEANS ' For Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his wide-flung family, Cape Cod has been something of a haven for generations.

Growing up, Geithner and his three siblings lived around the globe ' in locales ranging from India to Zambia ' due to their father Peter Geithner's overseas work for the United Nations Agency for International Development and, later, the Ford Foundation.

Unlike a typical two or three year stint for the State Department, the Geithners "lived abroad for five-year stretches of time," Peter Geithner said of his 28-year career at the Ford Foundation.

The Cape became a place of continuity for them, Peter Geithner said, an annual summer rite that "kept them connected" to the United States.

"Except when we were in Africa," said Deborah, Timothy Geithner's mother, "we always returned to the Cape during summers."

Home base on the Cape is called "The Cove House" ' a sprawling brown cottage in Orleans built in the 1940s by Geithner's maternal grandfather, Charles Moore, with additional expansions over the years.

Here, all things sun and surf are encouraged and indulged.

"Tim likes to set out lobster pots and sail," said Deborah Geithner, while his kids go kayaking. Over the years, the Geithner children have put on a few Shakespearean plays and Andrew Lloyd Webber productions at the boathouse, calling themselves "The Boathouse Players."

The Geithners also own the lot next door, which Moore coveted for years and tried to buy several times "from the local lobsterman's wife," said Deborah Geithner. She and her husband would later purchase it to build a house for their retirement, passing ownership of "The Cove House" over to their children.

With all four siblings fully grown, returning annually to the Cape is now no mean logistical feat for the family.

Geithner's siblings ' Sarah, Jonathan and David ' live around the world in Bangkok, Thailand; Okinawa, Japan; and Larchmont, N.Y. respectively. Sarah works for the World Bank and Jonathan for the Center for Naval Analysis. David, "the odd one out" Deborah Geithner said with a laugh, is a senior vice president and general manager of Time Inc.

"Exposure to international living" sparked the siblings' interest in international affairs, Peter Geithner said.

While abroad, they mostly socialized with the nationals in whatever country they were posted to, rather than with the expatriate community, Deborah Geithner said. "Something rubbed off on them."

Their uncle Jonathan Moore served as an ambassador to the United Nations, and the theme of public service runs deep in the Geithner clan. It has also made them seasoned world travelers.

"Living abroad de-exoticized traveling for them," Peter Geithner said in reference to his kids. "They would get on a plane from New York to Delhi just as easily as a ride from New York to D.C."

Peter and Deborah Geithner have retired full time to their house in Orleans. Deborah Geithner teaches piano and occasionally gives concerts on the Cape. This November, she is opening their home and performing in a fundraiser for the First Parish Brewster Church; she is scheduled to perform at the Brewster Public Library next spring.

Busy careers translate into abbreviated Cape summer for the siblings.

The four families now divide the time spent at "The Cove House" and "sometimes there's a spillover into the house next door," Peter Geithner said. "As their families have grown, there's not enough room for everyone at once."

But for the wide traveled Geithners, the Cape remains an integral part of their sense of family.

"I think if you ask any of them where home is, they would all say the Cape," Deborah Geithner said