Leila F. Priest and Dr. Mabel E. Elliott with the nurses' training class. Ismid, c. 1921.

Location

Ismid (Izmit), Turkey

Year

c. 1921

Item Detail

Near East Relief's hospital at Ismid (Izmit) began in the summer of 1920, when Leila F. Priest and Emily Passmore cleared two rooms of a Turkish school building and moved in eight beds. Dr. Mabel E. Elliott took charge that winter. Near East Relief's weekly dates her assignment to January 1921, and her own account puts her in Ismid in December 1920, with a hundred beds and a clinic within five weeks. In April 1921 the American Women's Hospitals was paying the American and local staff, and Near East Relief was supplying its equipment and supplies. Early that June the weekly reported that the hospital had moved to larger buildings on the hill above the town. After the Turkish army entered Ismid on 26 June 1921, older orphan girls took the places of local nurses who had left with the refugees. Elliott left for the Caucasus that September. Grisell M. McLaren, one of the American nurses, is with the girls of the class. Near East Relief's weekly printed this photograph on its front page on 16 April 1921, captioned "Miss Priest and Dr. Elliott on the steps. Below Miss McLaren and her Nurses’ Training class".

Context

The American Relief Administration (ARA), Herbert Hoover's relief agency in postwar Europe, was re-formed in July 1919 as a volunteer, non-profit body. From August 1919 to July 1920 it worked jointly with Near East Relief in the Caucasus under Colonel William N. Haskell, joint relief administrator and high commissioner for Armenia. Near East Relief agreed to pay the administrative, orphanage and transportation costs, and its workers took their assignments from Haskell and ran the orphanages. The people they served included Armenian refugees who had fled Turkey during the Armenian Genocide. When Haskell withdrew to Constantinople in 1920, Ernest A. Yarrow took charge of the workers who stayed.

This photograph is one of 67 prints from the ARA European operational records at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Seven show child feeding and institutions in Tiflis (Tbilisi). Nineteen filed as ARA operations in Armenia are mostly marked "Near East Relief" on the back, and one is an American Red Cross photograph. Four more, filed as starving children, are marked as Armenian refugees and an Armenian child. Thirty-seven come from an album that Hoover describes as work of Near East Relief in Erevan. Its captions also name places in Georgia and Turkey.

View in the Digital Archive

  • Holding Institution

    Hoover Institution Library and Archives

  • External Link
    https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf9779p02m_aspace_d508570211510b5474ee72ab3afb4b0f

  • Attribution

    Photograph of the nurses' training class at the Ismid hospital, Ismid, c. 1921, American Relief Administration European operational records, Box 855, Folder 11, Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

  • Rights

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  • Notes

    Album caption (typed on the album page, page shot asset 11149): "Ismid - Hospital. Miss Priest and Dr. Elliott and the Nurses' Training Class. Miss McLaren with the girls."

    Hoover title: "Album containing 37 prints depicting work of Near East Relief in Erevan." Box 855, Folder 11 (Armenia). Hoover record: https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf9779p02m_aspace_d508570211510b5474ee72ab3afb4b0f

    Sources for the Item Detail:

    • Near East Relief (NER Weekly), 16 April 1921, p. 2, "The Beginning of the Ismid Hospital" ("Our work at Ismid was started last summer when 10,000 refugees came to the city. Miss Leila Priest and Miss Emily Passmore were assigned to Ismid for relief work." ... "they obtained permission to use the Turkish school building." ... "They cleared two rooms and moved in eight beds." ... "Dr. Elliott was assigned to Ismid in January." ... "The American Women's Hospitals are now paying for the American and native personnel of this hospital, and the Near East Relief is supplying hospital equipment and sending supplies."). NERHS: https://neareastrelief.org/asset/90027/

    • Elliott, pp. 144, 147 ("WE were in Ismid in December, 1920." ... "In five weeks there was the hospital ... A hundred beds were in the wards, filled with patients. A clinic was opened."). Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (Fleming H. Revell, 1924), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beginningagainat001962mbp

    • Elliott, Preface, p. 10 ("I went to Ismid for the American Women's Hospitals, with a staff chosen, equipped and paid by them, to open and manage a hospital for which the Near East Relief furnished all supplies."). Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (Fleming H. Revell, 1924), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beginningagainat001962mbp

    • Near East Relief (NER Weekly), 4 June 1921, p. 4 ("The Near East Hospital at Ismid has been moved to larger buildings, situated upon the hill and overlooking the town" ... "Miss Priest, who organized and opened the first hospital at Ismid last summer"). NERHS: https://neareastrelief.org/asset/90033/

    • Near East Relief (NER Weekly), 2–9 July 1921, p. 1 ("On June 26th, the Turkish Army entered Ismid and occupied the town, immediately following the evacuation of the Greek occupying troops." ... "the older orphanage girls are helping at the hospital, taking the places of the native nurses who left with the refugees."). NERHS: https://neareastrelief.org/asset/90036/

    • Elliott, pp. 148, 151 ("in June the Greeks decided that they could not hold it" ... "It was settled that the nurses should go, all except three who were orphans."). Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (Fleming H. Revell, 1924), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beginningagainat001962mbp

    • Elliott, p. 161 ("In September I left Ismid for Constantinople, to cross the Black Sea and Georgia, on my way to Caucasian Armenia."). Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (Fleming H. Revell, 1924), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beginningagainat001962mbp

    • Elliott, p. 160 ("Miss MacLaren, one of the American nurses"). Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (Fleming H. Revell, 1924), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/beginningagainat001962mbp

    • Barton, appendix, list of Near East Relief overseas personnel, pp. 446, 450, 452, 455 ("*Elliott, Dr. Mabel E." ... "*McLaren, Grisell M." ... "Priest, Leila F." ... "* Personnel affiliated with other organizations."). James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (1930), HathiTrust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b744679

    • Near East Relief (NER Weekly), 16 April 1921, p. 1, photograph "Near East Relief Hospital, Ismid" ("Miss Priest and Dr. Elliott on the steps. Below Miss McLaren and her Nurses’ Training class"). NERHS: https://neareastrelief.org/asset/90027/

    About this group: American Relief Administration European operational records, Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

    • Hoover Institution Library & Archives, American Relief Administration European operational records, collection guide, biographical note quoting Herbert Hoover, An American Epic, vol. III ("to set up a volunteer successor under the same name" ... "On July 12, they formed the new American Relief Administration, which was registered as a non-profit corporation"): https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf9779p02m

    • Barton, p. 124 ("the appointment of Col. William N. Haskell as joint relief administrator and high commissioner for Armenia ... The Near East Relief agreed to pay all administrative, orphanage and transportation charges, which were estimated at $500,000 per month."). James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (1930), HathiTrust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b744679

    • Barton, p. 124 ("Col. Haskell and his mission took charge of the relief activities in August, 1919, and remained in the Caucasus until July, 1920. The Near East Relief workers were given assignments by Col. Haskell and were made responsible for the care of the children and the orphanages."). James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (1930), HathiTrust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b744679

    • Barton, p. 10 ("It was learned that Armenians from the eastern part of Turkey, alarmed by the hostile attitude of the Constantinople government, were in exodus by the tens of thousands into Russia" ... "there was an assemblage of more than two hundred thousand Armenians, Assyrians and Nestorians in abject destitution in the Russian Caucasus"), from the State Department dispatches the committee read when it was formed in 1915. James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (1930), HathiTrust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b744679

    • Barton, p. 127 ("Col. Haskell and his military aids withdrew to Constantinople and Ernest A. Yarrow was placed in charge of the civilian workers, who remained to carry on the relief activities."). James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (1930), HathiTrust: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b744679

Leila F. Priest and Dr. Mabel E. Elliott with the nurses' training class. Ismid, c. 1921.