History of 79 NER orphans evacuated from Tarsus to Antilyas, 1922

Location

Antilyas, Lebanon

Year

1921

Item Detail

History of 79 NER orphans evacuated from Tarsus to Antilyas, by Hovhannes Kouyoumdjian

Context

Nellie Marie Miller Mann (1897–1997) was a Mennonite volunteer from Elkhart, Indiana, who served as secretary to the treasurer of Near East Relief headquarters in Beirut from 1921 to 1923.

A graduate of Goshen College and member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church, she was one of only two Mennonite women to serve in the Near East through the Mennonite Relief Commission during this period. From her desk in the Beirut office, Mann processed correspondence and financial records while the organization managed the evacuation of tens of thousands of Armenian orphans from Cilicia into Syria. She witnessed the Smyrna disaster refugee crisis of 1922 and the murder of NER worker Lester James Wright by bandits near Aleppo.

The collection includes personal and official correspondence, NER administrative reports, field accounts of relief operations in Syria and Cilicia, and documents related to the deaths of NER workers Lester James Wright and Menno Shellenberger. Mann’s letters to her family and fiancé Cleo Mann provide a rare firsthand account of daily life at NER headquarters during one of the organization’s most intense operational periods.

View in the Digital Archive

  • Holding Institution

    Rockefeller Archive Center

  • External Link
    https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/Ahi2i3M7wcFTbQuXZgxDib

  • Attribution

    Nellie Miller Mann Series (Series 14), Near East Foundation Records (FA406), Rockefeller Archive Center. Courtesy of David Mann.

  • Rights

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  • Notes

    Reproduced in Letters from Syria, pp. 63–64.

    David W. Mann published his mother’s writings in Letters from Syria, 1921–1923 (2013) and donated the original materials to the Near East Foundation.

  • Document Contents

    First-person account titled “The History of 79 N.E.R. Orphans,” signed by Hovhannes Kouyoumdjian at Antilyas on July 3, 1922, describing the late-December 1921 evacuation of 79 Armenian orphans from Tarsus to Mersine (December 27) and onward by sea to Beirut. To evade French military restrictions on refugee embarkation, the orphans had to be mixed in with the Armenian Orphanage of Mersine and put aboard the steamer leaving for Syria on December 28 without baggage; Kouyoumdjian credits the help of Mr. Byron Hoone, Miss Webb, and Mr. Khumkian in arranging the embarkation. He recounts the despair of orphans separated from foster families, his negotiation with the captain to feed an additional 1,600 refugees crowded onto the steamer, and the orphans’ nighttime conversation in Beirut harbor on December 29 about whether NER would still care for them after they landed. He closes by reporting their welcome by Mr. McAfee, Managing Director of the NER Committee for the Syria-Aleppo District, who placed the boys in NER orphanages and ultimately the Antilyas orphanage.

History of 79 NER orphans evacuated from Tarsus to Antilyas, 1922