Location

Syra (Syros), Greece

Year

1926

Item Detail

Syra (Syros), Greece, c.1926. Five orphan children, boys and girls of various ages, sit together beside a whitewashed wall under a vine trellis at the orphanage.

Context

Fred and Carrie Midgley of Worcester, Massachusetts, served with Near East Relief on the island of Syra (Syros), Greece, from 1926 to 1928, Fred as agricultural director at the orphanage. The institution sheltered some 1,400 Armenian and Greek children orphaned by the genocides and the 1922 destruction of Smyrna (İzmir). The Midgley papers were given to the Near East Foundation by their granddaughter, Nancy Winter Taylor, and are held at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

Orphan Daily Life and Portraits — These are pictures of the orphans themselves: at play, at chores, in portraits, and at the 1928 distribution of American dolls. Where the Midgleys recorded a child's name, it appears in the caption. Many of the other children are not identified.

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Five orphan children at the Syra orphanage, c.1926