Collections
Vickrey reassures the Millers about NER workers at Constantinople. 1922.
Location
Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey
Year
1922
Item Detail
Charles V. Vickrey wrote to parents whose children were in the field, during the crisis that followed the Greek collapse in Anatolia. He had been at Constantinople thirty days earlier and describes the headquarters there, a reconstructed Turkish palace on the Bosphorus with its own dock, a chartered ship held ready with emergency supplies, and allied warships at anchor. The letter is about workers at Constantinople, in the plural, while Nellie Miller was at Beirut. Three weeks after Vickrey wrote that the Turks had never attempted violence against Americans, Lester James Wright was shot dead on the Antioch road.
Context
Nellie Marie Miller Mann (1897–1997) was a member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, and a graduate of Goshen College. The Mennonite Relief Commission placed her with Near East Relief in 1921, one of two Mennonite women it sent to the Near East in these years. She was appointed on 20 August 1921, sailed the same day aboard the S.S. Patria, and reached Beirut on 20 September. At the Syria-Palestine headquarters she was secretary to the treasurer and, by April 1923, in charge of the individual remittance department. She left Beirut at the end of August 1923.
The collection holds her letters to her family and to her fiancé Cleo Mann, her appointment papers and contract, and the Near East Relief reports, rosters and field accounts she kept. Together they document the Beirut office through the movement of orphans out of Anatolia and Cilicia into Syria and Lebanon in 1922, the Greek deportations of the following winter, and the deaths of two NER workers, Menno Shellenberger at Diarbekir and Lester James Wright on the Aleppo road. David W. Mann published his mother's writings as Letters from Syria, 1921–1923 (2013) and gave the originals to the Near East Foundation.
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Holding Institution
Rockefeller Archive Center
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External Link
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Attribution
Rockefeller Archive Center. Near East Foundation records, FA406. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14.
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Rights
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Notes
Typed in the letter: "I know that you are naturally much concerned about the safety of your loved ones who are rendering heroic service in Constantinople." / "our workers have for six years resided and traveled throughout the interior of Anatolia, moving in and out among the Kemalist Army and in six years time, there has never been any physical violence attempted by the Turks against Americans." / "I feel that so far as physical danger is concerned, our workers are practically as safe as if they were in their own homes in America."
Signed in ink: "C. V. Vickrey."
Sources for the Item Detail:
• Sworn statement of Dr. C. Stanley G. Mylrea before J. B. Jackson, U.S. Consul at Aleppo, 31 October 1922 ("the party was attacked suddenly and without warning by some people who opened fire on them with rifles"). Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Near East Relief appointment certificate, 20 August 1921, headed One Madison Avenue, New York, against the 151 Fifth Avenue letterhead used here. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
About this group
• Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Near East Foundation records (FA406), Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Near East Relief appointment certificate, 20 August 1921, signed C. V. Vickrey and C. M. Fowle ("Miss Nellie M. Miller has been duly appointed a member of the relief expedition"). Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Near East Relief, Syria-Palestine Area, Organization and Personnel, 28 April 1923, sheet I ("Secretary to Treasurer & in charge of Individual Remittance Dept. — Miss Nellie M. Miller"). Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Nellie Miller Mann, Letters from Syria, 1921–1923, transcribed and edited by David W. Mann (Morgantown, Pa.: Masthof Press, 2013).
• Rockefeller Archive Center finding aid, Near East Foundation records: https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/Ahi2i3M7wcFTbQuXZgxDib
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Document Contents
Two-page typed letter on Near East Relief letterhead, 151 Fifth Avenue, New York, dated 3 October 1922, from General Secretary Charles V. Vickrey to Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Miller of Elkhart, Indiana, signed in ink. Vickrey writes to reassure them about relatives serving at Constantinople. He describes the NER headquarters as an old reconstructed Turkish palace at the water's edge on the Bosphorus with offices, warehouses and a private dock, a personnel house within ten minutes' walk, and a chartered ship equipped with emergency supplies able to take the whole staff down the Bosphorus within an hour. He reports British, American, French, Greek and Italian dreadnaughts, cruisers and destroyers at anchor, states that the Kemalists cannot cross the Bosphorus against that force, notes that the headquarters has been designated an allied concentration point, and says that in six years no physical violence has been attempted by the Turks against Americans. The printed letterhead carries the Executive Committee and National Board of Trustees.