Collections
U.S. Consul Jackson deposition on the death of Lester Wright, 1922
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Year
1922
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.
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.
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Holding Institution
Rockefeller Archive Center
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External Link
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Attribution
Nellie Miller Mann Series (Series 14), Near East Foundation Records (FA406), Rockefeller Archive Center. Courtesy of David Mann.
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Rights
Some materials may be protected by U.S. copyright law. Materials are presented for non-commercial research and educational use under fair use. Uses beyond fair use may require permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for rights determination and compliance rests with the user.
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Notes
Reproduced in full in Letters from Syria appendix, pp. 267–271.
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Document Contents
Three-page sworn deposition taken October 31, 1922 in Aleppo before U.S. Consul Jesse B. Jackson, by Dr. C. Stanley G. Mylrea, regarding the murder of NER worker Lester James Wright on Friday, October 27, 1922 between Antioch and Aleppo. Mylrea details the daylight ambush about 6:15 P.M. one to two miles east of the Afrin Bridge of a Ford touring car carrying the Mylreas, Wright, Dr. and Mrs. Mylrea, and Mrs. Enoch R. Applegate driven by NER chauffeur Leopold Ganosgyk; describes Wright shot dead in the car (a single bullet through the right side of the neck severing the spinal column), Mr. Applegate wounded in the right leg, and the chauffeur shot in the leg; and recounts the robbery of Mylrea (113 piastres in Syrian paper plus a silver medal), Applegate (two Turkish gold pounds, camera, field glasses, medicine case, razor bag), and an attempted but resisted seizure of Mrs. Mylrea’s wedding ring. The party reached the French military post at Katma where the surgeon pronounced Wright dead and dressed Applegate’s and Ganosgyk’s wounds; the next morning Mylrea, the Commandant, and the local Mukmakan inspected the scene, finding fourteen French and German cartridge cases plus one French and one Mauser clip, and the body was conveyed by French motor lorry to the British War Memorial in Aleppo where Mr. Kreider of NER took charge of burial in a Christian cemetery safe from desecration. Mylrea closes by crediting the chauffeur’s decision to halt the car at the first possible moment — rather than attempt to run the gauntlet — as having saved the survivors from heavier casualties.