Account of the transfer of 1,500 Harput orphans to Constantinople
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Location

Beirut, Lebanon

Year

1922

Item Detail

Account of the transfer of 1,500 Harpoot orphans aboard the S.S. Marie Lucile to Constantinople, September 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.

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

    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.

  • Notes

    One of the largest single orphan transfers.

  • Document Contents

    Three-page handwritten letter signed “Cheer-ee-o, Nellie” on Near East Relief / American Red Cross Beirut letterhead, dated September 15, 1922, 12 a.m., describing Nellie Miller’s daytrip with Mr. King to the Harpoot Camp where 1,500 children just arrived from Constantinople were being prepared to sail that afternoon aboard the chartered steamer Marie Lucile. She paints vivid scenes: 300 boys walking down the railroad track at dawn carrying motley bundles; a second group of 250 boys finishing breakfast on the ground and starting off by truck; the loading of bedrolls and orphans by truck and lighter onto the Marie Lucile in the harbor; girls washing in the camp’s stream and combing each other’s hair; and a conversation with Raidaru Bakhshelian, a young Harpoot teacher who recalled refugees who “used to eat eight okes of pilaf and then wait to die” before NER aid arrived. Nellie also notes a recent group jaunt to the top of Mt. Sannin, acknowledges receipt of oxford shoes and silk fabric from her family, and announces a coming weekend trip to Jebail with Miss Stancliffe.

Account of the transfer of 1,500 Harput orphans to Constantinople