Collections
Letter confirming Nellie Miller’s appointment to NER, 1921
Location
United States
Year
1921
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.
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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
Official certificate of appointment dated August 20, 1921, on Near East Relief letterhead (One Madison Avenue, New York), affixed with the organization’s red wax seal and signed by General Secretary Charles V. Vickrey and a second officer (C.M. Fowle), certifying that “Miss Nellie M. Miller has been duly appointed a member of the relief expedition under the direction of the Near East Relief Committee” to render service “in the relief of suffering in Western Asia.” The letterhead lists the executive committee — Edwin M. Bulkley, James L. Barton, Cleveland H. Dodge, Abram I. Elkus, Harold A. Hatch, Arthur Curtiss James, William B. Millar, George A. Plimpton, Walter George Smith, Charles V. Vickrey, Stanley White — and the National Board of Trustees, including William Howard Taft, Henry Morgenthau, Elihu Root, and Oscar S. Straus. The document declares NER’s work “purely humanitarian” and “carried on without distinction as to race, nationality or religion.”
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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Document Contents
Official certificate of appointment dated August 20, 1921, on Near East Relief letterhead (One Madison Avenue, New York; cable address “NEAREAST”; telephone Gramercy 1021), affixed with the organization’s red wax seal and signed by General Secretary Charles V. Vickrey and a second officer (C.M. Fowle), certifying that “Miss Nellie M. Miller has been duly appointed a member of the relief expedition under the direction of the Near East Relief Committee” to render service “in the relief of suffering in Western Asia.” The letterhead lists the Executive Committee — Edwin M. Bulkley (Chair), James L. Barton, Cleveland H. Dodge, Abram I. Elkus, Harold A. Hatch, Arthur Curtiss James, William B. Millar, George A. Plimpton, Walter George Smith, Charles V. Vickrey, Stanley White — and a National Board of Trustees including William Howard Taft, Henry Morgenthau, Elihu Root, and Oscar S. Straus. The document declares NER’s work “purely humanitarian” and “carried on without distinction as to race, nationality or religion.”