Collections
Nellie Miller walks her family through photographs of the Beirut personnel house. 1921.
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Year
1921
Item Detail
Five photographs are named here: the exterior taken from the roof of the house below, the entrance with its great iron gate, the living room, the dining room about thirty-six feet by twenty with a marble floor, and the Benders' room at the end of it. Mr. Swartzendruber took the exterior view, not Miller. A hand-drawn plan sets out the floor and names its residents. Mr. McAlpin was treasurer at this date and Miller was his secretary, eighteen months before the roster that names Bosworth.
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
Written in the letter: "The one of the N.E.R. Personnel House was taken by Mr. Swartzendruber from the roof of the house below us." / "In the center of the building is a huge dining room about 36 x 20 feet. ... This large arm chair at the head is Ray Bender’s place and Mrs Bender occupies the extreme end and is the hostess." / "On the picture of the entrance you will see the great iron gate." / "Mr. McAlpin, the Treasurer for whom I am secretary, was host." / "I went to church this morning. It is the first time I have been in a church since August 14."
Sources for the Item Detail:
• Near East Relief, Syria-Palestine Area, Organization and Personnel, 28 April 1923, sheet I, which gives the treasurer as A. E. Bosworth and H. H. Kreider as assistant treasurer. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Nellie Miller Mann, Letters from Syria, 1921–1923, ed. David W. Mann (2013), p. 134 ("I am blessed with a new boss again. Mr Kerr makes the fifth one in less than a year").
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
Five-page autograph letter on Near East Relief / Succeeding the American Red Cross Beirut letterhead, surviving as letter pages 3 to 7 and undated. Miller guides her family through a set of photographs she has posted home, describing the personnel house on the hillside with a carriage shop and oriental pharmacy at street level and the Near East Relief quarters above, the balcony running the width of the house, the living room with its triple windows, window seats, book rack, piano and victrola, and the dining room of about thirty-six by twenty feet with high ceilings and a marble floor. She notes that Mr. Swartzendruber took the exterior view from the roof of the house below. Page six carries a hand-drawn plan of the floor naming the rooms of the Benders, Kreider, Joe Detweiler, John Detweiler, Mr. McAlpin, Ray Kauffman, Dr. Piper, Miss White, Miss Stancliffe and her own. She describes the dining arrangements under Mr. McAlpin as host and Mrs. Bender as hostess, the iron gate locked each night, the barred windows, and a Moslem family on the floor above.