Collections
H. H. Kreider pays tribute to Lester Wright after his funeral at Beirut. 1922.
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Year
1922
Item Detail
Wright had kept some eight hundred children alive at Malatia, weakened by typhus, with the nearest competent physician sixty miles away and children losing their sight for want of supplies. He then led caravan after caravan of a hundred to four hundred children over the Anatolian mountains to the railway, attacked by robbers more than once. His last group, Greek orphans, reached Aleppo on 25 October 1922. He was killed two days later. Kreider brought the coffin down from Aleppo, and nearly two hundred people came to the funeral at Beirut on a few hours' notice.
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 tribute: "Several months ago we were told that back in Malatia there was a young American Missionary struggling against many obstacles in order to keep alive some eight hundred little children." / "Yet time after time Mr. Wright led a caravan sometimes a small group of a hundred weak little ones, sometimes as many as four hundred, over the mountains and through the beautiful green valleys of Anatolia, to some distant railway station." / "In view of the lack of regard with which cemeteries are sometimes treated in this vicinity, it was thought best to remove the body to Beirut for burial."
Signed: "H. H. Kreider, Aleppo Unit, Near East Relief."
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, which gives the time, place and medical findings. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• Bayard Dodge to Mrs. Wright, American University of Beirut, 31 October 1922, on the same funeral. 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
Three-page typed tribute signed in type by H. H. Kreider of the Aleppo Unit, Near East Relief, undated and written after the funeral of Monday 30 October 1922. Kreider opens on the burial ground above the sea, then describes Wright's work at Malatia keeping some eight hundred children alive after an attack of typhus, with the nearest competent physician sixty miles away and many children losing their eyesight. He recounts the repeated caravans of a hundred to four hundred children led over the mountains of Anatolia to a railway station, attacked more than once by robbers. He dates Wright's arrival at Aleppo with his final group of Greek orphans to the evening of 25 October, the invitation from Mr. Enoch R. Applegate and Dr. and Mrs. Mylrea to visit Antioch, the departure on Thursday noon and the ambush after dark on the Friday return, in which Applegate and the chauffeur were wounded and Wright killed instantly. He describes the removal of the body to Beirut and the funeral at the Anglo-American Church at half past two on 30 October, with Dr. Hall of the American University speaking and Rev. W. Nesbitt Chambers and Rev. James H. Nicol leading the service. Matthew 25:31-40 and Revelation 21:1-7 are typed out in full.