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Bayard Dodge writes to Lester Wright’s mother the day after the funeral. 1922.
Location
Beirut, Lebanon
Year
1922
Item Detail
Dodge had never met Wright and wrote the day after burying him. His account of the posting is blunt: Wright was alone, away from any main center, in charge of children the Turks particularly hated, and paid out of funds left over from the main work at Harpoot rather than from any budget line of his own. The Greeks of Beirut sent a large delegation to the funeral and teachers who had nursed him through illness wept at the grave. He was buried in the cemetery newly procured for the Anglo-American community, by the river at the foot of the Lebanons.
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 letter: "Your son was given as hard a task as any member of the Near East Relief has had to perform. He was not placed in a main centre with fellow countrymen to aid him. He was not given a portion of the work which had been planned for with definite budget appropriations." / "Any appropriations given to him were simply extra funds, left over from the main work at Harpout." / "The Greeks of Beirut sent a large delegation, as a tribute to his devotion to Greek children." / "Your son’s body lies under the great trees, by the River of Beirut at the foot of the Lebanons."
Typed signature: "(signed) Bayard Dodge."
Sources for the Item Detail:
• H. H. Kreider, tribute on the death of Lester Wright, Aleppo Unit, late October 1922, which places the service at the Anglo-American Church at half past two on 30 October. Nellie Miller-Mann, Series 14, Rockefeller Archive Center.
• "A Flight of Children," The New Near East, November 1922, pp. 14–15, on the Greek children moved out of the interior. 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 copy of a letter on American University of Beirut letterhead, dated 31 October 1922, to Mrs. Wright, with "(signed) Bayard Dodge" in type and a file mark at the foot of each page. Dodge writes the day after the funeral, says he never knew her son, and sets out what Wright's posting had required: service alone rather than in a main center, charge of children whom the Turks especially hated, care of Greek children during the Greek war, and funding only from money left over from the main work at Harpout. He describes the funeral, the delegation sent by the Greeks of Beirut, the native teachers who had nursed Wright in illness weeping at the grave, and the attendance of Americans who had never met him. He names the burial ground as the cemetery newly procured for the Anglo-American community of Beirut and recalls the two people buried there before, an English Bible printer and Dr. Graham of the American Board. He closes on the American withdrawal from diplomacy and on relief work as the form Christian service had taken in the Near East.