Lester James Wright came from Waukesha, Wisconsin. Newspaper reports of his death described him as formerly of the University of Wisconsin faculty. He reached Harpout (Elazıg) in April 1921 intending to stay four months, then extended his stay, and by that autumn he was running the unit's agricultural work. He was still in the interior a year later.
In the autumn of 1922, Near East Relief moved its orphans out of Turkey ahead of the country closing to foreigners. Wright took a convoy of Armenian children from Harpout south across the frontier and delivered them safely to Aleppo. He was returning with three other relief workers and a local driver when bandits opened rifle fire on the party without warning. Wright was killed instantly. Enoch Rogers Applegate, of Jersey City, New Jersey, was seriously wounded and survived. Wright was the first Near East Relief worker to be killed by violence. Barton dates the attack to 27 October 1922. The following May, the Greek government awarded him the War Cross posthumously, one of five Americans honored at Athens on American Memorial Day.
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