The Turkish Nationalist Parliament building in Angora (now Ankara), c. 1922. Annie Allen met with Mustafa Kemal in Angora. [*] See: Florence Billings[**] Papers by Billings, Florence 1879-1959 | Sophia Smith Collection | Smith College | Northampton, MA
[**] The Florence Billings Papers include correspondence, journal entries, reports for Near East Relief, travel notes, typescripts of articles and her thesis, clippings, photographs, and memorabilia. There is a small amount on her relief work in World War I France and her travels in Europe, but the collection focus is on the work of Florence Billings and her colleague Annie T. Allen with the Near East Relief in Turkey and Greece from 1920-22 and Billings' subsequent travels in, and writings about, the Middle East. Correspondents include Turkish feminist Halidé Edib, and the American High Commissioner in Constantinople, Mark Bristol. A larger number of photographs include portraits and group shots of Turkish leaders and officials such as Mustafa Kemal, Halidé Edib, Refet Pasha, Prime Minister Fethy Bey; many ordinary people; and scenes of the Turkish country side.
Biographical Note
Florence Frances Billings was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts on June 14, 1879, daughter of Frederick Dickinson and Frances Amelia (Hunt) Billings. She had three sisters: Charlotte, Emily, and Anna Hunt Billings (Smith Class of 1891). Her grandfather, Charles Morris Billings of Hatfield, was an abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad and her grandmother, Charlotte White Billings, was a cousin of Sophia Smith (founder of Smith College). In 1893 her family moved to Redlands, California where she resided on and off for the next sixty years although she spent many of those years living in Europe and in the Middle East. Billings graduated from Redlands High School in 1899 and from Stanford University in 1903 with a B.A. in Latin. She taught school for several years during which time she traveled to Europe, including Russia in 1912. She went to Germany and taught English in a private school for a period. She was on vacation in Brittany when World War I broke out and she immediately volunteered with the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, she returned home briefly and signed up with the American Red Cross, then went back to France as a canteen and relief worker. Working just behind the front lines in Chalons-sur-Marne earned her the Croix de Guerre.
After the war, Billings went home for a short time before returning to Paris where she lived at the American Women's Club and continued relief work until November 1919, when she took a position at the American School for Girls in Brousa, Turkey. After six months she volunteered for service in Brousa, Turkey with the Near East Relief (NER), an organization created in 1915 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They created NER in response to the growing desperation of hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees in Turkey and the surrounding area resulting from massive deportations and massacres by the Turkish government in 1915 and 1916.
In Brousa, Billings worked under Annie Allen, the NER representative in Brousa. Annie T. Allen, the daughter of pioneer missionary in the Middle East, the Reverand O.P. Allen, was born in Harpoot, Turkey, on December 21, 1868. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1890 and began her missionary work in Brousa for the Woman's Board of Missions in 1903. Allen was to become Florence Billings' close friend and colleague.
Billings and Allen were in Brousa when the Greek army took that city in July 1920. In 1921 they traveled into the interior of Turkey to Konea, where foreigners were seldom allowed, to relieve workers at a large center for Armenian refugees and orphans run by the NER. While they were in Konia, revolution broke out between the Turks and Nationalists and the women took refuge in the orphanage. Later they toured villages destroyed by the retreating Greeks and reported on conditions. In February 1922 Annie Allen died of typhoid, which she had contracted during their travels. Billings, now stationed at the American Hospital in Ankara, became the NER representative in charge. For a time she was the only foreign woman living in the city. In 1922 and 1923 Billings was sent to Greece to visit the Turkish prisoners interned there and to report on their conditions to the NER Commission. Billings was in Turkey during major social and political upheaval under the Nationalist leader Mustapha Kemal who Billings knew personally and with whom she had some influence. She also corresponded with expatriate Turk nationalist and feminist Halidé Edib Adivar, who ran an orphanage for 800 Armenian refugee children in Antoura. Billings was said to have been "instrumental in gathering together hundreds of Armenian and other war orphans and arranging for their transportation to Smyrna and other places of asylum." [see obituary, Redlands Daily Facts, Sept 10, 1959]
Billings left the NER in 1923 but returned to the area several times. She and her sisters traveled around the world in 1923, and between 1924 and 1928 she resided in Hatfield, Massachusetts, and sometimes in Europe. She continued to travel throughout the Middle East visiting old friends and meeting several important government leaders, including Prime Minister Reza Khan Pahlavi, the soon-to-be Shah of Iran. In 1927 she received her M.A. from Columbia University, completing her Masters thesis entitled "Causes of the Outbreak in Cilicia, Asia Minor, April 1909." In the early 1930s Billings had settled permanently in Redlands, California near her sisters, and became active in local affairs, the American Association of University Women, and the Contemporary Club. Florence Billings died on September 9, 1959.
Amerikan Bord Heyeti (American Board), Istanbul
Mavi Boncuk |
Allen, Annie T. (b. Hatput Dec. 21, 1868-d. Sivas Feb 2, 1922) , Near East Relief worker renowned for her linguistic and diplomatic skills in Ottoman territory.
Missions
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
Harpout, Van, Brousa(Bursa), Sivas
Annie T. Allen kept a diary of her trip into the Turkish interior in September 1920. Her observations were published in the April 9, 1921 issue of Near East Relief. When Miss Caris E. Mills, the editor of the Near East Relief, heard that veteran relief worker Annie Allen was planning a trip to the Turkish interior, she asked Allen to keep a diary for the newsletter. The following diary entries were published in the April 9, 1921 issue of Near East Relief. Allen’s observations are astute and sometimes even funny. Considering Annie Allen’s important status as an unofficial diplomat, her writing style is surprisingly humble. Allen’s voice brings a wonderful human quality to Near East Relief’s work. S.S. PHRYGIA, SEPTEMBER 6, 1920.
Do you remember, as I was rushing down the stairs, you stopped me and said “Do keep a diary so that I may have it for my paper when you return.” I did intend to keep one, but I did not promise to give it to you.
My chief reason for not giving it up is that I fear criticism. Once a friend of mine and I took a trip to certain mountain villages. To us, the trip was very interesting and my friend wrote out his diary and then published it. Some one on reading it said “What do we care whether Mr. ___ rode a white horse or a black one or whether he ate his lunch on such a day under a certain tree by a certain stream?”
Now I am, as you know, very sensitive to criticism, and I should feel badly if some one, after reading my diary of this trip should say, “What do we care if Miss A. was invited to dinner with ___ or that she was allowed to go on the special deputy train!”
Whether published or not, for my own pleasure and yours, I believe, here goes the diary: We left Constantinople quay today, Monday, September 5th, at 4:30 p.m. We stopped out in the harbor for the control boat, and soon some of the black guards with an officer came on board. One was stationed, with set bayonet, behind the chairs in which Billy and I were sitting (Billy being my friend, Miss Billings, a new recruit for the N.E.R.).
Not understanding the command given by the officer in French, I wondered whether he considered us suspicious characters but fortunately Billy, who knows French, relieved my fears by saying he was there to guard the stairway to the bridge.
After he had stood there motionless for several hours, I proposed to Billy that we make a dash for the stairway so that we might give the poor fellow a chance for some excitement. She answered by saying that I was a most law breaking individual — so I settled down for the rest of the evening, disproving the charge.
September 7th, 1920. Here we are in Zoungouldak [now Zonguldak] coaling. The first words I heard on waking this morning were “Mehmet chaoush, bouraya gel” (Come here Corporal Mehmet). The old familiar sounds revived my spirits. I was once more in Asia Minor atmosphere which I vastly prefer to Constantinople.
I could go more into detail and tell you what we eat and what we do, that just now my companions are playing cards, smoking, and eating candy, but memory of [Mr. ____’s] “white horse” holds me back.
September 11th, 1920. We have reached the first interior stopping place. We had a delightful, though short visit, with the Samsoun Unit of the Near East Relief, arriving there on Thursday and leaving on Friday the next day at 11 o’clock, being assured that we would reach Marsovan [now Merzifon] that same day.
Our baggage truck caused us much delay and we finally left it behind to follow slowly. on the truck was our only American man and traveling with us in the auto was his wife.
Soon it became dark and we were obliged to crawl along slowly through the night as we had no lights. Tahsin, our little Turkish chauffeur, kept up our spirits by relating to us thrilling tales of brigands, and automobiles which had crashed over the sides of banks in Anatolia.
At last, in the distance we saw the shimmering lights of a village, and we four women decided we would go no further! As we were consulting just what to do, we heard the rumble of the truck, and joy, our American man was reunited with his wife. Let me give you some advice.
Never consent to a plan which separates married couples. The nervous chills I had along the way after we separated, thinking that the husband might get stuck on the mountain top or that the wife might be carried off by brigands!
We found a Han (Turkish hotel) and put up for the night. Some yougourt, bread, a cup of tea, and for some of us a good night’s rest, braced us up, and we started merrily out at six this morning.
SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1920
Do you believe in the evil eye? Well I do today. Certainly some one has cast an evil eye on our auto and we have no blue bead on it. Going up a steep incline in the narrowest part of the road, the car suddenly stopped and I was told we had a broken differentiator.
The truck was ahead of us, going very slowly, so Tahsin [the driver] rushed after it and succeeded in stopping it. We decided to transfer all our light luggage to the truck and then climb on ourselves. During the process of transfer we saw two caravans approaching from either direction.
One was made up of wagons and the other buffalo carts. After many shouts and maneuvers, they passed our two automobiles and the coast was clear. While waiting by the roadside, I fell into conversation with two Turkish women who were with the buffalo train. The older woman said to me, “look at my grey hairs and see how I am toiling along barefooted in this dust and you are sitting there like a lady, clothed from head to foot — even your hands are covered.”
I told her we too were having our troubles of another kind and that we were taking this rather difficult journey to carry relief to orphans and refugees. Whereupon she said, “I have two orphans for whom I must care.” [Fatherless children were often called orphans].
I was sorry I did not have a little money handy to give the poor soul. These poor Turkish peasant women, because their husbands are soldiers, must toil thus, walking sometimes five and six days to the coast so as to feed and clothe their children while the husband is away.
Is it possible that some say we should not help these people? That is not the Christ spirit.
SEPTEMBER 25TH, 1920
My diary has gone untouched for many days. The story for each day is about the same — dust, auto breakdowns, Turkish Hans, with a few Near East Relief stations which were like oases in the desert.
At these stations we were warmly welcomed and royally treated, our only regret being that our need for hurried transit gave us but little time to see the good work which was being don in all these places.
We had no exciting adventures along the road. The nearest we came to real excitement was going through a pass where a day or two before several hundred brigands had made a raid on a village Han and had also attacked many wagons. Six or seven of the villagers were said to have been killed. The Han, which we found empty, and the many vultures feeding on the prey in a field beyond, testified at least that the statements of the villagers were not far from the truth.
After we had travelled through the most dangerous part of the pass, our auto broke down. We sat down by the roadside while it was being repaired. Soon some villagers came along and I asked how the road was. One looked at me for a minute and then said, “What are you?” When I told him we were Americans, he said “The road is safe for you. We would pluck out our eyes for you.”
We two American ladies traveled from Marsovan to Cesarea with no companions save our two Turkish chauffeurs, a trip of five days. We had no fear and we were pleased to have proved that American ladies could travel alone unharmed through the interior of Turkey.
We reached here, Konia[1], at midnight, and found Miss Cushman[2] and Miss Gaylord waiting up for us, and glad they were for word from the outside world. Miss Cushman is soon to leave us for her much needed rest while I remain here until Dr. Dodd comes to take charge of the work here in Konia.
This concludes Annie T. Allen’s diary as published in the Near East Relief newsletter.
[1]MISS ANNIE ALLEN’S TRIP ACROSS' THE SALT DESERT TO KONIA
(Extract from letter of Miss Annie Allen, November 14th, 1921, to Miss Caris E. Mills)
"I have just returned from a trip to Konia. I left for Konia on October 27th by automobile. Our first night we spent in Kerchehir which is half way on the trip to Cesarea. We went considerably out of our way because we were told the short cut was bad road. Our second drive was through the Sait Desert. At noon 1 ate my lunch by the side of the Salt Lake. As we approached the -lake, 1 saw what looked like huge tents but on arrival at the salt station, which is under government control, I found the supposed tents were four great mounds of salt containing in each mound from two. to four million kilos of salt. , "The most interesting part was driving through the lake. It took us about fifteen minutes to cross. One had the sensation of going through snow or ice flooded with water, and therefore you felt as if the auto ought to skid. All that day the road was across the desert, and as there were many paths one could not but wonder whether in the end we would arrive at our destination. One time we were spinning merrily along and I was thinking what good luck I was having when suddenly we were jounced frightfully, and then came to a sudden stop while in the distance we saw our left front wheel ‘joy riding' across the'plain. On examination the chauffeur declared the matter hopeless but by much tinkering we were on our way in another hour. Don't ask me what was the matter for auto parts are unknown to me when it comes to details. I assure you, however, to be stuck in a salt desert where there is almost no travel is no joke. "Shall 1 tell you how we finally did arrive in Konia? One of the guards in a Salt station happened along on horse- back and he got us some native horse shoes and five of these shoes brought us within five minutes of the Near East Relief Konia Hospital when again we broke down — but we were there and it mattered not. "I remained in Konia four days. While there the rains began' so that a return through the desert was impossible with auto. Miss Gaylord has stayed at the orphanage post in Konia for as long, needed a vacation. As my auto was to eventually go to Cesarea, we packed her off the day after my arrival and 1 hope she is having a good vacation there. She deserves it.
Konia Hospital Doing- a Fine Piece of Work
"Dr Dodd's time is fully occupied with the medical work, and the Near East Relief hospital at Konia is doing a splendid piece of work. . "On my return I took an araba (carriage), springless, but not bad until we struck the bad road and then 1 was glad of the cushions which 1 brought with me. I passed through - Kurdish villages and the people were very hospitable. There are no inns. I slept out in my wagon but in the evening would have my meal with the. house owner and then chat with the women'. In one house there had just been a wedding, and the bride was most gorgeously dressed in silk. "One night after I had put out my candle, 1 felt some one pushing around my wagon. After a short time, 1 peeked through a crack and saw a huge creature. Soon he poked his nose in and on the other side I saw some thick lips tear- ing down the curtain it was a camel. Two camels had strayed to my wagon and were apparently determined to find out what was shut up inside of it. A slap on the nose of one and banging on .the side of the araba finally made them settle down to chewing their cud. "The mud was something terrible. One of the horses would refuse'to budge when the mud stuck to tme wheel so 1 hired a man in the worst place to walk along and give him a pull when necessary.”
[2] MISS E. D. CUSHMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE TRACHOMA ORPHANAGE OF THE NEAR EAST RELIEF. On Wednesday noon, December 7th, 1921 Miss E. D. Chushman, Director of the Trachoma Orphanage of the Near East Relief, was decorated with the Legion of Honor by General Pelle, French High Commissioner, Constantinople.
Attending the ceremony were the United States High Commissioner, Admiral Mark L. Bristol and Airs. Bristol, at- tended by Lieutenant Commander A. S. Merrill and Lieute- nant Commander H. V. Bryan. Dr. W. W. Peet, Miss Caroline Aiders, Miss Marie Cyr, Miss Mary Louise Morton, and Miss Caris E. Mills represented the Near East Relief and the American Mission Board. General and Madame Pelle were assisted by Monsieur de la Forcade,,lst Secretary of the French embassy, Commandante de Coursen, Military Attache, Commandante Bouquet, Naval Attache, and Lieutenant Curet ins Aide. Miss Cushman came to Turkey in 1899 and was first sta- tioned at Cesarea. Later she was assigned to Konia in connection with the medical work of the American Hospital. Only one who has been in the interior of Turkey can realize what the American medical work means to the country people. Miss Cushman loved the work and loved the people, and when the war broke out she remained througlyt all to help.For three years,
Miss Cushman was the representative at Konia of the three Legations in Constantinople, representing the interests of the allied nations in the war. Konia and the surrounding country was the centre of a "boiling pot” as Miss Cushman describes it, and hundreds of French and British prisoners were camped in Konia and the surrounding provinces - not to mention thousands of refugees. Miss Cushman became active among the allied prisoners, and through her influence with the Turkish authorities, who trust- ed her straightforward and honest methods of procedure, was able to do much to alleviate the sufferings of these men. It was through her efforts that the disbursement of one million dollars and quantities of additional stores were distributed through the areas for the relief of the prisoners of war. During this long and trying period in Konia, Miss Cushman received no letters from home. Many times she felt as if she were not equal to the huge amount of work and res- ponsibility placed in her charge and she once wrote to Count Vanderdoes de Villebois, at that time Minister of the Dutch Netherlands in Contantinople, asking that some one be sent to take her place. the teachers how well the children looked and how much they had grown. “In all the children 1 saw advancement in every way, and it was a pleasure to tell our workers there. They have worked hard, and Miss Gaylord is to be congratulated. Mrs. Dodd is mother to all and the calls upon her are frequent. Ivonia Hospital Doing- a Fine Piece of Work "Dr Dodd's time is fully occupied with the medical work, and the Near East Relief hospital at Konia is doing a splendid piece of work. . "On my return I took an araba (carriage), springless, but not bad until we struck the bad road and then 1 was glad of the cushions which 1 brought with me. I passed through - Khurdish villages and the people were very hospitable. There are no inns. I slept out in my wagon but in the evening would have my meal with the. house owner and then chat with the women'. In one house there had just been a wedding, and the bride was most gorgeously dressed in silk. "One night after I had put out my candle, 1 felt some one pushing around my wagon. After a short time, 1 peeked through a crack and saw a huge creature. Soon he poked his nose in and on the other side I saw some thick lips tear- ing down the curtain it was a camel. Two camels had strayed to my wagon and were apparently determined to find out what was shut up inside of it. A slap on the nose of one and banging on .the side of the araba finally made them settle down to chewing their cud. "The mud was something terrible. One of the horses would refuse'to budge when the mud stuck to tne wheel so 1 hired a man in the worst place to walk along and give him a pull when necessary.”
Vol. III. No. 49 Edited by the Near East Relief for Private Circulation Rue Mengene Meidan, Old Riza Pasha School, Stamboul, Constantinople. December 10, 1921 | Printed by H. MATTEOSIAN Bible House, Constantinople
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