Kimball, Elsie M.
Kimball papers,
1919-ca. 1950
Manuscript Collection: MS 0562
1
box
Agency History/Biographical note:
Elsie May Kimball was born on July 23, 1887 in Bennington, New
Hampshire, to Fred H. Kimball (who later became a senator in New
York) and Leonetta Nichols Kimball. She attended high school in
Milford, New Hampshire, then followed her sister, Lorenia M. Kimball,
to Mount Holyoke College in 1905. She left in 1907 to study at the
School of Art in Boston until 1910. Between 1910 and 1919 she worked
as a gas company demonstrator and home missionary in Boston. From
1919-1921 and 1923-1925 she worked for the Near East Relief (N.E.R.)
organization in Armenia and the Republic of Georgia. She cared for
orphans and refugees, organized soup kitchens, and worked as a
secretary for N.E.R. administrators. In 1926, she began working as a
clerk and translator for the Georgian Manganese Company, a mining
firm with offices in Tchiatouri (C'iatura), Georgia, and Moscow,
Russia. She returned to the United States in 1927, and in 1928 she
was awarded a medal for her war relief work. She was Superintendent
of Stenographers in the Law Department of Union Carbide and Carbon
Corporation in New York City for twenty-one years. On October 8,
1955 she married John E. Beck, a chemist. She died on February 28,
1972 in Mount Vernon, New York at the age of eighty-four.
Scope and Content:
The Elsie May Kimball Papers consist of correspondence, biographical
information, and a photograph. Most of this material relates to her
work as a relief worker and secretary for the Near East Relief
(N.E.R.) organization in Armenia and the Republic of Georgia from
1919-1921 and 1923-1925. Of greatest significance are typed
transcripts of letters to her mother, Leonetta Nichols Kimball, and
sister, Lorenia ("Rene") M. Kimball. Many of the letters include
copies of telegrams, letters, reports, and newspaper articles from
the N.E.R., friends, fellow workers, her employers, and orphans. In
these documents Kimball describes her activities a secretary for two
N.E.R. administrators, William N. Haskell and Ernest A. Yarrow, and
her life in Tiflis (T'bilisi), Georgia, and Alexandropol (Gyumri),
Armenia. She discusses the devastation and poverty in the Near East
during and after World War I, the Greco-Turkish War, and revolutions
in Armenia, the Soviet Union, and Turkey. She describes massacres of
Armenians; the advance of Bolshevik forces in Georgia and Armenia in
1920; and her work with Armenian, Greek, and Russian refugees
(particularly orphaned Armenian children) in Akhalkalaki and Batoum
(Batumi), Georgia, and in Alexandropol and Kars, Armenia and at the
Djalal Oghlou Farm School near Alexandropol. She comments on
earthquakes in Tiflis in 1920 and Alexandropol in 1926. In a letter
dated August 30, 1919, she mentions spending time with a Mount
Holyoke College classmate, Gertrude Knox Wells, who was also doing
relief work in the area. In addition, she describes her work and
social life during 1926-1927 when she was employed as a clerk and
translator by the Georgian Manganese Company, a mining company owned
by the William Averell Harriman family with offices in Tchiatouri
(Ciat'ura), Georgia and Moscow, Russia. Kimball's letters also
describe her journey to the Near East through Italy, Greece, and
Turkey in 1919 and her travels in Central Asia in 1927. Other
material in these papers includes biographical information, 1921-1930
and ca. 1950, chiefly relating to N.E.R. work, and a photograph of a
Armenian refugee homes in Russia, ca. 1919-1920.
Cite as: Elsie M. Kimball Papers, Mount Holyoke College,
Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley,
Massachusetts
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Series List:
|
