Children of Ararat: The Story of a Humanitarian Physician

Dr. Mabel E. Elliott, an American physician, served in Turkey, Armenia, and Greece from 1919 to 1923, helping Armenian and Greek refugees and orphans following World War I for Near East Relief and American Women's Hospitals, humanitarian organizations that served the region. She saw unimaginable massacres and torture while caring for thousands of refugees and orphans.Rose Wilder Lane, journalist and novelist, worked for the American Red Cross and Near East Relief from 1919 to 1923. Dr. Elliott agreed to work on a book for Near East Relief, and the two collaborated on a sweeping memoir that combined Dr. Elliott’s experiences with Rose Wilder Lane’s research on Armenia and its history. The result was a book that became one of the best-known memoirs of the post-World War I Middle East. Lane was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, and Lane served as editor on her mother'sLittle Houseseries of books.Dr. Elliott’s engaging reports and letters were a publicity mainstay for the Near East Relief and American Women’s Hospital organizations to help tell the refugee and orphan story to the American public. Dr. Elliott’s Battle of Marash siege diary is a harrowing tale of her three-day trek leading Armenian refugees across mountains in a blizzard in Turkey. Rose Wilder Lane wrote articles about Armenia for several American magazines, includingGood Housekeeping.Lane’s collaboration with Dr. Elliott on her book was hidden for more than a century, uncovered during research for Dr. Elliott’s biography,Unbreakable Healer. Lane’s rumored “Armenian book,” thought lost or never finished, was found.Dr. Elliott’s forthright tales and Rose Wilder Lane’s soaring prose make for a book that places the reader in the middle of America’s efforts to care for refugees and orphans in Turkey and Armenia a century ago.Foreword by Sallie Ketcham; edited by G. L. Pedersen.41 illustrations, footnotes, index.Read more