Wright, Lester James of Waukesha, Wisc., was the first Near East Relief worker to meet a violent death. He was slain by bandits, near Aleppo, Syria after having accompanied a convoy of orphans out of Harpoot. The children had been moved without mishap to safety and Mr. Wright, with three other relief workers and a native driver, were returning to Aleppo at the time. The bandits opened rifle fire upon the party without warning. Wright was killed instantly. Enoch R. Applegate, another relief worker, was wounded at the same time.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Influenza and exhaustion brought on by the pressure of work among four thousand refugees at Mersine, Turkey, cost the life of Dr. Robert E. Willson, of Morning Sun, Iowa, on February 18, 1923. Dr. Willson had been engaged in missionary work in Cilicia for a number of years and passed through the massacres of 1909, when thousands of Armenians in Adana, Marash, and other cities in that region were slain by the Turks.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924)

Williams, George St. John of Foxburg, Pa., died from pneumonia at Marsovan, Turkey, on December 10. 1922. Mr. Williams was in charge of the Near East Relief unit at Marsovan at the time that the orphans from the interior were being evacuated by way of Samsoun and the Black Sea. In meeting each column as it arrived in the city on the long trip overland to the coast, Williams contracted a heavy cold. He continued at his work despite the remonstrances of his physicians and pneumonia developed. A veteran of the A. E . F., his body was sent to the United States and buried with full military honors at Arlington Cemetery.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Graffam, Mary L. of Lewiston, Me., who like, Annie T. Allen, had gained a tremendous influence throughout Turkey as a missionary, died on August 17, 1921, also at Sivas, as the result of an operation for cancer. Overwork among the orphans and refugees in that city had so taxed her strength that she failed to rally after the operation. Miss Graffam was one of the few women who remained in the interior throughout the war. As a result of her efforts thousands of Armenians were saved from slaughter. In one instance her presence so aggravated the ill-nature of the Turks that an order for her execution was signed but afterward countermanded. At the time of the Armistice the Turkish caretaker of the former Kaiser’s farm at Sivas, in terror of punishment for war-time misdeeds, deeded the property over to her. This property was used as an orphanage until the Near East Relief withdrew from Turkey.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Shellenberger, Menno: Smallpox contracted from refugees at Diarbekir caused the death in that Turkish city of Menno Shellenberger, of Hesston, Kansas, on December 14, 1921. Shellenberger had been transporting supplies by motor-truck from Aleppo, three hundred miles away, to Diarbekir when he became ill.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Robinson, Captain Jay H. of Oakland. Cal., died at the American Hospital, Constantinople, from pneumonia on December 10, 1920. During the influx of Russian refugees lo Constantinople following the collapse of General Wrangel’s anti-Bolshevik forces in Crimea, Captain Robinson worked night and day distributing food and caring for the sick and wounded. The illness from which he died was brought on by exposure and overwork while engaged in this service .

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Peltier, Paul of New York, a pioneer Near East Relief worker, died on April 1, 1919, at Eskishehir, Turkey, following a railroad accident, while he was on his way from Constantinople to the interior. Mr. Peltier was among the first group of relief workers commissioned after the armistice.

(Source: The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Emrich, Richard Stanley of Framingham, Mass., was one of the first Near East Relief workers to go in to Syria. Prior to the war he had been engaged in mission work in Turkey. The party, of which he was a member, started out from Constantinople over the Bagdad railroad in the spring of 1919. They traveled in box cars and during the long, slow trip over the mountains Dr. Emrich contracted a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia and he died on May 4, 1919, at Aleppo.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924The Story of Near East Relief – Barton – 1930)

Crawford, Olive T. of Hartford, Conn., who with her husband had been a missionary at Trebizond, Asia Minor, since 1879, died of typhus in the city in April, 1923. Her husband, the Rev. Lindon S. Crawford, died there on September 26, 1918. Mrs. Crawford had been in charge of work for the Near East Relief in Trebizond for several months prior to her death. She contracted the disease from which she died while helping Greek and Armenian refugees from the interior of Turkey who were awaiting transportation to Greece and other regions of safety.

(Source: Team Work Volume III no. 6 – Smith – June 1924)