Kimball papers

The Elsie May Kimball Papers consist of correspondence and biographical information. 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.