Mabel Evelyn Elliott

Mabel Evelyn Elliott (8 February 1881 – 13 June 1968), sometimes written as Mabel Evelyn Elliot, was a British-born American physician who did post-war relief work in Turkey and Greece with the Near East Foundation from 1919 to 1924, and worked in Japan from 1925 to 1941.

This article is about the British-born American physician born in 1881; for the British censor of similar name, born in 1885, see Mabel Elliott.
Mabel Evelyn Elliott
A white woman with white hair and dark eyebrows, wearing eyeglasses, a high-collared white blouse with many fabric-covered buttons down the front, and a dark jacket
Mabel Elliott in the 1910s
Born8 February 1881
London, UK
Died13 June 1968 (aged 87)
Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Other namesMabel E. Elliot
OccupationPhysician

Early life and education

Mabel Evelyn Elliott was born in London, the daughter of Joseph Elliott. Her father was a British army officer, born in Glasgow.[1][2] She moved to the United States with her family as a small child, and grew up in Florida.[3] She and her sister Grace were among the first women to earn degrees from the University of Chicago, where she graduated with the class of 1904.[4] She trained as a doctor at Rush Medical College in Illinois.[5]

Career
Macronissi Quarantine camp, 1924

Elliott had a medical practice in Benton Harbor, Michigan beginning in 1906.[6] She worked with American Women's Hospitals Service during World War I. After the war, she went to Constantinople to work with Near East Relief as a physician in a rescue home for Armenian refugee girls and women. She directed a hospital at Marash from spring 1919, and led thousands of refugees on foot, for three days, fleeing the Battle of Marash to a safer facility in Aleppo in 1920.[7][8][9]

Title page of Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (1924)
Title page of Mabel Evelyn Elliott, Beginning Again at Ararat (1924)

After a brief stay in the United States,[10] and an appearance at an international conference in Geneva,[11] Elliott was on hand for the aftermath of the burning of Smyrna in 1922,[3] and assisted refugees in Mytilene. She worked closely with fellow American physicians including Esther Pohl Lovejoy and Ruth Parmelee, and ran a quarantine station on Macronissi.[5][12] She was decorated by the Greek government for her services.[7][13][14] She wrote a memoir of this work, Beginning Again at Ararat (1924).[15]

In 1924, she joined the staff of the Woman's Medical College Hospital in Philadelphia.[7] The following year, she went to Japan to work at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo.[9] She visited the United States in 1929[5] and from 1934 to 1935.[3][16] She left Japan in 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II.[17][18]

Publications
  • Beginning Again at Ararat (1924)[19]

Personal life

Elliott lived with her sister Beatrice Elliott in Florida in her later years. She died in Palm Beach, Florida in 1968, at the age of 87.[4]

References
  1. Her birthplace, and her father's, are from her application for a United States passport, dated March 1920; via Ancestry
  2. "Florida Pioneer Dead". Covington Virginian. April 12, 1926. p. 1. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Dr. Mabel E. Elliott to Speak on Work in Japan Tonight at the First Presbyterian Church". Palm Beach Post. January 13, 1935. p. 7. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Dr. Mabel Evelyn Elliott". The Palm Beach Post. June 14, 1968. p. 41. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Speaker to Tell of the Near East". The Morning News. May 3, 1929. p. 7. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "County Seat News". St. Joseph Saturday Herald. November 17, 1906. p. 8. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Dr. Mabel E. Elliott Joins Hospital Staff". Philadelphia Inquirer. September 7, 1924. p. 2. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "Dr. Mabel E. Elliott Returns from Turkey". The Tampa Tribune. May 28, 1920. p. 10. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Tells Episcopal Churchmen About Jap Relief Work". The News Journal. May 8, 1929. p. 10. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. "Dr. Mabel E. Elliott Returns Home Thursday". The Miami Herald. May 26, 1920. p. 4. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Metaxas, Virginia (2014-10-03). "Working with the Sources: The American Women's Hospitals in the Near East". drexel.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  12. Rodogno, Davide, ed. (2021), "The American Women's Hospitals from Macronissi Quarantine Island to Public Health Work", Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930, Human Rights in History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 273–288, ISBN 978-1-108-49891-3, retrieved 2023-04-05
  13. "Near East Relief Director to Give Three Talks Here". Reading Times. November 7, 1924. p. 11. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Greeks Praise American Woman". The Spokesman-Review. April 29, 1923. p. 42. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Illuminating Narrative of Near East Relief Work". Hartford Courant. February 10, 1924. p. 57. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. "Dr. Mabel E. Elliott to Visit in County after 4 Yrs. Abroad". The Herald-Press. September 19, 1934. p. 2. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Dr. Mabel Elliott and Sister Visiting Here". The Herald-Press. September 15, 1944. p. 2. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "Episcopal Workers in Japan Ordered to Take Furlough". Bangor Daily News. July 30, 1941. p. 11. Retrieved April 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Elliott, Mabel Evelyn (1924). Beginning Again at Ararat. Fleming H. Revell Company. ISBN 978-0-598-52106-4.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.