Mabel E. Elliott

I was born in England in 1881, one of the fourteen children of Joseph Elliott and Elizabeth Belle Ryan. My parents met in India while serving in the British military, and their long journey eventually brought our family to Florida when I was two. We first settled in St. Augustine, then moved to the small settlement of West Palm Beach in 1894. Opportunities for women were limited, especially in medicine, but my sister Grace and I both felt called to become physicians. Since Florida had no medical school, we enrolled at Rush Medical College in Chicago and graduated in 1904.

My first practice was in Coloma, Michigan, before I moved to Benton Harbor. I built a busy practice and, in 1915, became the first woman elected president of the Berrien County Medical Association. The world soon shifted, and so did my work. When the United States entered the First World War, I volunteered for active duty. After the Armistice, the American Women’s Hospital Association sent me to the Near East (Turkey, Armenia and Greece) to aid Armenian and Greek refugees who had survived the 1915 genocide.

In Marash, Turkey, I organized and directed a hospital for returning Armenian families. When Turkish forces advanced in 1920, I helped guide thousands of refugees over the Taurus Mountains during a snowstorm. Many died from the cold, and for several days my own fate was unknown. When we reached Adana, I sent word to my family that I had survived. I returned to West Palm Beach for a short recovery and gave talks about the plight of the Armenians before going back overseas later that year.

I directed hospitals in Ismid until Turkish forces overtook the region again. I then served in Erivan and Alexandropol in Soviet Armenia, where I helped care for thousands of orphans. In 1922, I responded to the Burning of Smyrna. Based in Athens, I became medical director for the American Women’s Hospital for the Near East and organized clinics and quarantine stations for Greek and Armenian refugees. Greece honored me with the War Cross and the gold and silver St. George medals. Near East Relief awarded me the Distinguished Service Medal.

I returned home a national figure and wrote a memoir, Beginning Again at Ararat, with Rose Wilder Lane. The book brought wide attention to the suffering I had witnessed. After a national speaking tour, I joined the faculty of the Women’s Medical College Hospital in Philadelphia, but my desire to serve abroad persisted. In 1925, I accepted a post at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, where I led pediatrics and expanded public health programs for mothers and infants. I stayed in Japan until 1941, when rising tensions forced all mission staff to leave.

I spent my later years in Florida, caring for family and continuing to speak about my experiences. Even in a nursing home, I made daily rounds to check on others. I died in 1968 with little public notice, but I remain proud of a life spent in service to those who needed care.