Nelka joined the division of sisters at Adrianople and took part in the fighting to take that city. This probably was much the most difficult and dangerous time she ever encountered. They were working in the very front lines, in the mud and dirt and under heavy shell fire. At one time when the shells were falling both in front and behind their tents, and it was impossible to move the wounded, Nelka realized that perhaps she would not come out alive. She wrote several short goodbye notes, one of which was written to my mother, which I reproduce here. I am grateful to think that at that critical moment she remembered me.

Kara Youssouff. 29 February 1913.

"Dearest Veta: We are under fire—the projectiles are going over our heads, one just fell on the other side of our tents, and the ground is torn up before our eyes. Perhaps we may miraculously escape—if not, goodbye. Perhaps some one may pick this up and send it. I send you much, much love—give my love to my friends in Petersburg, it is terrible for the poor wounded. Love to Max. Nelka."

Here is a letter from Aunt Susie Blow to Nelka in 1913:

"Nothing I can say suggests what I feel. The picture of you with those awful bombs bursting above you, before you, to right and left of you and the other picture of you plunging knee deep in mud and battling with mud and rain, as you made your way from tent to tent will never leave me. And what pictures of horror must move in ghastly procession in your mind. You have always wanted first hand experience. Now you have had such experience of famine, of war, of religious enthusiasm, of patriotic devotion. How will it all affect the necessary routine of life?"

Sofia 1913.

"I know I have written since the fall of Adrianople and I think I sent you a word from there. Did I tell you that the Consulate was in several places shattered by shells? What I noticed the most was the air of proprietorship of the soldiers in the town and how one felt the immediate transformation of the Turkish town into a Bulgarian one."

Sofia 1913.

"I do not know what I think about the Turks. I only know that I abhor the 'Young Turks' (political party). In general I suppose they are more civilized than the Bulgars. I do not care for them as a nation, but I wish nevertheless that the war would continue until they get to the very door of Constantinople. About occupying the city itself I do not know, because it is so complicated. Of course I wish it might belong to one of the Balkan states and I simply can't endure the mixing in of 'powers.' Powers—by what I would like to know, except size and force alone. I wish they would fight it out and take Constantinople and be done with it and the whole Balkan peninsula as well. I hate threats and tyranny based on the power to destroy if they want. Either gobble it up or leave it alone, but not dictate!!!"

"It is very strange, but it seems to me that everything that makes for terrestrial power makes for spiritual defeat."

"I am crazy to go to Tchatalja but a definite attack does not seem imminent."

"I am well and, as result of feeding on air and no sleep, had to move the buttons of my apron which had become tight. I can speak quite a little Bulgarian."

"I understand fully what is meant by 'A la Guerre, comme a La Guerre.' It is extraordinary how every preconceived notion and habit is thrown to the winds. I like it very much. Everyone acts as the immediate occasion seems to necessitate and it is so much more simple. Everything is changed and I see that it is just so everywhere in time of war because one thing is so very much more important than all the rest. It is when nothing is supremely important that life is simply impossible and that you are baffled at every step."

"It was terrible in many ways. Those first days at Kara Youssouff, but I feel it was the greatest privilege to be there. One felt helpless before such a demand but it was all so real and every breath meant so much."

Once finished with the Balkan war, Nelka returned to America and joined her aunts.

Before leaving she spent several days with my mother and me in our country place. After she left my mother wrote to Nelka:

"Max and I miss you very much. I was so happy to have you with us for a time; your visits are always so nice and cheerful. I always remember them with so much pleasure. We had a long talk with Max about you and decided you were a real friend for us and Max said: 'we must always be real friends to her.' He is very fond of you."

(I was then 16 years old and very much in love with Nelka.)

Once finished with the Balkan war, Nelka returned again to America and joined her aunt Martha in Washington.

She brought Tibi back with her and here a tragic event took place which had a decisive influence on both Nelka's and my life.

While in Washington Tibi somehow got hold of rat poison and despite the help of the best veterinarian and also the help of two human doctors who were friends of Nelka, Tibi died.

Nelka took the death of her mother in a most tragic and painful way, but the death of Tibi affected her to a much greater degree. Her grief was beyond all comprehension and she went into a state of utter despair, verging on the frantic. Her Aunt Susie and a few friends tried to help her as much as they could but absolutely nothing seemed to help.

Just before she had left Russia, Princess Wasilchikoff had asked her to assume the reorganization of a sister community and hospital in Kovno, a fortress-town near the German border. Nelka did not accept the offer though it was of considerable interest to her, because she was then returning to America and had plans to stay with her aunts. But when her little dog died, she quickly changed her mind and telegraphed Princess Wasilchikoff that she was ready to accept her proposition. This she did primarily to try and get her mind focused on something and to get it off the brooding about Tibi. Her grief and despair can be judged from the various letters which she wrote to her aunt at that time, and for a long time to come.

Ashantee 1913.

"If that cannot be done I want to be buried in unconsecrated ground with Tibi and shall arrange for it. I cannot leave Tibi where she is buried and not know what will happen later."

"I hope when I die to know that it will be alright but I cannot get any nearer to being reconciled now, and it just comes over me with a fresh feeling all the time, that I cannot accept it. I have never felt so about anything. I am glad that you miss darling little Tibi. I feel estranged from everyone except those who knew and cared for Tibi."

During her trip back to Europe, she wrote from Rotterdam 1913.

"It just seems some times more than I can bear. I don't know how to get reconciled—that is the worst. I don't accept it and I have an outraged sense all the time of the fearful crime to that happy little life, and so many constant torments come up afresh all the time, that I just feel crazy. I tried to face it all and wear it out of my head in the beginning, but that did not work and now this willful keeping from thinking as much as I can does not help either. Why couldn't anything have happened to me that would not have hurt Tibi? I suffer because that little face is just always before me. If I could just have her for an hour and know that she was all right, I would die the happiest person in the world."

Paris 1913.

"I can't keep up my spirits all the time. I am terribly tired, look a perfect sight, but I don't care. Paris has not changed much. It will always be the most beautiful city in the world, I think, and the most civilized. Church was such a delight this morning. I like this Paris one better than anyone I know, but it all now seems simply a past and I know it will always be so."

Poustinka 1913.

"It seems to me almost superfluous to comment any more on the sadness and pain of what occurred—it is also just more and more and everywhere. The more one sees of life, the more frightened one is of being happy. I think life is just totally and absolutely inexplicable."

"Veta has got a little apartment opposite the Lycee and Max hopes to get in January. I am giving him English dictations and he is studying all day. Veta thinks of nothing else and wants to get him safely married at 21, which she thinks is the best thing for Russian men."

Well, I was safely married at 21 but not with the approval of my mother who opposed my marriage to Nelka because of our age difference.

Poustinka 1913.

"I have not yet seen about the cemetery here but I think I will arrange to be buried there if it is allowed, or else to find some piece of land somewhere. I just hope, hope, hope in something beyond as I never have before. I simply can't stand the injustice of Tibi, of her death and I can never get reconciled to it for a minute."

And a year later she wrote from Kovno in 1914:

"The approach of this anniversary has been taking me, despite of myself, over every minute of those dreadful, dreadful days a year ago. I don't want to speak of it all to you or make you feel any more than I have already the weight of a grief that will never leave me—but I do want to tell you that I shall also never forget how good you were to me and how you helped me through that simply fearful night. I don't know how anything could be any worse but still if you had not been there I don't know what I would have done—and I shall always remember and be glad that Tibi died not far from you."

I think unquestionably the loss of Tibi was the greatest suffering that Nelka ever experienced in her life, even though the loss of her mother and of her aunts was a great shock each time and deep grief which held on for a long time. But there was something about the death of this little dog which hurt Nelka more than anything else. While in later years she never hardly spoke about it, I think the pain always remained.

Nelka was a great believer in 'circumstances' in life. The death of Tibi was a 'circumstance' which affected Nelka's life and mine as well. Had Tibi not died as she did then, Nelka would not have returned that year to Russia. By returning to Russia in 1913 and then the war breaking out the next year, she was prevented from returning to America and thus never again saw her Aunt Susie, who died without her in 1916, while Nelka was at the front. She then stayed on through the war and then the Revolution, and we were married in 1918. Had Tibi not died, all the conditions would have been different and very likely we would not have been married, at least this is possible. I think both she and I have been believers in 'circumstances.' I know that I am. Circumstances which affect all our life. Sometimes one small event, something so insignificant that it is hardly noticed, can bring about a chain of events which entirely and basically change the whole course of one's life. This is what I think the death of Tibi did to the lives of both Nelka and me.

When Nelka came back to Russia in 1913 she undertook the reorganization job offered by Princess Wasilchikoff. Nelka felt it would help her forget and would act as a relief valve for her feelings. Princess Wasilchikoff offered Nelka complete freedom and independence of action and decision in all concerning the sister community and the hospital. She could act and do as she wished and desired. So Nelka agreed with the stipulation that she would undertake this job for one year, and having made her arrangements left for Kovno. The whole picture of the Kovno enterprise is very vividly seen from a number of letters written by Nelka during 1914.

Kovno 1913.

"I think life is a great mystery and thus far renounciation seems to me the only achievement."

Kovno 1914.

"Kovno is a little different from what I expected. It is much more of a hospital than I thought but it is to be completely made over. It is now for 50 beds and a separate house for eye illnesses with two wards in it. There are 40 sisters and 18 servants."

"Two hours after I arrived I attacked their hair (the sisters), and now it is as flat as paper on the wall. I also berated a doctor within the first 24 hours for not appearing for his lecture. I thought I better acquire the habit of discipline at once for the position is rather appalling and I am trying my best to impose terror. When I feel the terror getting rooted, I will try for a little affection and good will."

"I am now racking my brains how to get 180 dresses and aprons made by Easter and keep within the limit for cost."

"I am preparing different and complete charts for all the wards and a laboratory is to be opened in a month. The planning is not the most difficult; it is arranging things within given conditions and in a certain sense in a margin, and appeasing demands and complaints from all sides. The new division of the work was very complicated, too. In one ward, every sister, who was ordered to it either wept, flatly refused or prepared to lose everything and leave on account of the nature of the sister at the head of it. Of course I had to insist on acceptance of the distribution of service, on principle, but I am glad to have found good reason to get rid of the said sister, in time. Finally the young sister who has to go there now, and who reiterated for days that she would rather wash dishes for the rest of her days than go there, after a frank talk of half an hour, said she would, and that I wouldn't hear another word from her. I was reduced to real tears of gratitude and admiration for the effort."

Kovno 1914.

"My head I know is not as strong and clear as it was."

"I have a very nice room which is in the most immaculate order imaginable—I am never in it. Next to it I have what is called my 'chancellery' which has an immense big writing table, another table, three chairs, bells and excellent light and telephone. I spend most of the time in it when I am not going the rounds on a rampage. I like to know that my food costs only 15 cents a day."

During some time in 1914 I was very ill in Petersburg. My mother was at the same time in bed with the flu and unable to take care of me, so in desperation she telegraphed to Nelka in Kovno and Nelka arrived immediately.

Kovno 1914.

"I spent three days in Petersburg, arriving there finding both Veta and Max very ill. Max with fever of 104 or more. Max had all kinds of complications afterwards ending in an abscess in the ear. I looked after him for three days and nights and then Veta got up."

Kovno 1914.

"Every day I live the more insoluble everything seems and the more convinced I am of the insolubility of everything. There are lovely things and tracks in life and humanity, but as a whole the latter is so loathsome and life so sad and dreadful. I feel a terrible fatigue of life and it seems to me that all my energy is simply restless, except the energy to denounce. If I live a hundred years ten times over I think my feeling of indignation for some things will never diminish."

Always still feeling the loss of Tibi, Nelka did not seem to be able to get reconciled. She wrote to her aunt:

Kovno 1914.

"I have just the interest of having begun the thing and wishing to see it permanently established, as I have started it, but at bottom I don't care what happens to anything, and I am only thankful I have had my thoughts arrested momentarily. I had no right to complain of anything or wish for anything as long as Tibi was alive, and what torments me most is not my grief but that Tibi should have suffered. I don't understand anything and I only live in hope and helplessness. I can bear the grief of Tibi's death but I cannot get reconciled to the conditions of it."

During that winter my mother moved from the country where we were living to Petersburg, and Nelka happened to be with us when this took place and took part in the moving. Here is some of the description of the event:

Kovno 1914.

"We followed the next day with a dog and a cat. Veta, Max and I with all the baggage, a parrot 'Tommy' and two small birds in separate cages. I tried to look out for all three and froze my fingers off holding one cage and another that I wrapped up in my shawl. And so we started off in immediate danger of upsetting every minute. A day or two before the sleigh with Veta and Max and her sister-in-law and the driver upset completely in a ditch, horse on his back and toes in the air."

"Max's examinations were to be in two days so of course we tried to beat him into a cold corner to study in the midst of the confusion."

"Of course I took a sympathetic part in all this and did my share by scolding Max almost unremittantly from morning till night. He is a very bright and attractive boy, but easy going."

(Exactly four years later Nelka married the "easy going boy.")

Kovno 1914.

"I would give anything to spend a few hours with you and see how you are and have a nice talk. You don't know how much I realize what a rock you are of effective support and comprehension."

(Nelka never again saw her aunt who died in 1916 while Nelka was at the front.)

Kovno 1914.

"I ought never to move from Cazenovia if I had any character. I shall have learned a lot of things when I die—and all for what?"

Kovno 1914.

"I suppose I shall die a hopeless procrastinator but if I make small progress I also have no peace. It torments me dreadfully to have things undone. I wish I had passed beyond this world, in my soul."

Kovno 1914.

"I realize tremendously how an institution of this kind depends on the managing head. So much has to be looked after and such constant questions come up that no system or plan suffices by itself. It is very hard to get things done quickly without being somewhat impetuous and one cannot preserve control over everything without a great deal of calm. I think more than ever that institutional life is perfectly anti-human. It cannot be run without a certain amount of injustice—that is the innocent suffering for the guilty, that is if one attempts to have rules. It would be far more just to have no rules and exact of each one according to my own judgment. I think that regulations are only made in support of idiotic administrations."

Kovno 1914.

"Max wrote me such a nice, vivid letter."

"Politics are certainly very interesting now. I feel dreadfully sorry for Servia and I hope if there is war with Austria that the last Servian will die on the battlefield."

In May, June and early July of 1914, Nelka was writing to her Aunt Susie about her plans of returning to America. Finally she had made arrangements to sail the first week of August. But then the war broke out and she never got off.

Kovno 1914.

"I have written to the Russian Line and got special permission to sail from Copenhagen. If nothing unforeseen happens, I will leave here on the 4th of August for Stockholm. I had hardly finished this when the town was put under martial law. Everything is upside down. The inhabitants are all ordered to leave. The bank is packing up, people streaming all day there. Everyone ordered off the streets at night. The streets are occupied with soldiers and cannons moving to the front, and the aspect seems serious. No one can tell anything. I have already signed a paper not to leave without the permission of the fort. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end. I have the greatest sympathy for Servia and would like to work in the Red Cross there if not here. I shall try to write you again before being shut up for good, if the town is besieged. We are only a few hours from the frontier."

Kovno 1914.

"Since last night the town is under martial law. Everything is upside down. Cannons hustling to the front. Cavalry going off. All the inhabitants are ordered to leave. We are in the very seat of war. If we have war I am ready to stay to the end if need be. I only hope you won't feel too terribly uneasy. The lack of communications will be the worst. I feel great sympathy for Servia and hope this war will help them. All the big buildings are to be turned into hospitals. The new bank will be splendid—tile floors and water. It can hold at least a thousand, I think. All kinds of specimens are turning up to be enrolled as sisters, but I am relentless and shall take no adventuresses if I can help it."

Kovno 1914.

"I am glad it is for Servia, but O what a horror. I had none of this impression at Adrianople—the panic of a whole town before the war. Mobilization was begun last night, but the inhabitants were ordered to leave six days ago. I cannot describe it. It is just everything that one has ever read about war and a great deal besides. I am glad I have a good lot of sisters. I hope they will all do their duty. Communication will be cut off any minute. I shall be so anxious about my family if we are shut up for long. Well, goodbye. I pray for the best. One must be ready for anything."

Kovno 1914.

"Everything is cut off from Europe and I am dreadfully worried and unhappy to have no news from you and all the family. The whole fortress was put in a state of defense in no time, and the whole town has been ordered out from one station. You can't imagine the scenes. Prince Wasilchikoff has helped me very much in the place of his wife who had to go to Petersburg, and now he is going to join his regiment. I hope he can take this letter to send through Sweden. My consolation is that the war was started in behalf of Servia—it alleviates the horror of all that is going on. Prince Wasilchikoff came in for a moment and said that the political situation was very good and that England has declared war. Everyone is going to the war with enthusiasm. Don't worry too much. This section of the Army will not give in till the last. The Commander Grigorieff is splendid and General Rennenkamph is a real fighting man. I have 56 sisters ready in Kovno. My heart and head are full of anxiety and love for you, for you all. I may be able to get letters to you still, but if not, look out for Tibi's little grave whatever happens."

The absorbing work in Kovno, the excitement and the patriotic fervor were all beneficial to Nelka's state of mind in that it took it off her constant thinking about the death of her little dog.

While Nelka had her own sisters and hospital, the Army decided to consolidate the services under their jurisdiction and turned their own Army sisters over to Nelka and she found herself at the head of some 300 sisters. This was a large complicated administrative job but she handled it with great efficiency. Most of the time the fortress was under fire and it soon became obvious that it would not hold out.

The commanding general did not prove to be as good and efficient as Nelka supposed and he also lost his nerve. Under the increasing pressure of the Germans, he ordered the complete evacuation of the fortress, of the troops and material, while this was still possible. However, this was accomplished in a very poor manner and the commander himself left the fortress 17 hours before Nelka did. He also lost a great deal of his equipment.

Nelka in turn completed a full evacuation of her whole hospital and saved all of her material. Everything in the hospital building which could not be moved was destroyed and she went even that far to have all brass knobs removed from the doors and thrown into the river so that the Germans would not get the metal.

So Kovno fell, but the war went on and Nelka's hospital was reestablished some 40 or 50 miles to the rear as a rear unit taking care of the evacuated wounded. They were settled in a large agricultural school building in very fine surroundings. I managed to visit Nelka at that hospital for a few days.

Soon, however, the fighting resumed and the Germans resumed their advance. The hospital once again had to be moved. At that moment Nelka came down with a very severe case of scarlet fever. The doctor said that she could not be moved, just as the hospital was getting under way. The head doctor had her arranged in bed in a tent, leaving her one nurse. At the last moment when leaving, he slipped a revolver under her pillow! But Nelka recovered. The Germans did not reach that point and ultimately she was able to rejoin her unit.

Soon after that she was sent to the rear to a town called Novgorod, to organize a new unit. There she spent most of the winter and once again I managed to visit her there, as it was not very far from Petersburg.

All during the war, at different intervals, Nelka came back to Petersburg, mostly for just a few days and because of some business for her hospital or unit. Each time when she came to Petersburg she stayed at my mother's and thus I was able to see her occasionally.

The impression she had made on me when I first saw her as a small boy never changed. The only difference was that growing up I came more and more under her spell and was more and more deeply attached and devoted to her. I was then 17 years old and very much in love with her. But she was fully grown and I was but a boy yet, so that any hopes would seem rather futile for me. Futile because of the difference of age and because I could hardly expect that she could be interested in me. Also because of her great charm and personality she always had great success with men everywhere and it was more than possible that some fortunate man would be able to win her.

Both in Russia and in America and also while she was in Bulgaria and in Paris she had a great number of admirers and had over thirty proposals from men of different nationalities. She even had a Japanese suitor. But she never was interested in any of these suitors and once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and all consuming feeling for the man she chose.

But for the moment the war was on and everyone had other thoughts and jobs on hand than romance.

But I was growing up and so was my feelings for her. Every time Nelka would come to Petersburg, I would see her off to the train, taking her back to the front. On one such an occasion I gave her a box of white cream caramels. It was nothing, but for some reason or other it touched her very much and she always said that to her it was measure of my devotion.

On these departures to the front, she was always in a hurry—having so much to do and attend to. On these occasions the determination of her character manifested itself at different times. Once she failed to secure the necessary permit to board a train going to the front—there just wasn't the time for it. At the entrance to the platforms armed guards stood and one had to show one's pass to get through. I warned Nelka that she probably would have trouble, but she said there was no time for this now and that she would find a way to get through. Of course we arrived just about the time the train was pulling out and dashed towards the platform. A soldier stood at the entrance with his rifle and when Nelka plunged headlong towards him, he thrust his rifle horizontally in front of her to stop her. Without a moments hesitation she ducked low and slipped under the extended rifle, and was on the moving train before the sentry knew what it was all about!

On another occasion we arrived at the station just a little too late, even though she had her pass. When we dashed out on the platform we just could see the two receding red lights of the departing train. To this day I do not know what happened, but Nelka raised such fireworks that that train backed into the station. Nelka got on and the train pulled out again!

I have often said that it took courage to be in love with a woman of such determination!

After her winter in Novgorod, Nelka decided to form and organize a unit of her own to serve with the cavalry. She proceeded to raise the necessary money and to select the personnel. As the head of the unit she chose my uncle, my mother's brother, and as assistant a friend of his. She also chose some of the doctors she knew in Kovno as well as some of the sisters. The regular men orderlies and the horses were being supplied by the Red Cross. This unit was attached to the First Guard Cavalry Division. The doctors, the orderlies, the nurses were all on horseback; the stretchers for the wounded likewise were on long poles between two horses. When the whole unit was strung out Indian file it was a very long unit.

Once attached to the Cavalry Division, the unit moved right along with it. Often this was very rough going. Often they would be called out at night, had to saddle and be on the move. Nelka rode a horse named 'Vive la France.' If they were to move any distance they were loaded into trains. She always remembered a dark autumn night unloading the horses from the train in the dark, in the woods, and right next to the position of artillery batteries, firing steadily—the difficulty of controlling and trying to keep the horses reasonably quiet. She had a great deal of trouble with her frightened horse, trembling and scared, because of the noise and flashing guns. The fighting was going on a short distance ahead and hardly had they unloaded as the wounded started to be brought in. They worked on them in muddy dugouts. Between moments of respite Nelka would run out into the dark and try to soothe her horse which was tied in the woods. The guns kept on firing all night.

This was the kind of life which went on. In July 1916 my uncle, the head of the unit, was killed by shell fire, at a moment of some very heavy fighting. The work they were carrying on was right near the firing lines.

At one time, during 1916 Nelka came for a few days to our country estate and one day I went with her to Petrograd. There she received a letter from her Aunt Martha Wadsworth. I was coming back to the country with Nelka on the train. She had the letter in her hand but would not open it for she said she felt it was bad news and she was afraid. She had a premonition of something wrong. We traveled all the way in silence and I could see how very anxious and upset she was. Feeling as I did for her, it was painful for me to see her in that state but there was nothing I could do. She did not open the letter until we reached home and she went alone into her room. It was what she had expected—the news that her beloved Aunt Susie Blow had died in New York.

Another terrible, painful shock, Nelka took it in a very hard way but with great calm and fortitude. She felt that she had failed her aunt, that she should have been with her, instead of at the war. She blames herself. She felt that being at the war was a form of selfishness of self-indulgence, when her duty should have been to remain with her aunt.

Once again a tragic and very hard blow, a blow so hard to accept because of her special devotion to that aunt.

But the war was on—she could not even indulge in her sorrow and she had to return to the front. Fighting was heavy that summer and her cavalry division was engaged and on the move. The unit was always up front, close to the fighting lines and the work was hard.

That summer I entered Officers Training School and did not see Nelka for a very long time.

On the first of February 1917, I received my commission as second lieutenant in the First Infantry Guard Regiment. This was the last promotion done by the Emperor. I was assigned to the Reserve Battalion stationed in Petrograd.

Less than a month later the Revolution broke out and I had a week of street fighting. Then chaos ensued.

Through most of the summer of 1917, I was at the front in Galicia. Nelka was somewhere at the front near the Rumanian border. We did not know where each of us was and had no communications.

Gradually the discipline in the Army, under the impact of the Revolution, broke down and the front started to disintegrate.

While my regiment was coming apart on the Galician front, Nelka's unit was doing the same on the Rumanian border. Some time towards the end of the summer the remnants of her unit were in Rumania and finally came apart. She was left with but a few sisters and her assistant chief, a friend of hers, a Finnish gentleman, Baron Wrede.

At a certain moment she sent him with some of the personnel and equipment from Rumania over the border back into Russia. However, she herself remained behind to take care of the local priest who was desperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was ready to follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving she found and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kitten up in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away from Rumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. At night time they arrived at a small village and for some reason or other, the soldier disappeared. After waiting for a while, there was nothing to do but to continue. And so in the night, Nelka rode alone through the woods and over the mountains over the border from Rumania into Russia. A woman, riding alone, in the night in the midst of the Revolution! She rode all night, the kitten dangling in front of her. By morning she reached a Russian village and soon located the unit. She said she would never forget that ride in the night. The next day the lost soldier turned up very much upset at having lost her on the way.

The revolution was taking its toll and everything was rapidly coming apart, disintegrating and in a state of anarchy. There was no choice but to drop everything and try to get back to Petrograd if possible. But this was not easy to do. Everything was in complete turmoil, no regular train service and the revolutionary soldiers in complete control of everything. The greatest danger was for the Finnish Baron who as an officer was in danger from the soldiers. So a stratagem had to be invented. Nelka went and declared that the Baron was desperately ill and had to be sent to Petrograd without delay, and that for that she needed a special permit. This she managed to secure and was assigned a compartment in the overfilled train. The perfectly healthy Baron was brought in and arranged lying down all the trip of several days, while Nelka had to take care of him, bring him food and look after the 'invalide.' He said afterwards that he had a 'very pleasant trip.' While lying in his berth he kept with him the kitten. Finally they arrived in Petrograd. The Baron then returned to Finland taking with him the kitten where it lived on their estate to a ripe old age.

Nelka, upon her arrival, stopped as usual at my mother's. Soon after that I returned from the front. Now we were all together once more and all together tried to survive in the Revolution, which was not an easy matter. I then joined the British Military Mission with the offices at the British Embassy.

About that time the Kerensky Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks and a lot of fighting took place in the city. Nelka used to say how pretty the city looked with the streets completely empty, when she would be returning home, sometimes skirting the walls of the buildings when some shooting would start along the street. We all soon got used to that kind of existence, which became a normal way of life.

But the Revolution was going on and things were getting worse from day to day. The Bolsheviks were killing right and left and the Red terror was in full swing. My work with the British Mission was at that time of some protection for the Bolsheviks were not yet sure of themselves to the extent of daring to molest the foreign missions. My work with the Mission took me away on various trips accompanying British officers.

In the spring of 1918, one of these trips took me to Mourmansk on the Arctic Ocean and where fighting was in progress between White Russians and other foreign units and the Bolsheviks.

All that area was not exactly a very healthy place to be in and after quite a few adventures I managed to return to Petrograd. I brought back with me 75 cases of what the British call 'Iron Rations,' a mixture of all kinds of food to be used in emergencies.

Food was more than scarce by that time and I was given a couple of cases. It was a God send for all of us. We all subsisted on it.

But the Bolsheviks were getting bolder by the day and were raiding houses, arresting former officers and executing them every night.

One evening about ten, a knock came on the door. I opened. Three men with rifles came in with a commissar. They asked for me by name and said they had an order to search the place. They asked if I had any arms and I said I had a service revolver, which had been given to me by the British. I also had another revolver of mine which lay on the mantelpiece. Nelka, who was there in the room, did at that moment a most risky thing. Unobtrusively she slipped my revolver into the pocket of her dress. I noticed this, but the men did not. I produced the other gun which they dutifully registered and took. They then proceeded to search the place and after examining my papers, announced that I would not be arrested in view of my service with the British. Upon that they left. Nelka had done a most risky thing, for had the pistol been discovered in her pocket, it probably would have been the end of all of us.

However, things were getting very acute and very dangerous. It was obvious that a similar raid might happen again any day and might not finish as well. Should I be arrested and taken away the chances would be of my being shot. So far my service with the British had served as a protection, but with the relations with the foreigners fast getting worse, this could mean just the opposite for me and the connection would be detrimental instead of helpful. So it soon proved to be.

We all had a general consultation and decided to try and get out of the country if only possible. My father went to Moscow where he knew a prominent Jew who was procuring exit permits, for a price, and was helping that way people to get abroad. Then we all began to move about trying to stay in different places, different nights.

In the midst of all this, I declared my love to Nelka and asked her to marry me. She refused because she said she did not think it was fair to me on account of our age difference. I was then twenty-one and she was forty. I kept insisting. She admitted that she loved me and would not hesitate had it not been because of the age difference.

On a certain Friday morning something kept me from going as usual to the British Embassy where our offices were located. This proved to be my salvation for that same morning the Embassy was raided by the Bolsheviks. They invaded the Embassy, arrested all the British officers and killed Commander Crombie right on the entrance steps when he tried to stop them from entering. They hung his body head down out of one of the windows.

All the Russian officers who worked with the Mission were also arrested and promptly shot. Of 16 such officers, only three including myself ultimately got away. Thirteen were shot.

After the Embassy raid my position became extremely precarious, for I was now on the black list and being searched for. While previously my connection with the Mission had been a protection, now it was just the opposite. I could not very well remain in our apartment and we all scattered, except my mother who remained. My father was still in Moscow. Nelka went to some friends. I spent some time in the country where I hid for some time in our empty house.

It is to be noted that food was practically unavailable and that there was no money to buy it with if there was any. So we all had a pretty desperate time, but so did everyone else.

In the midst of all this, Nelka finally agreed to marry me. Perhaps the Revolution, the circumstances, the constant danger which we were all facing all of the time, helped her make her decision. But decide she did and so one day early in September 1918 we went to Tsarskoe Selo, an hour by train from Petrograd where an old aunt of mine lived. We were married in a church there with just a handful of friends in attendance. Nelka wore a white sister's uniform for her wedding dress. My old aunt who was very fond of Nelka took off a gold bracelet she wore and put it on Nelka's arm. Nelka never took it off throughout her life.

Some friends of ours let us use their empty apartment for our honeymoon. We had a 5 pound can of British bully beef and subsisted on that until it was used up. We then returned to Petrograd and moved into one room of a tiny flat where a Polish woman, Mrs. Kelpsh, lived who had worked in Nelka's hospital in Kovno. This was in a back yard of a small side street. She registered Nelka under her maiden name and me not at all. If seen, I was just supposed to be a boy-friend visiting.

However, things were getting more and more dangerous, and we had to invent something if we were to save ourselves.

Earlier, before our marriage, when things were not so bad and we were all seeking ways of getting out of Russia, I had applied for a foreign passport to go abroad. At first some people were being let out before the Bolsheviks clamped down on everybody.

Now, this application at the Foreign Office or Commissariat was a dangerous identity of myself and a disclosure, especially when I was being searched for because of my connection with the British Mission.

Nelka knew this situation and one day unknown to me she went to the Commissariat. There she very naively inquired about the application of Michael Moukhanoff. The girl looked up and brought out my file, looked it over and said that no decision had been made yet. Nelka then asked when one could hope to have an answer. The girl said she did not know but could go and find out. If Nelka would wait she would go and inquire. She left the room and Nelka then did a very desperate thing. She picked up the file from the table, walked quickly out of the room, down the corridor and then faster down the steps and into the street where she mixed into the crowd. A dangerous thing to do, but my file was gone, even though my position became that way only more illegal and perhaps even more dangerous. But Nelka as usual did the decided thing with courage and determination.

Like many others we were now trying to escape. Like always in such cases, there are people who for a price were getting people out of town and over the Finish border. It was very dangerous work for them—dangerous for the people trying to leave and also expensive. We established contact with one such person who turned out to be a very decent fellow, and he agreed to try and get us out. He had peasants along the border whom he knew and who were helping him. These he had to pay and quite highly for it was all dangerous work for them also. He warned us that he could not tell when he would be ready to move us and that we should be ready to go on a moment's notice. Therefore, we prepared what we thought we could take with us and waited.

In the meantime my father had succeeded to get some false papers through his Jewish friend in Moscow and with these he and my mother managed to get over the Finnish border into Finland by train. They were by now in Stockholm and getting ready to sail to America.

By this time also, Nelka and I were living in another house, in a closed apartment in a house where some very close friends of ours lived. Nelka was registered there under a false passport in the name of Emilia Sarapp. I was not known, unless as a boy friend.

The food situation had become absolutely desperate. There just was none. Some mornings I would go to the outskirts of the city where peasants would come in their sleighs selling milk. People fought to get a quart of this watery stuff.

We also had some frozen potatoes. When frozen, potatoes are pink and sweet and slimy. These we ate without butter or even salt which was not available. The watery milk sometimes helped. Once in a while we got a loaf of black bread with a mixture of straw. I saw people cut off chunks of meat from a dead horse lying in the street and carry it home for their dinner.

So we packed some clothes and valuables and waited. Before leaving, we wanted once more to see my old aunt in Tsarskoe and we went there to say goodbye. We spent the day with her and were returning to Petrograd before dark, for a curfew was sometimes imposed and it was not safe to be around in the dark.

As we were hurrying through the crowded station, someone slipped up to the side of Nelka. It was our friend from the house we lived in. She whispered to Nelka: "Do not return home. A raid took place and they have an ambush waiting for you." Having said that, she slipped away into the crowd.

Now we were in a desperate fix, and we knew it. The first thing was to get off the streets. We quickly thought it over and then called the apartment of some friends of mine, who we knew were not there, but where an old governess was still remaining. We just said we would come over. People understood and asked no questions. We went there, explained what had happened and spent the night.

We were in a critical situation. We had no money, except a little on hand, no belongings of any kind, except the clothes on us, and in greater danger of getting caught. So first of all, we went to the man who was to take us over the border and explained the situation. He especially understood how very dangerous it was particularly for me, with all the points which were against me. He said he had nothing arranged for the moment, except one possibility which was not too certain and not too safe. He had a peasant coming to see him that day and that he could send me with him, but not both, for this was not to sure a way. He suggested that we better accept this proposition that I be got out of the way at once and over the border and that with the next safer possibility he could move Nelka, I to be waiting just over the border. Nelka explained that we had no money but that she thought that she could get some from some one she knew. We all discussed the situation together for a while, but saw that there was not much choice. In the meantime, the peasant arrived and the man went to talk to him. Finally, it was decided that Nelka remain with our friends under the name of Emilia Sarapp and that I go with the peasant, and wait at the border.

It was all very bad. Finally we had to say goodbye, both realizing the danger but having little choice. It was quite a heartbreaking separation—I leaving into the unknown with a bandit looking individual, of whom we knew nothing, Nelka remaining in the city with the uncertainty of finding any money.

I will not go into the details of my trip, except to say that it was not easy nor safe, but I finally late that night reached the Finnish border and crossing the stream separating the two countries in the woods and deep snow, arrived at a small Finnish peasant hut.

I explained the situation to him and that I would like to stay with him for a few days until my wife could join me. He readily agreed for he knew and participated in this business of people escaping and was receiving a number of them at all times. He was also engaged in contraband dealings and a number of his agents kept coming and going through his hut, moving goods over the border. I had just a little money and arranged to have him keep me. I gave a note to the peasant who brought me over and he promised to get it to Nelka when he returned to Petrograd. Then I waited. Practically every night people came over the border and most of them stopped at the hut. It was quite an active spot. One or two of the parties who were all coming through the services of the same man, brought me notes from Nelka. Once or twice I crossed the border back into Russia and went about five miles to the nearest village hoping that perhaps Nelka was coming through with the next party as she wrote she hoped to. This perhaps was dangerous and risky on my part, but nervousness just kept me from sitting still.

Then the unforeseen happened. At that time the Finnish people were having a revolution of their own. There were Red Finns and White Finns fighting each other all over the country. The front was fluid with small units moving back and forth, here and there, occupying this or that area or this or that village. There is where misfortune struck me. A Red Finnish patrol took possession of the area and I was caught by the Red patrol.

This has nothing to do with this story I am now writing about Nelka, so I will not go into this complicated and lengthy matter of how I managed to escape from the Finnish Reds. This is a long story. Suffice it to say, that I managed to get away.

But it was not possible any more for me to remain on Finnish ground and I crossed in the night back into Russia. Having no money I was obliged to walk and walked about 30 miles to Petrograd. I finally made it, but I did not know where to look for Nelka so I went to our man. He told me that Nelka was to come and see him that morning at about eleven, and so I waited. Nelka arrived on time. When she saw me she went into an absolute fury, for my having come back. I always said that she was in such a fury with me that for about 48 hours I never even had a chance to try to tell her why I was back.

Finally I got it over to her, and while we were happy to be together again, our position was just as desperate, if not worse, and we were back where we had started. We knew that we better do something fast. However, while Nelka had managed to get some money, there was not enough to pay the man to get us over.

So I made a suggestion. In as much as I had crossed the border twice and knew the way pretty well, I suggested that we go on our own without any guide or assistance. We explained this to our man who was very nice about it and said that if we wanted to take the risk it was up to us.

However, there was little choice so we decided. We paid him for my first trip and had a little money left. Through some black market dealer we managed to get a loaf of black bread and with nothing else but the clothes on our backs, we started out. Nelka wore a sisters uniform black dress, a heavy cloth coat, a fur cap and black leather high boots—like riding boots. I wore a military field uniform without insignia, like most of all the population wore at that time. While adequate, none of this was too warm for long stays in the cold, but we had nothing else. It was the end of December.

Early in the morning we took a train in the direction of the Finnish border. Trains ran as far as the border, but we got off two stations earlier, at the same one I used the first time. From that station we proceeded on foot down a country road towards a village I knew some five miles away. We reached there in the early afternoon and stopped at a hut where I also had been on my first trip. The peasant woman gave us some soup and we were resting and warming up, when suddenly a bunch of red soldiers entered the yard. The woman whisked us quickly into an empty room in the back of the house and told us to remain quiet. We could hear the men come in and ask her if she had seen any refugees around. (It is to be noted that there were constantly people trying to escape all along the border and the Reds were always searching them out. At one time as many as 100 to 150 were getting over the border daily. All along the border within five miles people were shot on sight.)

We heard the woman say she had seen no one. One of the men asked about her house and asked what was in that room, meaning the one we were in. The woman answered, "Oh, I keep my chicken there." The men did not insist and left. It was a close call. After the men left, the woman suggested that we better leave too, for it was too risky for her to have us there. We got by once, but it might not happen again so we also decided that we better leave. The soldiers had gone in the direction of the station, and, as we were to continue further, we got out on to the road and started for the next village, a distance of nearly seven miles through the woods. I also knew that village and some of the peasants. From there the path through the woods led to the Finnish border, some five miles away.

It was getting late and was not a good time to be out at dark for at night the Reds put out patrols. I hoped however to reach the village before nightfall and so we hurried along. The road was well rolled down—the going was not hard and we made good time.

It was just getting dark but a moon was coming up when we reached the village. The first hut was the one I had been to before and I knew the peasants there, who were some of the peasants working for our man. We entered and a woman rushed up to us crying and urging us to get out. She was weeping and finally managed to explain that her husband had just been arrested by the Reds and taken away on suspicion that he was helping the refugees. She practically pushed us out of the house.

So here we were, out on the road facing a dilemma. Any moment now the night Red patrol would be out on the road. Another one would be out at the village we came from. Before us lay the path towards the Finnish border, but it crossed a wide field before entering the woods. I knew the way well but with the full moon out you could see a great distance, like in the day, on the bright snow and I was afraid to be spotted crossing that field.

I told Nelka I was afraid to risk this trip towards the border as it was so light. But we had little choice, for the patrols would be out any minute now and we could not remain on the road. With no other choice left we retreated into the woods, off the road and settled under some thick pine trees for the night, right in the snow. It was Xmas eve.

We survived the night and even slept a little. It was also evident that Nelka was developing some kind of flu and was running a temperature. I used to joke that she melted the snow around us because of that. Luckily there was no wind. The snow was deep and we dug out a hollow. The temperature was probably about ten or fifteen above. Remember we had no covers—just our clothes. We ate some of our remaining black bread. We were tired from so much walking and so we slept.

By morning it was obvious that Nelka was ill and had a temperature. We had to act quick and invent something, so we went back to the village and I entered the same hut again. The woman had quieted down and did not push us out. We also found there another couple who turned out to be an officer with his wife trying to get out as we did, so we decided to stick together. The woman suggested that we go by sleigh to the next village and try to cross from there. So we hired a sleigh and started out—this time the four of us with the driver. It was now fairly safe to move along the roads by day with the night patrols off.

We drove to the next village about ten miles away. When we came to the village, our driver said he wanted to stop at the tavern which was located at the entrance to the village. He went in while we waited in the sleigh. When he came out a soldier followed him onto the porch. He looked at us suspiciously and then asked the peasant where we were coming from. The peasant named a village to the east. The soldier then suddenly said: "Why your horse is turned the wrong way, wait a minute," and he stepped back into the tavern.

Our driver whipped up his horse and we went down the road as fast as we could. Looking back we saw several soldiers run out on the porch. One of them lifted his rifle and a shot came over us, but we were well on our way. They had no horses available to follow us so did not pursue and we got away. After a ride of some two miles, we turned sharply to the left and down a narrow lane into the woods. Here the peasant stopped and said the border was only about two miles away and that he would lead us for so much. We agreed. He hid his sleigh and horse in an empty barn and we started out. Soon the lane ended and we were in thick woods. The snow was waste deep and with the fallen logs, the going was extremely difficult. We had to haul the women over the logs and pull them out of the deep snow. Both the women and especially Nelka who was ill, were completely exhausted. It was a painful procession. Finally we came to a clearing in the woods and the peasant turning around, said very calmly, "This is Finland." A very strange feeling of elation and apprehension and a strange feeling of leaving in such a manner one's native land.

We were now not at all sure what kind of Finns we would encounter, but soon we saw two Finnish soldiers and much to my relief I recognized them as being White Finns. They stopped us and then took us to the village to their officer. A young lieutenant was sitting at a table in a small hut. We reported to him and when I mentioned that I was an officer and named my regiment, he rose and saluted. The Finns were very decent and helpful in every way. Despite their own difficulties, they extended help to the numerous refugees coming over, established receiving camps and medical units for the sick. We were taken by sleigh to Terrioky. Nelka as having temperature was taken to the hospital and I to the camp. As soon as possible we communicated with our friends the Wredes in Helsingfors and they immediately took steps to get us out of camp and into their own home. So in a few days we were on our way to Helsingfors where we received the warmest hospitality from the Wredes and remained with them for about six weeks.

We then proceeded by way of Stockholm and Oslo to the United States sailing on the Stavangerfiord for New York early in February of 1919.

Upon our arrival in America we went to Washington where we stayed with Nelka's Aunt and Uncle. Later in the spring we went to Cazenovia to the little house which Nelka's Aunt Susie had left her and spent finally a restful and quiet summer, which was our honeymoon time. We were also regaining our health, which had suffered from the starvation period. Nelka put on some forty pounds and I came back to normal after having been bloated from hunger, like some starved Hindu child.

However, we soon felt that this easy and restful life was not right morally. The Bolsheviks were still in power, wrecking Russia and a civil war was raging between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians: We decided that it was our duty to go back and help. So I went to Washington and offered my services at the Russian mission to join one of the volunteer armies. We first planned to go to Siberia but then decided we would join the army of General Denikin in the South of Russia, and I was given an assignment there.

Before sailing for Europe we went to New Orleans to visit Nelka's cousin and then sailed from there for Liverpool, and then to London and Paris. Once in Paris we were advised that things were not going well in the south with the army of General Denikin and that we better wait before going on. So we stayed in France and I joined the French airplane factory of Louis Breguet near Paris where I worked for about 8 months. Then things got better in the Southern Army and we once again decided to go on to the Army reorganized now by General Wrangel.

Just at that time the Breguet factory received an order for night bombers for the Russian Army and it was arranged that I escort that shipment to the Crimea. So once again I put on the uniform of a Russian lieutenant, Nelka put on the uniform of a Russian Red Cross nurse and we set out.

The planes were boxed and sent to Marseilles where they were loaded on a French freighter, the Saint Basil, and we left for Constantinople. As the planes were bulky but light, the boat was light and high in the water. Because of that the propeller was but halfway in the water and our progress was very slow. It took us 17 days to get to Constantinople. Hardly had we dropped anchor in the Bosphorus as a launch drew up and a French officer came aboard and asked who was in charge of the shipment. He informed me that we could not proceed any further because news had just been received that the Army of General Wrangel had started the evacuation of the Crimea.

So we had to go ashore. The planes, having come from France, were unloaded and left with the French Army of occupation. So, came to an end our trip and our efforts to join the White Russian Army. We landed in Constantinople and in the next few days the evacuated Army of Wrangel started to arrive. Over 140,000 people arrived including the remnants of the army and between 6 and 7 thousand wounded. The plight of these people was terrible. While the wounded were landed and taken care of by the American and British Red Cross, most of the rest were not allowed ashore and were kept on board the ships in the harbour. One boat had 12,000 people aboard.

The day after we had arrived, I accidentally met in the street Robert Imbrie, whom I had known when he was American Consul in Petrograd. It turned out that he also had just arrived and like ourselves was also on his way to the Crimea, appointed from the State Department. He asked me what I was going to do and I explained that probably for the moment we would return to France. He said that he was waiting for instructions from Washington to know what to do. Next day he contacted me saying that he was assigned to form a Russian Section at the American Embassy in Constantinople and offered me a job to work with him. I gladly accepted and so we stayed in Constantinople for the next 8 months.

It was a very interesting period. My work was varied. I acted as interpreter at the American Embassy with the Russians and with the French. Nelka joined the organization of the French Admiral's wife, Madame Dumesnil, doing refugee relief work.

It was an interesting and exhilarating time in Constantinople. We saw and knew a number of very interesting people. We saw unusual situations and we were both very busy.

Mr. Imbrie, with whom I worked, had as his assignment to undertake inspection tours. For this he often used the American destroyers which were anchored in the Bosphorus. Thus, we went to Gallipoli, to Lemnos, to Salonica, etc.

On a certain day we took off for Varna in Bulgaria and from there to Batum in the Caucasus.

Nelka remained in Constantinople and had with her a little companion, a dog Djedda. Djedda influenced a great deal of our future existence, and as you will see there was quite a story attached to this little dog.

One day we were visiting the bazaar of Constantinople, a colorful, typical oriental spot, crowded and noisy, with oriental smells and sounds. In one of the passages we came across a small, brown dog, which was running around frightened and miserable. We spoke to her and, while she was timid, she was friendly and came to us. We decided to pick her up and that we could give her to the little daughter of the man in whose house we had a room. The little girl Offy was living with her father who had recently lost his wife and we thought that the little dog would fit in nicely as a playmate for the little girl. Offy was very pleased and we showed her how to take care of the dog. The first thing to do was to wash the dog and get some of the grime off. When this was done we were surprised to find out that she was white not brown, the size of a small fox terrier, with lovely eyes and a vivacious disposition. So all was well for the dog, for Offy and for us—at least for the moment. A few days later Offy announced that the dog seemed ill. We examined her and found that she was running a temperature, would not move and certainly was not well. We arranged her in a small box and took her to our room for she needed better care than the little girl could give her. As she did not improve, we took her to the veterinary and he found that she was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism of the joints. He gave her some medicine and told us to keep her quiet. This was not difficult to do for she was very ill and did not move. In this critical condition she must have stayed for about two weeks, possibly more. Then she began to show some signs of recovery, but even this was very gradual. Gradually she began to regain strength and finally we tried to have her get out of her box and walk about. When we tried this, we found to our surprise that she could not stand up and we discovered that her two front legs had stiffened in the joints, which would not move. Those joints had actually grown together and the dog would never be able to move them again. However, with time Djedda adapted herself wonderfully to this situation and learned to hobble about just on her hind legs supporting herself by holding her left front leg against her hip. The right front leg was bent up below her chin against her chest. Naturally in that condition the dog could not remain with the little girl so she stayed with us. And despite her crippled condition, Djedda was a most wonderful and lovable dog. She adapted herself so well that she could even go up the steps.

Like all invalids, Djedda adapted herself wonderfully and was quite proficient in her movements, though she always remained a cripple. The only thing she could not do was come down the stairs. So, if she found herself at the head of the stairs, she would start barking until someone came to carry her down. She was a very wonderful pet to us for about 12 years. This poor little cripple was the most gay and joyful little dog, a wonderful and devoted companion and we never regretted for a moment having had the good luck of finding her. She gave us a great deal of joy and comfort.

So when I left with Imbrie for Batum, Nelka remained with Djedda. When leaving I told Nelka that I was to be back a certain Monday. Well, things did not go exactly on schedule. When we got to Batum, we found that the city, which was occupied by the Turks, was being besieged by the Georgians. We went ashore, looked the situation over and saw that it was not good. We remained anchored in the harbor. The next morning the Georgians attacked and hot fighting resulted. Most of it was with small arms only, but when the bullets begun to spatter against our destroyer, the captain decided that we better get out, which we did, and we steamed back to Constantinople. With this delay, we were off schedule and instead of arriving on Monday it was Wednesday. When I returned home I found that Nelka was gone, with a note left for me. The note said that as I had not returned on Monday and as news had reached Constantinople that heavy fighting was on in Batum, that she was leaving to look for me. I was furious, because it was so utterly useless.

Upon inquiry I found that she had boarded a small Italian freighter plying the cost of Asiatic Turkey. The boat named San Georgio had left on Tuesday and had no wireless. The boat's company explained that she was due back in about three weeks.

I went to explain the situation to Admiral Bristol at the American Embassy. He said that he knew about Nelka having gone, for while disapproving of it and advising her against it, he had helped her get the Interallied visas which were necessary to be able to leave the city. Normally it took about a week to get these visas, British, French, Italian and United States. Nelka got them in 3 hours.

While the Embassy reassured her and told her there was nothing to worry about, her main objective of getting on a boat was to try to communicate with me on the destroyer by wireless. It later developed that, after she had left on the San Georgio and they were out at sea, then only did she discover that the boat carried no wireless. Therefore her main objective of communicating with me was not possible but this she discovered too late.

She had booked passage first class and upon arriving found out that that entitled her to a chair in the salon. Others sat on the deck on the floor. The decks were crowded with Turkish men who were traveling from one small port to the next along the east. Each night they brought out their small prayer rugs and turning towards the setting sun, prayed kneeling in rows on deck.

Once aboard, Nelka also found out that first class tickets did not include meals. Having very little money with her, she found that she was not able to afford to buy much. She had a bag of apples with her. Not having anyone to leave Djedda with, Nelka took her along and carried her under her arm all the time. While they did not feed Nelka, the steward was very kind and Djedda was fed. And so they traveled.

I, in the meantime, was desperately trying to find a way to contact Nelka on the San Georgio. The admiral and the Embassy were very cooperative and the admiral issued orders to all the destroyers to keep an eye for the San Georgio and intercept her if spotted.

Having traveled most of the length of the southern coast of the Black Sea, the Italian captain announced that he was going into Batum. Batum in the meantime had been occupied by the Bolshevik forces and therefore Nelka's position became very precarious. She argued with the captain but he said he had a cargo to pick up and that he was going in. The first thing Nelka did was to hide her identification papers, her passport and visas. Better to have nothing than to be found out as a White Russian. She remained in the cabin while in Batum. On the second morning a bunch of Bolshevik soldiers arrived and announced that they were going to search the ship. This was a very dangerous situation for Nelka. However after a while, and while they had been half through the boat, another party arrived and started an argument with the first bunch as to who had the right to make this search. They pretty nearly came to blows in this argument, but finally still arguing all left without finishing the search. This was a close call for Nelka. Next morning the San Georgio pulled out on her way back to Constantinople. She was grateful, but by now was becoming pretty hungry and what food she managed to get was very scarce.

A few days later, just as they were pulling into Samsun, the American destroyer John D. Edwards spotted the San Georgio, hailed her and inquired about Nelka. When told that she was aboard, they lowered a boat and came to fetch her, and took her and the dog aboard upon specific orders from Admiral Bristol. The commanding officer, Captain Sharp was most helpful and kind. He gave Nelka his cabin and, also as she had run out of everything, offered her his underclothes. Two sailors were assigned to take care of Djedda.

They steamed back towards Constantinople, but had to delay the return for they had to go out to sea for gunnery practice. Thus, Nelka must have remained on the destroyer for four or five days before returning. This was a very harrowing and needless expedition which could have very easily ended in a tragic manner.

By summer the work of the Russian section of the Embassy was coming to an end. My chief, Mr. Imbrie, received a new assignment to go to Rumania, and we decided to return to France. The Embassy hearing this, offered to give us a permit to travel to Marseilles on an American Shipping Board vessel, which normally did not carry passengers. They advised that it would be convenient for us and inexpensive, the rate being only $5 per day for each of us, for a trip of about five days.

We accepted with pleasure. It was also convenient for the transportation of our animals, for by this time, in addition to Djedda we had a small black dog and two young cats. One, Nuri, was a small kitten which I picked up out of the gutter where it was nearly drowned in the rain. That was a very wonderful cat who lived with us for 18 years.

Late one evening we boarded the Lake Farley. The captain assigned to us our cabin and we were underway. It was late July and when we entered the cabin we found that the temperature must have been well over a hundred. It was so hot that the floor was too hot for the cats to walk on and they kept jumping back and forth from one bunk to the other. The dogs we had left on deck.

So we went to the Captain and complained about the heat. He said he was sorry he had nothing better but that the whole boat was at our disposal and we could arrange ourselves wherever we wished. So after looking everything over, we finally decided to sleep on top of the chartroom. We climbed up there with a couple of blankets and settled for the night under the stars. This was not bad but only the sparks from the funnel kept raining down on us most of the time. But we got used to this and stayed that way most of the trip. The captain was American as well as the mate but the crew was of all nationalities, the cook being a Turk. However it did not look as though the trip would last only five days as the boat was very slow. We stopped on our way at Biserta on the African coast and had a day ashore. The day after we left Biserta at lunch time, I smelled smoke, so I told Nelka I would go and investigate. The moment I came out on deck the alarm bells started off and I saw the middle of the ship aflame.

While I went on deck, Nelka had gone to our cabin, and when she entered she also heard the alarm. So picking up the two cats and a life belt, she hurried on deck. I likewise picked up the two dogs and a life belt.

The captain was hollering from the bridge to lower the boats as the ship would blow up because of the oil. In a few minutes one of the boats was already bobbing on the water and the cook in his white cap was in it. However, all who were available were fighting the fire, mostly with sand and finally we got it under control. All was fine, only the fire did some damage in the engine room and for more than a day we drifted while they were making repairs.

Then we resumed our way to Barcelona where we were to unload some of the wheat we were carrying. When we got there the Spanish authorities would not allow us to go ashore for, as we were Russians, they decided that we may be communists. So they even posted a policeman to see that we would not sneak off. This might not have been so bad, but in the unloading a mistake was made. The forward hull was emptied and as a result the ship sank by the stern and got stuck in the mud bottom. It took us a whole week to extricate ourselves and all that time we had to just sit on that boat.

By the time we finally got to Marseille we had been traveling for three weeks.

We settled in Menton where we remained for several years. I worked in a French Real Estate office. We also played at Monte Carlo and were quite proficient. Nelka used to say that this was the only honest and "above board" business.

In the summer of 1927 we received the news that Nelka's Uncle Herbert Wadsworth had died suddenly from a heart attack. Once again Nelka had a severe blow and sorrow and once more she had lost a close person without having seen him. That fall we finally sailed for America with our friends Count and Countess Pushkin. We all settled in Cazenovia where Count Pushkin and I started a furniture carving business which we kept up for about three years, until the start of the depression.

While living on the Riviera our animal family had grown to 8 dogs and 5 cats, all picked up or abandoned. The little crippled Djedda was still with us and the most cherished of our pets. We brought the whole menagerie with us to America.

In 1930 when the depression was well under way, we once again sailed back to France and this time were there for three years—part of the time in the South and part near Paris. My father died at that time and in 1934 we returned to America.

On arrival, we went directly to Ashantee to visit Nelka's Aunt Martha, who had been quite ill for sometime after a car accident. We arrived on a Saturday. The next Tuesday Aunt Martha died. This was again a terrible shock for Nelka. Once again death had struck suddenly and this time her last close relative was gone. Both Aunt Susie and Uncle Herbert had died without Nelka being with them and now Aunt Martha dies only three days after we had returned.

Aunt Martha left Ashantee to Nelka and her cousin Lutie Van Horn. So unexpectedly we found ourselves here and remained. At first we thought that we would sell the property but the depression was on and it was not possible to do so.

Thus we stayed and stayed. I did some farming and we still had the remnants of her aunt's horse business, but these were difficult years for us.

I think that while this prolonged stay might have been difficult and materially complicated, this time was not wasted, as Nelka pointed out, from a moral point of view. It was a time of consolidation of our points of view, of our beliefs and conceptions.

And so we stayed here from 1934 until today, and until Nelka passed away in December 1963—a long stay of close to thirty years.

Nelka had had a very varied, very diversified and unusual life. A life which was one of highly emotional feelings. I think characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expression of loyalty and devotion, an emotion, which dominated most of her life and all of her actions.

Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotion rather than by reason, but once decided upon she carried out her actions with great determination and great will power.

Her first overwhelming emotional feeling was a patriotic nationalistic feeling for Russia, and a mystic devotion to the person of the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Then her next emotional feeling was the attachment and deep loyalty for her family and her kin.

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was American. Because of that there seemed always to be a conflict of feelings, attachments and loyalties, a conflict which dominated a great part of her life, at least the first part of it. I think in many respects this conflict of feelings was upsetting and painful and she suffered a great deal from the frustrations that these feelings often brought about.

Because of these conflicting feelings and attachments Nelka was restless and went back and forth between Europe and America always seeking a solution and a way of life. I think these conflicting feelings and the deep attachment to her family were the main reasons why for so long she had not married. She just was afraid to create or add a new attachment.

Pretty, with a lovely figure, always very feminine, with a brilliant mind and a sparkling personality, a great sense of humor, broad and diversified education, an understanding of art and good taste, cosmopolitan in her experiences and speaking four languages—Nelka had tremendous success both with men and with women.

The friends she had were always deeply devoted friends who kept their friendship through years or through life and were always under the spell of her personality.

Her overwhelming personality and charm naturally attracted men and about thirty men of every nationality had at one time or another asked her in marriage. When she was twenty-two, during her four months visit in Bulgaria, five men proposed to her.

But she never agreed, first because just marriage for the sake of marriage had no attraction for her, and because of her emotional attachments she was afraid to create a new one. She also once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and overwhelming feeling, and that she had not yet found.

Throughout these years and because of these conflicting feelings, I think she was disturbed and in many ways not happy. There was too much conflict of feelings. Also her philosophically inclined mind was always searching and seeking—searching a religious understanding of life, always questioning the reasons for this or that problem of life. Her Aunt Susan Blow, who was a great student of philosophy, contributed much in a way to Nelka's emotional seekings. But how often in later years Nelka lamented the fact that she had not utilized fully the wisdom and the knowledge that her aunt could have given her in her philosophical understandings. Nelka was seeking by herself, trying to unravel the questions which bothered her through her own thinking.

But from a rational point of view some of her feelings and emotions were very devastating for her own existence and her own serenity. And her deep attachment to the family was also a source of pain and suffering because of its acuteness. There was not much family left but for those who remained, Nelka gave a full measure of love and devotion. The loss of those close to her were blows which did not heal easily and caused deep pain. The death of her little dog Tibi likewise gave a nearly exaggerated frustration and grief. Just like everything else in her life, Nelka's grief was complete. She in everything understood and accepted only completeness. Nothing in her life meant anything if it was only partial. She could never settle for 50%, always seeking totality, only completeness, and this of course is a tremendous strain on one's person. That strain I think showed itself in Nelka for many years of her life and only towards the later part of it she seemed to acquire some stability of feeling and emotional impulse. There was a reason for that of which I will speak later.

A friend of hers once said about her, "She was a tremendous personality and such force."

Like all humans she had her weaknesses, but these weaknesses were in a way her force, for by sheer will power, by determination or by uncompromising dedication, she was able to control or overcome her weaknesses. Not many are able to do that.

She had many friends in all walks of life and in different countries of many nationalities, but always the reaction was the same—a complete spell of attraction and fascination and generally a long lasting friendship—which once established, was never broken. And that because of that tremendous personality.

Around 1885 lived a young Russian girl, Marie Bashkirtzeff. She wrote some prose and poetry and did some painting. She lived and died very young from TB on the French Riviera in Nice. Not particularly pretty, nor particularly striking, she had nevertheless a tremendous personality. In fact so striking that the city of Nice after her death created a Museum Bashkirtzeff where were kept her paintings, her writings and her personal things. The French author Francois Coppee said of Marie Bashkirtzeff: "Je l'ai vue une fois, je l'ai vue une heure, je ne l'oublirais jamais." (I saw her once, I saw her one hour—I shall forget her never.)

I think as far as personality is concerned, this applied likewise to Nelka. As I said before, I saw her for the first time when I was but seven years old. The impression I got then never left me throughout my life and only grew and developed with time and age.

We were married for 45 years and my love and devotion to her date back from that encounter at seven. In other words a span of 60 years—a lifetime. A lifetime during which everything was centered around this one person.

I think one can say that she had been both very happy and very unhappy in her life, at least this was the balance of her feelings during the first half of her life. During that period she experienced great happiness in her relationship with her mother and with other members of her family, in the devotion and loyalty she had to them. She also experienced happiness in her endeavors in her school work, in her interests in life and for life. The happiness she may have derived from the realization of things well done and accomplished.

But also there was great, overwhelming unhappiness and sorrow, because of the unusually hard way in which she accepted the loss of those who were close to her. Few probably felt such losses as acutely as she did and this caused pain and anguish. Then there also was unhappiness in the contradiction and the division of feelings, between two countries, two backgrounds, two ideologies, two attachments. This constant division brought with it many heartaches, many disappointments.