“No More Cookies or Cake Now C'est La Guerre”: An American Nurse in Turkey, 1919–20

Sylvia Thankful Eddy was a nurse with the Near East Relief in eastern, based at an American mission hospital at.  She kept a diary during 1919-1920, her first years abroad, when she found herself in the middle of a conflict between Turkish and French forces and witnessed the continuing effects of Turkish persecution of Armenians.  Her story counters the usual expectations of a missionary or relief worker’s perspective, as she almost never mentions anything related to religion and does not discuss the condition of Turkish and Armenian women in her city, but frequently refers to social events with French soldiers.  She was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her actions in saving patients when the hospital was bombarded.  Her story illuminates the complicated alliances of an American woman working abroad at the intersection of various national, ethnic, and religious communities who were in conflict with each other.