Anna V. S. Mitchell

Anna Van Schaick Mitchell was the daughter of Clarence Green Mitchell, an attorney,[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-4999gre?view=text Green-Mitchell Family Papers], Manuscripts Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. and Sarah Adams Lindley Mitchell. Her sister Lucy Lindley Mitchell married John Charles Molteno, Jr., a businessman and legislator in South Africa.Lucy Lindley Mitchell Molteno, [https://www.moltenofamily.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Lucy-Molteno-%E2%80%93-How-I-became-a-Woman-Prospector-pdf.pdf "How I Became a Woman Prospector"], introduction by Robert Molteno (2013). Her sister Caroline Green Mitchell StokesAnna V. S. Mitchell, Letter (2) to her sister Caroline Mitchell Stokes, [https://postalmuseum.si.edu/MyFellowSoldiers/exhibit/letter_mitchell2.html My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I] (Smithsonian National Postal Museum). was married to Anson Phelps Stokes, and was the mother of Olivia Stokes Hatch and Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr. Their grandfather Daniel Lindley was an American missionary in South Africa and founder of the Inanda Seminary School; their great-grandfather Jacob Lindley was first president of Ohio University.David M. Stowe, [http://www.dacb.org/stories/southafrica/lindley_daniel.html "Daniel Lindley"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130531004908/http://dacb.org/stories/southafrica/lindley_daniel.html |date=2013-05-31 }} Dictionary of African Christian Biography (1998).[http://www.globalministries.org/news/africa/the-amazing-sojourn-of.html "The Amazing Sojourn of Lindley's Trunk"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823021057/http://www.globalministries.org/news/africa/the-amazing-sojourn-of.html |date=2017-08-23 }} Global Ministries (February 14, 2012).

As a young woman, Anna V. Mitchell was known as an "accomplished pianist" and "active in settlement work in New York and London."Junius B. Wood, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13275152/anna_v_mitchell_a_former_idle_rich/ "Idle Rich of Former Days Have Done Their Share in Winning War"] Oregon Daily Journal (May 11, 1919): 4.via Newspapers.com{{open access}}

During World War I Anna Mitchell went to France and Belgium with the American Red Cross. In 1916, she was at Monastir, working with Serbian refugees.Ernest P. Bicknell, [https://books.google.com/books?id=a6NFAQAAMAAJ&dq=Mildred+Mitchell+Farwell&pg=PA116 "Recent Help for Serbians and Albanians"] The American Red Cross Magazine (April 1916): 115-116.[http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1916/05/03/page/1/article/mrs-farwell-tells-her-war-experiences "Mrs. Farwell Tells Her War Experiences"] Chicago Tribune (May 3, 1916): 1, 10. She founded a canteen at Châlons-sur-Marne with Margery Nott.Junius B. Wood, [https://books.google.com/books?id=qXo4AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Anna+Mitchell%22+canteen&pg=PA273 "How Red Cross is Feeding American Soldiers in France"] Red Cross Bulletin (September 25, 1917). Her niece Mildred Mitchell and volunteer Margaret Hall worked with them.Jim Connolly, [http://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/july-2014 "'Not a Dream': A Portrait from Margaret Hall's World War I Memoir"] Massachusetts Historical Society (July 2014).Anna V. S. Mitchell, Letter (1) to her sister Caroline Mitchell Stokes (dated April 1, 1918), [https://postalmuseum.si.edu/MyFellowSoldiers/exhibit/letter_mitchell1.html My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I] (Smithsonian National Postal Museum). She was also involved with post-war relief work in Calais.[https://books.google.com/books?id=cwbnAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Anna+V.+S.+Mitchell%22+died&pg=PA210 "Helping Devastated France"] La France: An American Magazine (February 1921): 210. She received a Croix de Guerre from the French government for her wartime work.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/98641538/CCDBD47CB95A42AEPQ/1 "Constantinople's Russians"]{{Dead link|date=September 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} New York Times (April 23, 1922): 105.

In the 1920s, she worked in Istanbul with Russian refugees, and as executive secretary to Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol. Her correspondence with notable family connections helped with fundraising, but she also arranged for refugees to sell their handicrafts on passenger ships in the Black Sea.Robert Schenk, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Y72rtTlfGgAC&dq=Anna+V.+S.+Mitchell&pg=PP69 America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919 1923] (Naval Institute Press 2017). {{ISBN|9781612513027}} In 1929, she and Alma Ruggles took leave to give lectures in the United States to raise awareness and funds for their continuing refugee work in Turkey.Lucille Saunders, [https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/98590133/CCDBD47CB95A42AEPQ/2 "Americans Need Aid in Work of Mercy"]{{Dead link|date=September 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} New York Times (February 16, 1930): 60.Priscilla Ring, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13267292/anna_v_mitchells_refugee_work_in/ "American Women Get Homes for 58,200 White Russians"] Brownsville Herald (November 29, 1929): 19. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} Again during this effort, she used her family connections to create events such as a "program of Russian and gypsy songs and dances" at a Junior League meeting in New York City, cohosted by her sister and her sister-in-law, to raise funds for the Russian Refugee Children's Welfare Society.[https://www.proquest.com/news/docview/98969148/CCDBD47CB95A42AEPQ/5 "To Offer Russian Program"]{{Dead link|date=September 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} New York Times (April 22, 1930: 34.

Anna Mitchell lived in Boston in the 1940s.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13275078/anna_mitchell_and_caroline_phelps/ Untitled society item], Berkshire Eagle (May 12, 1945): 12. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}

Anna V. S. Mitchell died in 1966, aged 88 years. One collection of her papers is held in the Hoover Institution Archives.[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf596nb0mm/ Anna V. S. Mitchell Papers], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford California. Other papers of Mitchell's, including diaries from the period 1896 through 1925, are in the Olivia Stokes Hatch Papers at Bryn Mawr College Library.[http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_BMC_USPBmBMCM86 Olivia Stokes Hatch Papers], Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library.

{{reflist}}

• There are [https://www.moltenofamily.net/picture-gallery/family-members-by-first-name-n-to-z/ several images of Anna (Nan) Mitchell] at the Molteno Family history website.

{{Authority control}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Anna V. S.}}

Category:1878 births

Category:1966 deaths

Category:American Red Cross personnel

Category:American women in World War I

Category:American recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)

Category:20th-century American people