Mary Minerva Haskell (May 18, 1869 – December 6, 1953) was an American congregationalist missionary in Bulgaria.

Early life

Mary Minerva Haskell was born at Filibe, Edirne Vilayet,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

(now

Plovdiv Plovdiv (, ) is the List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, second-largest city in Bulgaria, 144 km (93 miles) southeast of the capital Sofia. It had a population of 490,983 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is a cultural hub ...

) in 1869 to missionary parents Henry Charles Haskell (1835–1914) and Margaret Bell Haskell (1841–1924). She attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

, graduating in the class of 1889."After Lifetime of Welfare Work, Missionary Quits Bulgarians"
''Eugene Guard'' (March 1, 1950): 5. via

Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...

Career

Haskell moved back to Bulgaria as a teacher in 1890. In 1901 she worked with refugees from the Macedonian Revolution, and played a minor role in the

Miss Stone Affair The Miss Stone Affair (, ) was the kidnapping of American Protestant missionary Ellen Maria Stone and her pregnant Bulgarian fellow missionary and friend Katerina Cilka by the pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.''O ...

. In 1908 she was assigned to the Monastir Orphanage at

Samokov Samokov ( ) List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, is a town in Sofia Province in the southwest of Bulgaria. It is situated in Samokov Valley between the mountain ranges of Rila, Vitosha and Sredna Gora, 55 kilometres from the capital Sofia. Due ...

, under the auspices of the Women's Board of Missions of the Interior (WBMI). She was arrested and imprisoned during the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans, Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, M ...

(1912–1913) and received the Cross of Queen Eleonore for her service as a nurse. She stayed in Bulgaria through

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Haskell left Sofia for the last time in 1950, forced to leave when the United States ended diplomatic relations with Bulgaria. During visits home to the United States, she attended conferences and gave lectures about Bulgaria. In 1918 she published a pamphlet, "Glimpses of Bulgaria During the Present Crisis", to raise money for the orphanage she served. Haskell spoke at the meeting of the Congregational Women's Missionary Society of Southern California, held in San Diego in 1932.

Personal life

Mary Minerva Haskell died in 1953, aged 84 years, in California. Her brother, Henry J. Haskell (1874–1952), was a newspaper editor in Kansas City, who married

Katharine Wright Katharine Wright Haskell ( Wright; August 19, 1874 – March 3, 1929) was an American teacher, suffragist, and the younger sister of aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright. She worked closely with her brothers, managing their bicycle shop ...

, sister of the

Wright Brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

, in 1926."K. C. Star Editor Dead at 78"
''Salinas Journal'' (August 20, 1952): 1. via

Among her notable nephews were

Edward Haskell Edward Fröhlich Haskell (August 24, 1906 – 1990) was a synergic scientist who dedicated his life to the unification of human knowledge into a single discipline. Biography Haskell was born in Phillipopolis, now Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His mother w ...

, an independent researcher of "unified science", and

Douglas Haskell Douglas Putnam Haskell (1899 – August 11, 1979) was an American writer, architecture critic and magazine editor. Today he is widely known for his coinage of the term Googie architecture in a 1952 article in ''House and Home'' magazine. Biograp ...

, an architecture critic and magazine editor.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haskell, Mary 1869 births 1953 deaths American Congregationalist missionaries Oberlin College alumni People from Plovdiv Protestant missionaries in Bulgaria Congregationalist missionaries in Europe Female Christian missionaries American expatriates in Bulgaria Congregationalist missionaries in the Ottoman Empire American expatriates in the Ottoman Empire