Mabel Evelyn Elliott

Mabel Evelyn Elliott (8 February 1881 – 13 June 1968), sometimes written as Mabel Evelyn Elliot, was a British-born American physician who did post-war relief work in Turkey and Greece with the Near East Foundation from 1919 to 1924, and worked in Japan from 1925 to 1941.

Early life and education
Mabel Evelyn Elliott was born in London, the daughter of Joseph Elliott. Her father was a British army officer, born in Glasgow. She moved to the United States with her family as a small child, and grew up in Florida. She and her sister Grace were among the first women to earn degrees from the University of Chicago, where she graduated with the class of 1904. She trained as a doctor at Rush Medical College in Illinois.

Career
Elliott had a medical practice in Benton Harbor, Michigan beginning in 1906. She worked with American Women's Hospitals Service during World War I. After the war, she went to Constantinople to work with Near East Relief as a physician in a rescue home for Armenian refugee girls and women. She directed a hospital at Marash from spring 1919, and led thousands of refugees on foot, for three days, fleeing the Battle of Marash to a safer facility in Aleppo in 1920. After a brief stay in the United States, and an appearance at an international conference in Geneva, Elliott was on hand for the aftermath of the burning of Smyrna in 1922, and assisted refugees in Mytilene. She worked closely with fellow American physicians including Esther Pohl Lovejoy and Ruth Parmelee, and ran a quarantine station on Macronissi. She was decorated by the Greek government for her services. She wrote a memoir of this work, Beginning Again at Ararat (1924).

In 1924, she joined the staff of the Woman's Medical College Hospital in Philadelphia. The following year, she went to Japan to work at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo. She visited the United States in 1929 and from 1934 to 1935. She left Japan in 1941, shortly before the United States entered World War II.

Publications

 * Beginning Again at Ararat (1924)

Personal life
Elliott lived with her sister Beatrice Elliott in Florida in her later years. She died in Palm Beach, Florida in 1968, at the age of 87.