ID851
CollectionHandlists: Mss Boxes, Pamphlet Boxes, etc.
ReferenceMss Box 79/Folder 2
DescriptionLetters from Stella N B Webb to her parents, 1945-1946, from Greece:
1 Letter to Dear Parents, from Hadde House, 163 Highgate Road, London N5. 'I seem to be really going', 1 December 1945.

2 Letter. Istres near Marseille, France, 3 December 1945, description of journey via Le Bourget by Dakota.

3 Letter, Hotel Sirena, Naples, 5 December 1945, description of journey via Le Bourget, Istres, Corsica to Naples by RAF Dakota.

4 Letter, Hotel Sirena, Naples, 6 December 1945, describes Naples. Awaiting onward flight.

5 Letter. Abergo Sirena, Naples. 10 December 1945, goes early morning to the airport, but so far no plane to Athens. Visited Pompai with a guide.

6 Letter. Delpin Hotel, Athens. 11 December 1945. The day's journey from Naples. Reported to UNRRA office.

7 Letter. HQ UNRRA, Greece mission c.m.f. 12 December 1945. First contacts in Athens.

8 Letter. HQ UNRRA. Greece mission, c.m.f. 16 December 1945. Has visited the Acropolis, is 'tackling the searcher service', and have also helped with other D P [displaced person's] jobs.

9 Letter. 26 December , 1945. Has received no post from Ireland, Spent Christmas day with a Greek family, the aunt of the girl who gave Stella Webb her first Greek lessons. Greek is slowly improving.

10 Letters. 1 January 1946. New Year's Day festivities, the Greek Orthodox Church, tea at the house of the Halmoukons, the Greek family who entertained Stella on Christmas Day, with Nora Bishop. Inflation. UNRRA personal allowance doubled from 4000 drachmas to 8,000 per day.

11 Letter. 4 January 1945. Has received the first letter from home. Went to a Carol Service on Christmas the and felt homesick, Daily Timetable is working in the 'special casework section of the displaced persons division', particularly concerned with research cases. Information for a survey of the women brought back by returning Greek workers from Central Europe.

12 Letter. 9 January 1945. Contacts, teaparties, expects to be extremely busy, as her superior, Ms Gelard Brown is leaving for Italy. Dorice White expected soon. Greek is improving, can express simple ideas.

13 Letter. 14 January 1945. Has lost room-mate L Nicholson, replaced by a nurse. Bep Hornaill still here. Dorice White has not arrived yet, visited the Halmonkons family again.

14 Letter. 26 January 1946. Dorice White and Arthur Petit have arrived. Miss Geldard Brown has flown to Italy to sort out visa problems and Stella is in charge of her office. Cuts in electricity and water, civil servants and others on strike.

15 Letter. 7 February 1946. Miss Geldard Brown still in Italy and Stella still in charge of room 25 in the DP Division, comments on parents' letters. Variety of Friends Relief Service people passing through, Dorice and Stella, the only two members of the service in Athens. The typewriter is invaluable.

16 Letter. HQ UNRRA. Greece Mission, CMF, 12 February 1946. Miss Geldard-Brown not back from Italy but expected soon. Has met a Greek artist.

17 Letter. 18 February 1946. Miss Geldard-Brown arrived back by air but is in bed with a cold. Jack Catchpool visiting in connection with the British Council, and joined in a short meeting with Stella and Dorice. Visited Daphni and climbed a nearby hill. Discussion of Greek word 'no'. Athens full of new inhabitants, has trebled its pre-war population.

18 Letter. 24 February 1946. Has a cold, has been to the Opera which is inexpensive, met a lively female Belgian lawyer (no name). Is submerged in a sea of Italian wives, Greek girls married to Italians during the occupation who wish to join their husbands in Italy.

19 Letter. March 1946. Has moved to a single room with a view of the Parthenon. Glad to have messages from people at home. Lent has started following three weeks of half hearted carnival 'as most people had neither the heart nor the clothes for a real carnival'. Went with a new Friends Relief Service person from London by bus to Blpova where refugees from Constantinople entertained them warmly with sweetmeats and drinks of water.

20 Letter, four sheets. 14 March 1946. A visit by jeep to Phaleron and the Acropolis. Received a request from 'the Committee of Anne Burgess's Armenian Mission to look up the Mission in Athens and send a report'. Visited the second visit to Cape Sounion and saw remains of temples to Poseidon and Athena. Using candles because of a power strike. Richard Reiss, Friends Relief Service, has finished his term and is being repatriated.

21 Letter. 24 March 1946. Visit to Corinth by jeep.

22 Letter, three sheets, to 'Dear Daddy'. 'British Forces in Greece' substituted for CMS. 1 April 1946. Yesterday was election day with British army and military police confined to barracks. Is now working at individual problems in the Repatriation Section of Welfare and Repatriation Division.

23 Letter. 7 April 1946. Attended a dinner given by the Welfare and Repatriation Division to officials of the Greek ministry of Welfare, and to regional Welfare Officers who were attending a conference at Athens.

24 Letter. 14 April 1946. Went on an Army Educational tour to Corinth with Richard Reiss and Norma Gilbertson.

25 Letter two typescript sheets. 21 April 1946 . Detailed description of the Easter services in a nearby [Anglican?] Church.

26 Letter. 1 May 1946. Meeting for worship '13 Strong'. Visits to early sites with friends.

27 Letter. 5 May 1946. On board the Corinthia in Piraeus harbour, about to sail to Salonika. 'We live horribly comfortably. Water is laid on hot and cold day and night while most Athenians only get it turned on for two hours every second day. We live on American rations, some of us feel we emulate the rich of Athens whom we condemn for living in luxury while the people starve'.

28 Letter, 13 Sheets. 17-21 May 1946. Detailed description of visit to Salonika, conference and visits to the American Farm School, village schools and food distribution centres.

29 Letter. 30 May 1946. Details of Greek, Friends Relief Service and other contacts.

30 Letter. HQ UNRRA Greece Mission, Athens Greece. 1 June 1946. Army Post Office privileges have been withdrawn, future mail by civilian services. Will be the only Friends Relief Service permanently in Athens.

31 Letter. Delphi Hotel, Athens. 1 June 1946. Experimenting with different posts. Has brought a hammer and screwdriver for fixing things.

32 Letter. HQ, UNRRA, Greece mission, Athens, Greece, 3 June 1946. Went with a party of Greeks to the sea.

33 Letter. Details of activities in Athens, 9 June 1946.

34 Dinner Menu.

35 Letter. Delphi Hotel, St. Constantine Street, Athens, 23 June 1946. 1000 drachmas = 1 shilling. When Stella arrived in Athens the rate was 2000 drachmas = œ1. Details of social activities in Athens.

36 Letter. 30 June 1946. Observed a service at the Areopagus. Stella criticises UNRRA for 'wastage of material' particularly manpower and specific skills.

37 Letter. No date. Is learning Greek dancing. Celebrations on the return of the Dodecanese. Wedding of Stella's colleague Jane Cohen to Mike Hersch, both liberal Jews who will go to South Africa.

38 Letter two sheets. 16 July 1946. Parties and entertainment in Athens, is sleeping on the hotel roof.

39 Letter 22 July 1946, completed on 1 August 1946. Is being transferred to the offices of the Sub-Ministry of Repatriation in Metropole Square. The Director General of UNRRA has visited and ordered a fifty percent staff cut, Stella to remain under the chief of the section, Charles Stokes.

40 Letter 13 August 1946. Settled into the new offices, various friends departments.

41 Letter 18 August 1946. Has lost the mess facilities in the hotel, and has to go the 'the other UNRRA hotel' for meals, a quarter of an hours' walk away.

42 Letter 25 August 1946. Has attended a concert in 'the old Roman theatre', open air. The conductor was presented with Greek and Turkish flags, the old Turkish feud is now overshadowed by fear of Russia and above all Bulgaria. Also attended a Greek comedy production of a play on the theme of Romeo and Juliet.

43 Letter Thesalonika 2 September 1946. On leave. 'Spent the weekend at the American Farm School. A wooden barracks built during the war to accommodate the Farm School staff while Germans occupied their houses. The girls are supposedly prepared to become leaders of a better way in their villages. Last year .. half of them had scabies'. Journey by staff car to Kastoria.

44 Transcription of part of the last letter [43] which is written in pencil and hard to decipher, describing a rough truck journey to Yannitsa.

45 Letter. Delphi Hotel, Athens, 14 September 1946. Visited a museum but 'Athens has not yet dug up the treasures it buried for the war, and is not likely to in the present situation'. Visited a village with an unusually high percentage of orphans. Return journey form Macedonia affected by mines on the road planted by 'the brigands in the mountains' and a puncture, hitched a lift in a British truck and returned by boat, the Athens road being closed by the mines.

46 Letter 23 September 1946. Social outings. 'I am now the only foreigner in the Ministry's office'.

47 Letter 29 September 1946. Describes visit of the king watched from Stella's office.

48 Letter 8 October 1946. Is now the only 'imported person working at the DP problem'. An outing with Greek friends in a Jeep.

49 Letter 20 October 1946. Sightseeing with friends.

50 Letter 26 October 1946. Arrival of Mary Lee, a weighty Friend sent out by the Friends' Service Council to view Friends' Relief Service work in Salonica, particularly the girls' domestic school, with a view to advising Friends' Service Council as to future policy, Stella will probably leave Greece about the beginning or towards the middle of December.

51 Letter 3 November 1946 . News of Greek friends. Celebration of Halloween.

53 Letter 14 November 1946. Mary Lee's return, Stella acted as interpreter between her and those interested in Friends. Mary Lee is clerk of the Quarterly Meeting comprising the Hardshaw Monthly Meetings and is one of those nice ordinary weighty Friends who have no side because they are just themselves and very good selves they are too.

54 Letter 18 November 1946. Mary Lee has departed, after being taken to the theatre by Stella. Letter two sheets. 23 November 1946. Details of Greek families with whom Stella is friendly. Problems with the allocated jeep and its drivers. Details of Friends in Athens. 'We have been very disturbed by events in Northern Greece. There have been pitched battles in Macedonia near the Jugoslave border, and everyone believes they have instigated from outside'.

55 Letter 26 November 1946. Is sending a telegraph to say she is leaving Athens on 7 December. Intends to travel to Liverpool by sea, and thence on to London.

56 Letter 2 December 1946. Very busy saying goodbyes. 'There is nothing certain in this life, and the ship may be delayed or cancelled'.

57 Letter 6 December 1946. Still on the list to sail from Piraeus on the Asconia on the 8th.

58 Note 9 December 1946 . We believe we are really off.

59 Letter S/S Asconia, Mediterranean. 10 December 1946. 'A Cunard White Star, and prewar a good liner'. We should be in Liverpool on the 18th.

60 a-p Typescript extracts from Stella B Webb's letters, 3 December 1945 to 14 February 1946. Letter of 14 February 1946 to Sydney Gillespie contains material not in the letters to her parents.
a-q Typescript extract from letters, 14 January 1946 to 21 May 1946.

61 Copy of letter of extracts of 14 February 1946 to Sydney Gillespie.

62 Copy of letter of extracts of 14 February 1946 to Sydney Gillespie.

63 Typescript extract of letters, 8 October-26 November 1946.

64 Typescript of letters, 9 June 1846- 26 October 1946.
AccessContact Repository.
Date1945-1946
Century20th
Keywords
NoteA specific reference number precedes a description of the document. This, together with the main reference number, is needed to call up the document.
Repository NameReligious Society of Friends in Ireland Historical Library
AddressQuaker House Dublin Stocking Lane Rathfarnham Dublin 16
EircodeD16 V3F8
Telephone(01) 499-8003
Email Addresslibrary@quakers.ie
Repository Web Addresshttps://quakers-in-ireland.ie/historical-library/
latitude53.27277
longitude-6.30608