Category: Biographies

Nelka Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch

In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using the memories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters as material. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the habit of keeping Nelka's letters over the years. There are some as early as when Nelka was only five...

Chapters

7. Part 7

So we packed some clothes and valuables and waited. Before leaving, we wanted once more to see my old aunt in Tsarskoe and we went there to say goodbye. We spent the day with he...

5. Part 5

"I caught some horrible microbe just before I arrived and had a terrible grippy cold which kept me in the house and in bed--but it is over now. I feel rejuvenated 15 years and f...

2. Part 2

"I am so busy, I have my whole week planned ahead for almost every second. You see I am at the studio every morning including Saturday and have several lessons a week in the aft...

6. Part 6

"I am glad it is for Servia, but O what a horror. I had none of this impression at Adrianople--the panic of a whole town before the war. Mobilization was begun last night, but t...

4. Part 4

"The Navajo Mountains and the Natural Bridge were, to me, terrible. I can never give you a complete description of it, but, aside from the other difficulties and trials, it impr...

3. Part 3

A heavy test to her feelings of loyalty for Russia came with the advent of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. America was in those days very pro-Japanese and Nelka suffered in her...

8. Part 8

She had booked passage first class and upon arriving found out that that entitled her to a chair in the salon. Others sat on the deck on the floor. The decks were crowded with T...

1. Part 1

In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using the memories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters as material. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the h...

9. Part 9

In later years of her life and after our marriage, Nelka settled much more mentally and morally and seemed to find many of the answers she had so long been seeking. And this, no...