Miss Mary C. Fowle. Source
Miss Mary Carolyn Fowle (1881-1916) was born in Talas, a district of Caesarea (Tr: Kayseri) in Ottoman Turkey and was a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. She was the daughter of Rev. James Luther Fowle and Carrie Palmer Farnsworth both of whom were missionaries in Turkey for many years. Fowle studied at Woburn Massachusetts High School and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1903. She returned to Turkey in 1906. Fowle spent most of the last 10 years of her life in Turkey and was fluent in Turkish.
In May 1916, American missionaries were evicted from their buildings in Sivas by the Ottoman military authorities and were ordered to leave the city. The only Americans allowed to remain were Miss Graffam and Miss Fowle who were assigned a small house nearby to care for orphaned children which were under their guardianship.
On June 26, 1916, Fowle witnessed the arrest of some 3,000 native men who were locked inside a military prison without food and water. Miss Fowle and Miss Graffam provided care to the men while they were incarcerated. The men were pressured to change their names and only those who did so were allowed to leave. Later, the men were sent to Pozanti some 400km away.
Fowle wrote:
The prisoners went off in groups of 200 to 300 per day. When the first group started off in daylight, with only a few escorts, we felt reassured. By Sunday 1,000 had gone. Early Thursday morning came reports that all who left Sivas had been massacred. We did not believe it at first. We have now seen one eyewitness who escaped and two others who had heard this news with but one intermediary. We all feel convinced now that there have been massacres.
The men were apparently taken out two by two and delivered into the hands of villagers armed with axes, pikes, saws and other weapons. Our second account said the prisoners were stood up, bound and shot. Our informant managed to roll into a gully and escape, although he was shot at. He reported seeing half-burned arms and legs and heads in the gully as he passed through.
Now when prisoners ask us whether to change their names or be sent off we don't dare say no."
Fowle died in Sivas on November 22, 1916 from a suspected case of Typhus.
Turk Massacre Told by Woman. Harrisburg Telegraph, January 18, 1917, p. 7.
Hubbard, Ethel Daniels. Lone Sentinels in the Near East, Woman's Board of Missions 1920. pp.59-60.
