arts & cultural experiences
left to right) Rector, Bitola professor, and PCV Joe Martin h of the American Girls School, Peggy meets with Rector niversity in Bitola exchanging information on the history tion in Macedonia, Ginny and PCV Hana Truscott ask a loistory of the neighborhood while searching for remnants of the American Girls School in Bitola, Mary of Monastir; photos courtesy of Peggy Hanson and Ginny Eisemon
e past life and times of Macedonia
y was eight years old, she remembers meetn eighty-two year old great-aunt. But it wasn’ t ent discovery of her aunt’ s vivid journals, leter 300 photos, spanning a time of more than ars, that Peggy realized the magnitude of her res. Her great-aunt“ had a camera and a typeboth those devices were in their early days... d a reporter’ s sense of jotting down what just including details only a first-hand report could iss Matthews’ photos( that may have been deh help from the famous Manaki brothers of Mojournal entries bring to life the rich dynamics of ime in Macedonia.
e Martin and I accompanied Peggy and her Ginny Eisemon as they re-traced Miss Mats through present-day Bitola. Joe enjoyed obir detective skills as they searched for the site merican Girls School had been located. They ith historians, museum directors, professors, xperts in putting pieces of the puzzle together. ed the streets in search of buildings to match e nearly century-old photos. The structure of n Girls School has been demolished, but it’ s to envision what the area was like. Miss Matserved as the head of this school, caring for 125 war orphans with a small staff( only three
at one point during World War I). According to Peggy, her great-aunt played a remarkable role during the time of Ottoman rule in Macedonia – that of educating girls.“ Most of the girls were of Bulgarian, Serb, Albanian, or Gypsy backgrounds, but the English immersion and solid education offered by the American school was respected by all ethnicities.” Despite the dangers, Miss Matthews insisted on staying in Monastir, taking on roles and authority normally reserved for men at a time before women had won the right to vote in the United States.
Miss Matthews’ journal entries are a first-hand account of how the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire took place and how life went on in the most besieged European city on the southern front of World War I. Peggy reports that in these journals, her great-aunt“ counts the shells from both sides. She puts wet blankets over the basement windows to protect her little flock from poison gas. She describes how many villages were burned, and what each ethnic group did to the others when it was in control.”
Peggy Hanson is compiling her great-aunt’ s story into a book due out in 2014 – the 150 th anniversary since her birth. Stay tuned for the publication of this intriguing story, Mary of Monastir: Missionary, War Correspondent, and Unsung Feminist, and its unique glimpse into the past life and times of our Peace Corps home, the Republic of Macedonia.
Summer 2013 – 19