n to 8 dogs and
5 cats, all picked up or abandoned. The little crippled Djedda was
still with us and the most cherished of our pets. We brought the
whole menagerie with us to America.

In 1930 when the depression was well under way, we once again sailed
back to France and this time were there for three years--part of the
time in the South and part near Paris. My father died at that time
and in 1934 we returned to America.

On arrival, we went directly to Ashantee to visit Nelka's Aunt
Martha, who had been quite ill for sometime after a car accident. We
arrived on a Saturday. The next Tuesday Aunt Martha died. This was
again a terrible shock for Nelka. Once again death had struck
suddenly and this time her last close relative was gone. Both Aunt
Susie and Uncle Herbert had died without Nelka being with them and
now Aunt Martha dies only three days after we had returned.

Aunt Martha left Ashantee to Nelka and her cousin Lutie Van Horn. So
unexpectedly we found ourselves here and remained. At first we
thought that we would sell the property but the depression was on and
it was not possible to do so.

Thus we stayed and stayed. I did some farming and we still had the
remnants of her aunt's horse business, but these were difficult years
for us.

I think that while this prolonged stay might have been difficult and
materially complicated, this time was not wasted, as Nelka pointed
out, from a moral point of view. It was a time of consolidation of
our points of view, of our beliefs and conceptions.

And so we stayed here from 1934 until today, and until Nelka passed
away in December 1963--a long stay of close to thirty years.

Nelka had had a very varied, very diversified and unusual life. A
life which was one of highly emotional feelings. I think
characteristic of Nelka was her highly emotional expression of
loyalty and devotion, an emotion, which dominated most of her life
and all of her actions.

Anything she did or undertook was primarily motivated by emotion
rather than by reason, but once decided upon she carried out her
actions with great determination and great will power.

Her first overwhelming emotional feeling was a patriotic
nationalistic feeling for Russia, and a mystic devotion to the person
of the Emperor and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Then her next emotional feeling was the attachment and deep loyalty
for her family and her kin.

But in Russia she had no relatives and all her family was Ameri