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Introduction
I never met my great aunt Margery but she has been a presence in my life from almost the moment she died in the summer of 1965. I was 9. She was 77 and had been living in the Soviet Union since 1922. This is her story.
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Among the Khirghiz
Margarita Robertovna, as she is known locally, is writing to her mother, squeezing words onto a small sheet of coarse squared paper. First the date. November 14, 1931. Then, carefully printed, her address: Урал Каз Край Рыбак Союз, Цалкарский Промысел, Анкотуиского Район.
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The blood in her veins
In which we meet Margery’s family, the dog-collared Barbers and the banking Guinnesses and get a glimpse of her early years.
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Surplus Woman
Margery signs on with a scheme backed by her Guinness relatives to help unmarried English gentlewomen contribute to Britain’s imperial project, and heads to British Columbia. Red Aunt, chapter 3.
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Passage to Serbia
Back from Canada, Margery catches scarlet fever from her brother, picks up nursing skills while in quarantine, volunteers as a medical orderly and ships out to Serbia. Red Aunt, chapter 4.
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Doña Quixota
The fifth installment of Red Aunt covers Margery’s nursing adventures in Serbia, the impression she created and how she and her colleagues celebrated Christmas in after the Germans captured her unit.
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Maître du Pitié
In the sixth installment of Red Aunt, Margery, home after a spell as a prisoner of the Germans in Serbia, is invited to a join a mission to investigate options for assisting survivors of the Armenian genocide, which takes her to Russia on the eve of the revolution.
