Billings, Florence, 1879-1959

Officials entering Constantinople, 1922. Individuals identified, from left: Adnem Bey, Halide Hanoum, Refet Pasha

Florence Frances Billings was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts on June 14, 1879, daughter of Frederick Dickinson and Frances Amelia (Hunt) Billings. She had three sisters: Charlotte, Emily, and Anna Hunt Billings (Smith Class of 1891). Her grandfather, Charles Morris Billings of Hatfield, was an abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad and her grandmother, Charlotte White Billings, was a cousin of Sophia Smith (founder of Smith College). In 1893 her family moved to Redlands, California where she resided on and off for the next sixty years although she spent many of those years living in Europe and in the Middle East. Billings graduated from Redlands High School in 1899 and from Stanford University in 1903 with a B.A. in Latin. She taught school for several years during which time she traveled to Europe, including Russia in 1912. She went to Germany and taught English in a private school for a period. She was on vacation in Brittany when World War I broke out and she immediately volunteered with the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, she returned home briefly and signed up with the American Red Cross, then went back to France as a canteen and relief worker. Working just behind the front lines in Chalons-sur-Marne earned her the Croix de Guerre.

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