Carmelite Brewer Christie was a Congregational missionary in the Ottoman Empire from 1877 to 1920 and served as the acting president of the St. Paul's College during World War I.

During the Adana massacre, she refused to abandon the school, students and refugees who had fled there, guarding up to 5,000 people under her protection and hoisting the American flag.

[citation needed] Her father was a preacher who graduated from Williams College some 30 years after the Haystack Prayer Meeting which resulted in the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

She taught school in Lee Center until she married a graduate of Beloit, Thomas Davidson Christie on 14 March 1872.

[2][5] In addition to preparing young men for college in the period between 1877 and 1893, she expanded their family to include: Emerson Brewer, Mary Phelps, Paul Theodore, Agnes Emily, and Jean Ogilvy.

As part of his duties, Thomas left Turkey to raise money or went to surrounding mission stations to support them.

[7][8] In the face of the ongoing violence, the family fled to Mersina, and eventually Carmelite returned with the children to the United States between 1897 and 1898 for their safety and schooling.

Miner Rogers, Reverend Herbert Adams Gibbons and her husband went to the annual conference of Armenian ministers and expatriate missionaries in Adana, Turkey on 13 April 1909.

[10][11] When regular soldiers began to join in with the violence and the mob turned toward the campus, Carmelite raised an American flag and refused the evacuation request of the consular saying, "I prefer to die with my students and the Armenian people than to hand them over to Turks and save myself."

The campus was surrounded by the mob, which replaced the water in the fire extinguishing system with kerosene to torch the school and refugees, when word to cease the hostilities was received from the Young Turks in Constantinople.

[12] Thomas and Gibbons returned to tell of Rogers' death to their own wives, and break the news to his daughter Mary and her infant child.

[13] Carmelite nursed and comforted the injured and dying, provided food for them and she and Helen Gibbons sewed clothes for infants.

[10][14] For two weeks after the violence, Carmelite was called upon to give constant care to the sick, the children of the refugees[15] and orphans.

Carmelite gave a glowing report of their progress under her leadership as acting president while her husband was back in the states.

[citation needed] Thomas traveled in June 1915 to Constantinople to request that the government not deport teachers or students.

In her summary, Carmelite chronicles how the Turkish Army requested use of their halls for regimental soldiers and officers, for use a hospital during the cholera and typhus epidemic in 1915, and as a quarters to house English prisoners of war.

"[20] Carmelite made regular visits to families, local officials and the military (including several audiences with Enver Pasha).

She also noted the wounded coming back from the front and the conditions which ethnic Turks and Armenians suffered during the war.

Her entries during her time at Tarsus are controversial in the context of interpretation events surround Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, various political and religious groups.

Reverend Richard Walker Rockwell supplied Arnold Toynbee with what was reported to be a transcribed copy of Mrs. Christie's diary, with many peoples names omitted or noted with initials.

At the time, Turkish critics said the Blue Book was an exaggeration, events fabricated by missionaries and was clearly a piece of WWI British propaganda.

This collection includes Carmelite's continuous diary she kept from 1865 to 1931, giving important historical, first person accounts of the turbulent times of Turkey's history at the turn of the twentieth century through the First World War.

She had poor health and though schooled in both Europe and the United States, she spent much of her life living in the U.S. quietly pursuing musical interests and performing charitable works.

[2] Agnes Emily Christie (1887-1919) attended schools in Europe and the United States, though her education was interrupted because of poor health at various times.