"The Little Tsarina of Totskoy"

Nancy Babb, a Quaker and Red Cross volunteer from Virginia who Florence Hoffman may have worked with in Omsk, was a relief worker who first arrived in Buzuluk, Russia (near Samara) on August 26, 1917, a month before the Bolshevik revolution. She worked in Buzuluk until a revolt of Czech soldiers in May 1918 forced the relief workers to evacuate east to Omsk. Shortly thereafter, Babb returned to the US, as her term of service had expired.

Then, in 1921, the horrible reports of the famine in Russia led her to enlist for another term of service there. This time, she went to Totskoy, a town about 50 miles from Bozuluk. The situation there was abhorrent, but Babb and the other volunteers overcame amazing odds and put in place services that fed thousands upon thousands of famine victims every day. Aside from teaching skills, building bridges and supervising children’s homes, Babb also led the building of a hospital in the town—which served as the village’s medical center until the 1970s, and then a children’s center—and earned her the appellation “The Little Tsarina of Totskoy.” Nancy Babb returned to the US in 1924 and lived in Philadelphia until her death in 1948.

(Information provided by Ken Thames.)