Dr. Jesse Jones, Phelps-Stokes Fund
101 Park Avenue, New York, N. Y.

Dear Dr. Jones:

Your good letter of Feb. 5th I have received and thank you for your sympathy and kindness.

I am not any longer at the hospital -- there were such changes that it was not possible for me to stay. Our best doctor has left! Then the orphanage here, housing some 120 refugee children had no managers and so many persons turned their eyes in my direction. I first went to see the children. Seeing them in filth -- vermin and sores -- I plunged in. For two months I worked and forgot everything and everybody even my own children. This institution is supported by the Albanian Red Cross, but Oh! so poorly! It is the third month I am here and not a cent yet toward my salary -- no money.

Skender, my older boy is delicate and needs some rest -my daughter too, next year being her last year, needs to rest this summer. Our countries are not like America, one cannot get a job for only two months -- especially for a girl it is very difficult. They must come to me and I have not the means: This is awful to write to you but the fact that my daughter Ellencke became a victim to our-sensitiveness and spirit of independence, emboldens me - to solicit help just for this summer.

Ellencke--over tired from hard studies during the school year-went to work summers in awful offices then when school would begin she was a rag. The result was that she contracted tuberculosis and two years after her graduation she was in the grave. I am so afraid for Aferdita now. She needs rest for she has had awful summer vacations, always away from me. Then clothing, she has worn her school mates'; but the teachers have forbidden such practice. It is a pity for a girl at the end of her College education to sicken from worry and want. So now, Dr. Jones, I turn to you to beg you and through you, Gregory's friends, to give me a helping hand for just this year, and, especially now that I am engaged in the most benevolent work. You understand the situation don't you? Or I better put it this way. Can you get some one interested in the refugee orphans to pay me a salary so that I can help in the education of my children?

You have heard of my work through Dr. Erickson. Yes, know it is difficult oven in America to raise funds nowadays!

Very glad to read Mr. Groetzinger's letter. So he is a success too.

With best wishes,

(Signed) Katherine G. Tzilka

[Letter, Katerina Tsilka to Thomas Jesse Jones, Phelps-Stokes Fund, 7 May 1927; received from Mona Clark, Phelps Stokes Fund, New York to Richard Cochran, 19 Aug 1976; in poss of Dr. Richard M. Cochran, Big Rapids, Michigan]

During a visit to Bansko, Bulgaria in August-September 1975, the author of this website was a guest of Miss Milenka Bizeva, whose mother, Rina Stephanova, was a first cousin of Katerina Tsilka.  Milenka recalled that Katerina visited Bansko from time to time, and told the story of her kidnapping on cold winter nights, with her extended family of cousins, arranged around the fireplace, attentive to each detail of the almost fairytale-like story.

WOMAN REGAINS EYESIGHT
AFTER SIX YEARS OF TOTAL BLINDNESS

SOFIA -- Feb. 9 (INS) -- Mrs. Katharine Tsilka, known to the American public as companion of Miss Ellen Stone of Chelsea, Mass., during the latter's capture by Macedonian revolutionists in 1900, has miraculously regained her sight after six years of total blindness.

"I woke up one morning and, wonderful to relate, found myself able to see clearly as I did six years ago before I lost my sight. I am a new-born woman, thank God!" These are her own words taken from her letter in her own hand to her brother in Sofia [note: Constantine Stephanove].

Mrs. Tsilka, who was Miss Stephanove of Bansko in Bulgarian Macedonia before she married Gregory Tsilka, thus becoming an Albanian citizen, is one of the most popular women in the Balkans. One year after the severe trial of six months capture as a chaperone to Miss Stone and during which she gave life to her first child [note: that survived infancy], Mrs. Tsilka traversed the United States relating her singular experience with the Macedonian revolutionists who had, nevertheless, treated both women with unheard of gentlemanliness. Being a Macedonian herself, Mrs. Tsilka could not help being touched by the anxious attention shown her by her captors, especially at the time when her baby was to be born. Her resentment during those six months turned into admiration and on being set free when the ransom for Miss Stone was paid to the revolutionists, she became one of the most ardent pleaders for the Macedonian cause.
 

On September 25, 1997, at the age of 87, Katerina's youngest son, Stefan Cilka recalled his mother in a letter to the creator of this website.  He wrote: