Elizabeth Biddle Yarnall Refugee Papers

Elizabeth Biddle Yarnall (1897-1975) was a graduate of Westtown School and Bryn Mawr College and taught at the Oakwood School. In 1923 she married fellow Quaker, David Robert Yarnall, the son of Edward Smedley and Sidney Garrett Yarnall. and they had three children, D. Robert, Jr., James, and Nancy. D. Robert Yarnall (1878-1967) was a mechanical engineer and member of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. He served the Society of Friends in many capacities, including Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox), Chairman of the Board of Pendle Hill, and Chairman of the American Friends Service Committee Child Relief Mission to Germany after WWI and Refugee Committee before WWII. In the years preceding WWII, he sought to convince the German government to modify its stance against minorities and to expedite the emigration of Jews from Germany and Austria. He, along with George Walton and Rufus Jones, represented the AFSC in a meeting with the Gestapo in Berlin in December 1938 to discuss Quaker relief work.

Elizabeth Yarnall was a founding member of Chestnut Hill Meeting and a member of the AFSC Mission Committee which was active in feeding starving children in Germany after World War I. During the summer of 1938, she accompanied her husband to work at Friends Center in Vienna, Austria, aiding German and Austrian refugees.