E-text prepared by John Young Le Bourgeois
(Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff.)
1878-1963
A Biographical Sketch.
by Michael Moukhanoff
1964
In attempting this biographical sketch of Nelka I am using thememories of 45 years together and also a great number of letters asmaterial. Her Aunt, Miss Susan Blow, had the habit of keepingNelka's letters over the years. There are some as early as whenNelka was only five years old and then up to the year 1916, the yearher aunt died. These letters reflect very vividly the personality,the ideas, the aspirations, the disappointments and the hopes of aperson over a period of a long life. They paint a very real pictureof her personality and for this reason I am using quotations fromthese letters very extensively.
Nelka de Smirnoff was born on August 19, 1878 in Paris, France.
Her father was Theodor Smirnoff, of the Russian nobility. Hergrandmother had tartar blood in her veins and was born PrincessTischinina. Nelka's father was a brilliant man, finishing theImperial Alexander Lyceum at the head of his class. A versatilelinguist, he joined the Russian diplomatic service and occupiedseveral diplomatic posts in various countries, but died young, whenNelka was only four years old, and was buried in Berlin. Nelkatherefore hardly knew him, though she remembered him and throughouther life had a great veneration for him and loyalty for his memory.
Nelka's mother was Nellie Blow, the daughter of Henry T. Blow of St.Louis, Missouri. The Blow family, of old southern aristocraticstock, moved from Virginia to St. Louis in 1830. Henry T. Blow wasthen about fifteen years old and had several brothers and sisters.He was a successful business man who became very wealthy and was alsoa prominent public and political figure, both in St. Louis andnationally. He was a friend of both Abraham Lincoln and of PresidentGrant and received appointments from them. He was minister toVenezuela and later Ambassador to Brazil. He was active in politicsfrom 1850 on. Though his brothers were southern democrats, Henry Blowtook a stand against slavery and upheld the free-soil movement.During the Civil War he was the only one of the family to take theside of the Union and spent much of his time getting his brothers outof prison camps. For a time he was state senator and for two termswas Congressman in Washington. He also served as one of the threeCommissioners for the District of Columbia.
He was married to Minerva Grimsley and had ten children. His daughterNellie Blow, while in Brazil with her father, met Theodor Smirnoffwho was then secretary at the Russian Embassy there. She married himin Carondolet, part of St. Louis, where the family lived, in 1872.They had three children, a boy and a girl, who died in infancy in St.Petersburg, Russia, and another girl, Nelka, who was born in 1878 andwas therefore the only living child.
Henry T. Blow's oldest daughter (and Nelka's aunt) Miss Susan Blowwas a prominent figure in the American educational movement, writingand lecturing on education, and the one who introduced the Froebelkindergarten system in the United States. The youngest daughter,Martha, married Herbert Wadsworth of Geneseo, N.Y. She was a verytalented musician and painter and later became a very knownhorsewoman.
After Nelka's father died in Europe, her mother returned to Americaand it was the first time that Nelka came here. As a daughter of aRussian, Nelka was also a Russian subject and remained a Russian thatway