Towards the close of the year 1908 there occurred the most stupendous disaster that, until that time, had come within my ken; this was more than five years before that fatal day when Germany let fall the mask and the World War was declared. During the night of December twenty-eighth, Sicily and Calabria were visited by one of the greatest earthquakes in history, the cities of Reggio and Messina were destroyed and two hundred thousand people were killed, among others the American Consul and his wife. For the next six months my husband and I threw ourselves into relief work for the survivors. He played a really important part, being one of the volunteers who under the gallant leadership of Commander Reginald R. Belknap, the naval attaché of the American Embassy, sailed on the relief ship _Bayern_ for the stricken region with a cargo of food, clothing, tools, and medicines. The expedition was organized by an American Committee headed by our Ambassador, Mr. Griscom. The report of conditions brought back from the devastated country was so terrific that our government, acting in conjunction with the American Red Cross, followed it up with a relief expedition on a much larger scale. This undertook and accomplished nothing less than the building of a whole series of villages to shelter the survivors. They established headquarters at Messina, where a complete village was erected in record time, with a large church, a comfortable hotel, schools, offices and dwellings for twelve thousand people. The story of this unique undertaking has been well told by Commander (now Captain) Belknap in his interesting book, “American House Building at Messina.” In my “Sicily in Shadow and in Sun” I have given some description of the American village on the plain of the Mosella at Messina and of what our people contributed to the Villaggio Regina Elena, where a modern, up-to-date hospital was erected and named for the wife of our ambassador. In all this work my husband had the privilege of acting as architect, designer, and general helper to his intrepid and resourceful chief Belknap, who in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, in 1909, pays Mr. Elliott the following tribute: “Thanks are due in a measure that I cannot express to Mr. John Elliott, who shared every hardship with unfailing good humor, and left his beautifying touch on every part of our work. He was the first volunteer, and the most devoted worker; rendering service that can be appreciated only by one who enjoyed his close companionship and discerning counsel throughout a long period of pressing occupation.”