Descriptive Record 
Enlarge Image1930-1980
1931
As the economic Depression deepens, the struggling Vester and Co.—American Colony Store in New York is sold to Nils Lind, son-in-law of Frederick and Bertha Vester.
ca. 1931
Bertha Spafford Vester and others operate the American Colony Aid Association, a charitable organization with financial supporters in Palestine and the United States. The American Colony School of Lacemaking and Handicraft is one of its beneficiaries.
ca. 1933-1945
With the rise of power of Adolf Hitler in Germany and in the course of the events of World War II, tens of thousands of European Jews fleeing persecution and death migrate to Palestine, primarily from Eastern Europe, or attempt to relocate to the United States. Some six million will die in the systematic anti-Semitic holocaust of the Nazi regime.
ca. 1934-1946
G. Eric Matson (b. 1888), who was as a boy among the Swedish migrants to the American Colony in 1896, takes charge of the photo department and Lewis Larsson departs from colony membership. Palestinians Hanna Safieh (1910-1979) and Joseph H. Giries, both earlier apprentices in the American Colony Photo Department, work as photographers with Matson, as does John D. Whiting. Eric and Edith Matson leave Jerusalem amidst rising violence. They run the Matson Photo Service in the United States, utilizing many American Colony Photo Department images.
1936, April-Oct.
Palestinian general strike.
1936-1939
Arab revolts in Palestine.
1939-1945
World War II.
1942, Jan. 2
Frederick Vester dies suddenly of a heart attack at the American Colony. He is stricken during a American Colony reception for nurses and social workers doing war relief work in Jerusalem.
1945
Arab League established.
1946, July 22
Bombing of the King David Hotel, home to British administrative offices in Jerusalem.
1947-48
Civil violence ensues over the partitioning of Palestine. The American Colony endeavors to maintain neutrality; is damaged by mortar fire.
1948, May-October
The state of Israel is proclaimed May 14. The Arab-Israeli War soon commences. Mary Franji (b. 1927), (Nurse Mary) of the staff of the Anna Spafford Baby Home and wife of Hanna Franji, door man of the American Colony, nurses wounded at the American Colony International Red Cross Emergency Clearing Station.
1948-1949
East Jerusalem and the West Bank placed under the administration of Transjordan (Jordan) under Abdullah ibn Hussein. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs become refugees from Israeli-occupied territory. Armistice agreement between Israel and Transjordan of April 1949 divides Jerusalem along north-south lines. The American Colony is located at the border of No Man’s Land, which stretches to Mea Shearim, in the area administered by Jordan until 1967.
1949, Feb.
First Israeli Parliament meets in Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion is the first prime minister of Israel.
1950
Israeli Parliament proclaims Jerusalem the capital of Israel. The Jordanian Parliament proclaims annexation of East Jerusalem, with Amman as capital of the expanded state.
circa 1950s-1960s
Dr. Hassan Dajani and Dr. Mahmoud Dajani are among the physicians on the Spafford Children’s Hospital medical-surgical staff.
1950
Bertha Vester publishes the American version of Our Jerusalem: An American Family in the Holy City, 1881-1949. New York, Doubleday & Co., with introduction by Lowell Thomas. She departs on a book tour to the United States to fund raise for the colony’s charities and promote the publication at women’s clubs, churches, and other venues. She will work on the English edition of the book while in New York City, and return to Jerusalem in the summer of 1951.
1951, Feb. 28
American Colony teacher and botanist John Dinsmore dies in Jerusalem.
1951, July 20
King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated in Jerusalem, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
1951, Oct. 3
John D. Whiting dies in Jerusalem after suffering a heart attack earlier in the year. He is buried in Ramallah. Grace Whiting will make a trip to the United States after his death to visit her children, including Edmund Wilson Whiting, recently the father of a baby girl.
1952
Spafford Baby Home refurbished as the Spafford Children’s Hospital. Anna Grace Lind returns to Jerusalem after living in the United States and begins to help her mother manage the American Colony hostel and grounds.
1952, May 12
Helen Keller visits the American Colony while in Jerusalem for a lecture tour.
1953
New Child Welfare Center wing of the Spafford Children’s Hospital. The hospital includes an X-ray Department, surgical facilities, an out-patient clinic, and the Mother Craft Training Center.
1954
The American Colony loses the last vestiges of its once productive farm with the closing of the piggery, as the municipality develops around the colony’s formerly pastoral property.
1954-1958
Deaths of Swedish American Colony members Christina Larsson Levy (b. 1875), Nellie Olson (b. 1861), Annie Larson, and Charlotte Johanssen.
1956, October-November
Sinai Campaign.
1960
Vester and Co., Ltd., established.
1962
Bertha Vester publishes Flowers of the Holy Land. Kansas City, Mo., Hallmark Cards.
Bertha and Frederick’s son, Horatio Vester (d. 1985), a barrister in England, moves to Jerusalem to manage the American Colony Hotel with his British wife, Valentine Vester (d. 2008). Bertha and Frederick’s eldest daughter, Anna Grace Lind, joins her sister Frieda Ward in administering the Spafford Children’s Hospital. Lind assumes full directorship in 1973, when Ward returns to England.
1963
Bertha Vester is awarded the Jordan Star by King Hussein of Jordan.
1964
Bertha Vester publishes a new and enlarged edition, Flowers of the Holy Land. Kansas City, Mo., Hallmark Cards
Grace Whiting dies, Jerusalem.
1967, June
The Six-Day War. The American Colony Hotel is damaged by mortar fire and foreign correspondents and the Red Cross use it as a gathering place. The outcome makes for the American Colony’s third change of country. It has been part of Syria, Jordan, and Israel, while occupying the same East Jerusalem land.
1968
Dr. Jantien Dajani joins the staff of the Spafford Children’s Hospital. She will later become the director of the Spafford Children’s Center.
1968, June
Official reunification of Jerusalem and removal of barbed wire barriers and road blocks allows increased freedom of movement for residents after twenty years of Israeli-Jordanian restrictions.
1968, June 27
Bertha Vester dies, Jerusalem.
1970
The Spafford Children’s Hospital becomes the Spafford Children’s Center, providing social and psychological services, public health and preventative medicine to a primarily Palestinian clientele of women and infants, children, and youth.
1978, September
Camp David peace accords signed by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.
1980
Management of the American Colony Hotel shifts to Gauer Hotels of Switzerland following the retirement of Horatio Vester. The shareholders and board of directors of the hotel primarily remain descendants of the early founders and members of the American Colony.
Women making lace, Jerusalem. American Colony in Jerusalem Collection, Manuscript Division, LOC
View of Jerusalem from the roof of the Anna Spafford Baby Home/American Colony Aid Association, ca. 1938. G. Eric & Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-03429
Swedish group, those from Dalarna remaining in the colony, May 10, 1946. G. Eric & Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-12938
Clinic examination, Anna Spafford Baby Home, Jersualem. G. Eric & Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-13968
The American Colony main building, ca. 1950. G. Eric & Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-22831
American Colony main building, courtyard, ca. 1950. G. Eric & Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-22832
Bertha Spafford Vester, John D. Whiting, Grace Spafford Whiting, Jerusalem, 1951. Image from photographs of members of the American Colony (Jerusalem) and Middle East locations (page 3). Visual Materials of the John D. Whiting Papers, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18908
Gameli and baby Anna, Anna Spafford Baby Home. G. Eric and Edith Matson Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-matpc-13964
Anna Grace [Vester] Lind at American Colony bazaar, 1954, with Edith Larsson in the background. Image from American Colony bazaar photograph album (p. 13, bottom). Visual Materials of the Papers of John D. Whiting, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18906
Mrs. Bertha Vester listening to Mr. Hanna Atalla at an American Colony bazaar, 1954. Image from American Colony bazaar photograph album (p. 13, bottom). Visual Materials of the John D. Whiting Papers, Prints & Photographs Division, LOC, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18905
Spafford Children’s Center pamphlet, Jerusalem, Old City. American Colony in Jerusalem Collection, Manuscript Division, LOC