Walter M. Geddes

Walter Mackintosh Geddes (November 13, 1885 – November 7, 1915) was an American businessman who was an important witness to the Armenian genocide. His reports provide a detailed account of the situation of the Armenian deportees in the Syrian Desert. While in Aleppo, he witnessed thousands die of exposure and starvation. Greatly saddened and affected by the scenes he witnessed, he ultimately committed suicide on November 7, 1915.

Early life Geddes was born on November 13, 1885, in Newark, New Jersey, to Alexander Geddes and Susan Isabel Geddes (née Baker). His father was of Scottish descent and his mother was of English descent. He studied at Stevens Institute of Technology for a year and then spent five years in Saskatchewan, Canada and Montana where he traveled. He graduated from Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University in 1911 and married Rebekah Virginia Botsford on October 13, 1912, in Denver, Colorado. In 1912 he became a solicitor for Peters, Byrne & Company who were tree surgeons in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1913 he and his wife moved to Asia Minor as a result of his decision to join the licorice business which his father had already established. Their son, George Baker Geddes, was born in Damascus.

Armenian genocide Geddes left for the Ottoman Empire in March 1913 in search of licorice root to expand his business. After first passing an encampment of Armenians at Afyonkarahisar, he went to Konia where he witnessed the separation of a woman and her baby from her husband. The husband was then placed on a train while the woman was "forcibly held behind and kept from getting on the train".