History of the Russian Children's Welfare Society

Princess Vera Constantinovna (24 April 1906 — 11 January 2001) was the great- granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and the youngest child among the 10 children of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich, a revered poet and second cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.

She was born into the tail end of Imperial Russia's legacy and much of her childhood was made into a precarious and agonizing affair by the onset of World War I and the Russian Revolution. The first of many family misfortunes occurred after her brother Oleg was killed in the line of battle shortly after WWI began. The following year, in 1916, when Princess Vera was only 9 years old, her father died of a heart attack before her very eyes. In 1918, four of her brothers were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. While one of them, Prince Gabriel, was released, the other 3 (Ivan, Constantine, and Igor) were murdered along with members of the Romanov family.

As the political turbulence in Russia grew, it became increasingly more dangerous for Vera and her family to remain in their homeland. Vera's mother, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, decided to travel to Sweden with Vera and George (Vera's brother) after accepting an invitation from Queen Victoria. They later moved to Belgium, followed by Germany where Vera's mother died of cancer, in Leipzig, in 1927.

Princess Vera and her brother soon relocated to London where Vera subsequently lived for 30 years while Prince George moved to New York City. With little to no respite between the end of WWI and beginning of WWII, and still shaken from the gruesome aftermath off WWI, Vera went to Germany during WWII to work as a translator in a camp for prisoners of war. During this period, she did not have any protections of statehood and did not belong to a specific country.

Even as a stateless refugee she refused the aid of various European countries because she considered herself Russian. She once said: «I didn't leave Russia, it is Russia who left me». In 1951, she decided to move to the United States, where she would stay until her last days.

Upon arriving in the U.S, Vera started working for Russian organizations. She wanted to help those who had been abandoned by her country just as she had been. She had a generous heart and was one of the most active volunteers at the RCWS. She worked with the society from 1952 to 1969. She was an extraordinary activist and devoted member of the RCWS who dedicated her time to helping create a better Russia for its people so that they could avoid having to live through the difficulties she endured growing up. Vera never got married but led a noble and fulfilling life. She died at the age of 95 at the Tolstoy Foundation Elderly care home in Nyack, New York. She was always an honored patron at the Petroushka Ball.

JOHN ENGALITCHEFF, JR.
1907 — 1984

John Engalitcheff. Jr, formerly known as 'Prince Jean Engalitcheff,' was born in Russia in 1907 and grew up immersed in the turbulence of the Russian Revolution. At the onset of the revolution, Jean and his family were forced to escape their house and flee the country because Lenin had ordered their arrest. In 1919, Engalitcheff’s parents fled to Serbia and he was left behind to fend for himself. He enrolled in the White Army, was briefly imprisoned in Germany, and began scouring all of Europe to reunite with his family upon his release. According to various sources, he finally found them in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

John enrolled in a Russian school in Serbia from which he later graduated. Years later, he moved to the United-States. As all of his family did before him, Jean changed his name from 'Prince Jean' to 'John Engalitcheff' and relinquished his aristocratic title. When he arrived in United-States, John enrolled at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and was given a full scholarship. He was an excellent student but struggled with English despite knowing Russian, French, German, and Serbian fluently. In 1930, he graduated from Johns Hopkins with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Upon graduating, Engalitcheff knew that his time in the U.S was running short, which prompted him to apply for a Canadian visa. His visa application was subsequently denied which spurred Engalitcheff to write a letter to Harry Hull, U. S. Commissioner General of Immigration. In this letter, Engalitcheff expressed his love and admiration for America and made a promise to use his skills for the benefit of the country. His letter proved to be quite effective. Shortly after sending it, he received his visa and became a U.S citizen, a status that granted him the opportunity to work for several companies and to create his own company in 1938, the Baltimore Aircoil Company.

Mr. Engalitcheff was a hard worker and his inventions revolutionized the air-conditioning industry. He received many prizes for his work at the American Society of Eating, an Air-Conditioning Engineers’ Distinguished Service Award in 1963, The F.Paul Anderson Award in 1981 and was also inducted into the ASHRAE Hall of FAME in 1996. Throughout his career, Engalitcheff earned twenty-three patents in the field of evaporative cooling devices. He earned an additional 24 patents that pertained to medical equipment after retiring in order to help his ailing wife, who suffered from excruciating arthritis. In 1984, Mr. Engalitcheff received the most important prize of his life, the Eagle Pin given by the president of United-States, Ronald Reagan himself. Upon meeting President Reagan, Engalitcheff was overcome with emotion and collapsed at the ceremony as the President was about to shake his hand. Several days later, he died of a stroke.

In 1990, the John and Virginia P. Engalitcheff Estate made a very generous donation to the Russian Children’s Welfare Society of $ 4.5 million. The bequest significantly helped the Russian Children’s Welfare Society expand the scope of their help and greatly improved the lives of many children.