Nuriye İdil, who was the source of inspiration for April 23, told the story of that day

Nuriye İdil, 100, who lives in the elderly care center in İzmir's Urla district, remembers the dialogue she had with Atatürk, who came to visit the school she studied in Konya 90 years ago, down to the smallest detail.

Nuriye İdil, who is the daughter of prosecutor Sıtkı Gür, one of the 11 founding deputies of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, told the story of the photograph, which has been in schoolbooks for many years and has been published in many places:

“I was at school the day the photo was taken. I was in second grade. Atatürk came to our beautiful school named Şems, which is close to Konya Mevlana Tomb. It was the year 1922. My aunt and uncles had hats made for me. I was wearing that hat when Atatürk came. My teachers gave me a bouquet of flowers to take to Atatürk, I went to him and presented the flowers with fear.

He asked me whose daughter I was, and took me in his arms with joy and said, 'Well done, you are the first to wear a hat. Do you like your friends, children, school?' asked. I said, 'I love you very much, Pasha'. Atatürk said , 'Then let's invite children from all over the world every year to play together and socialize' . I am happy and proud that my dialogue with Atatürk also contributed to the formation of April 23 Children's Day.

Explaining that Atatürk sent the photo to Konya as a gift later on, İdil said, “I was very excited to be with Atatürk when the photo was taken, I was trembling. Atatürk was such a man that you could not look into his eyes. He was a very handsome, very beautiful man who read your mind with his eyes like a projector. His voice was very mild, not an authoritative military voice, he had a sweet voice . ”

Atatürk changed the lives of both his father and husband.

İdil noted that her father Hüseyin Sıtkı Gür joined the Kuvayi Nationalists in 1915 when he was the Ottoman Tokat Chief Prosecutor, and a death warrant was issued for his actions. Stating that he remembers his experiences well even though he was very young, İdil said:

“We were in Konya. One day, three men came to our house, holding a piece of paper. They did not recognize my father's face. When they came to our house, while the people of the house were distracting the men, my late grandmother laid my father on a mattress in the basement of the house and covered him. I had two uncles at home. One was a lawyer and the other a doctor. As a result of the officers' searches, my father was found in the basement. My uncle, who is a doctor, introduced himself and said, 'Patients from the village come to me, I give medicine to those who are very sick, I send them to their homes when they get better. He saved my father's life by saying, 'This man is one of these patients.'

İdil stated to her father, Atatürk's Medal of Independence, that he had a gun with the inscription "My gift to my friend Sıtkı Gür" in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Stating that his wife, Reşat İdil, was one of the people Atatürk changed his life, İdil said that Atatürk sent his wife, a graduate of the Faculty of Agriculture, who speaks 4 languages, to the USA to specialize and do research on viticulture.

Stating that after her husband studied grape growing at Berkeley University in the USA for three years, İdil said that she drained a large swamp in Manisa and built Turkey's largest nursery on it, “Atatürk changed my wife's life as well. With the education he received, my husband brought grape growing to the Aegean. Once upon a time, grape growing was in the hands of the Greeks in Anatolia. With the opportunities given by Atatürk, my husband helped the grape growing, which was lost after the war, when they left Turkey, to come back to life . ”

Source: AA