The person behind the public figure

After attending Çankaya Primary School and Üsküdar Girls’ College, she entered the Turkish Aeronautical Association’s aviation school in 1935. Further glider training in the Soviet Union and instruction at Eskişehir prepared her for military flying.

Her flights during the 1937 Aegean and Thrace manoeuvres and operations in Dersim made her a highly visible figure. She toured the Balkans by air in 1938, became chief instructor at Türkkuşu, and later served on the association’s board. She died in 2001.

Vasfiye Hanım had herself been raised by Atatürk’s mother, Zübeyde Hanım. Atatürk grew deeply attached to Ülkü, who often accompanied him on journeys and appears with him in many of the period’s best-known family photographs.

He was struck by her maturity and intelligence. Ülkü was five and a half when he died in 1938; his will provided her with a monthly payment from the income of his İş Bankası shares. She lived until 2012.

Born near Dojran, her family moved to Türkiye after the region passed to Greece. With her parents’ agreement, she studied French in Lausanne from 1925 to 1927 and continued at Notre Dame de Sion in Istanbul. She qualified as a history teacher and joined the Ankara Music Teachers’ School.

İnan helped establish the Turkish Historical Society, served for years as its vice-president, directed Ankara University’s Institute of the History of the Turkish Revolution and pursued an academic career to professorship. Her books preserve important testimony about Atatürk’s ideas and working life. She died in 1985.

She remained as Atatürk’s spiritual daughter and continued her education in Ankara. On 17 January 1929 she married Tahsin Bey, then first secretary at the Turkish embassy in Vienna, at Ankara Palas; photographs preserve her dance with Atatürk at the celebration.

Nebile later became seriously ill and died only a few years after Atatürk. She was one of the five children expressly provided for in his will.

She later married Gendarmerie Captain Hüsnü Erkin. Cabinet ministers witnessed their civil ceremony in Ankara; the wedding celebration took place at Dolmabahçe Palace, where Atatürk shared the first dance with her.

The marriage produced a son and, later, two granddaughters. Rukiye lived until 1995. Atatürk’s will assigned her a monthly payment from the annual income of his İş Bankası shares.

She developed a strong interest in literature and later attended Arnavutköy American College before being sent to Britain for further study. Accounts remember Atatürk taking a close interest in her reading and intellectual development.

In November 1935, while returning from Britain through France, she died after falling from a train near Amiens. Her body was returned to Istanbul and buried at Maçka Cemetery.

After the War of Independence he was brought to Ankara, attended a school near Çankaya and later the Industrial School. Atatürk sent him to Berlin Technical University in 1929 and paid his expenses.

He took the surname Tuncak after 1934 and later translated during negotiations for the purchase of the yacht Savarona. In his recollections, he described Zübeyde, Makbule and Atatürk as the only family he had known. He died in 1999.

The child of a poor immigrant family from Bulgaria, Mustafa was ill and undernourished but eager to learn. Atatürk first arranged hospital treatment in Şişli, then enrolled him in a primary school in Beşiktaş.

With continued support, Mustafa completed middle school, military high school and the Military Academy, eventually becoming an officer. He retired to Yalova and died there on 15 January 1987.