Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we’re adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.

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It was the summer of 1939, in the last weeks before war would sweep across Europe, and Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Ella K. Maillart were embarking on a 4,000-mile drive from Geneva to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the goal of curing Schwarzenbach of her morphine addiction.

At first it seemed as if this quixotic plan might be working: As the two women, both journalists and authors, made their way from Switzerland, through Italy and on into Yugoslavia, they stopped at roadside campsites and small village inns, choosing to steer clear of towns and cities where drugs might be available.

Indeed, one night, as they slept under the stars outside Belgrade, they were awakened by the sounds of village men cutting hay. Schwarzenbach, normally frail and intense, “seemed to revive,” Maillart wrote.