You are all so good about writing--I cannot thank you enough and if only
there were more free hours I’d write everybody, but I just can’t.
Our hospital again is almost full to capacity, and such badly hurt
men,--amputations, two or three of them, every day out of sixteen or
seventeen operations every afternoon. Day before yesterday they had a
man on the operating table before they decided which of his legs they
had better take off! Such a price as is being paid for the new
world--but it is not too big to make the new world and liberty and peace
and brotherhood and democracy mean something. And how small a share we
are having in that price and how we’d give more if we could. I wish E.
wouldn’t think that anything we are doing is worthy of admiration--it
isn’t--we are doing so little. We love being here and would not leave
our jobs for anything that could be offered us. I am writing in bed; it
is very late but I don’t feel like sleeping yet. It is very comfortable
here in my little bed with my good light hanging beside me. The light is
such a comfort. I have bought an oil stove to try and heat this room. I
think it will make things more comfortable.
Please tell B. the music she sent me was dandy--the Kreisler piece is a
beauty. I cannot play the double stops well yet, but I’ll do better with
them after a bit. It’s a stunning thing and stays in the mind. One of
our nurses made a hit at a concert for the privates singing “Over
There,” which was new to us all here. We’d like to have all the
patriotic new things you can send like “Goodby Broadway, Hello
France”--we haven’t that yet. Tell B. I love the College news and want
to know all she is doing.
Now I guess I’d better try to sleep a bit. I’ve had a lovely time
talking to you. God keep you all, my dear ones.
Julia.
November 16, 1917.
It has been a pretty long time since I last wrote a regular letter. It
has not been because we were so terribly busy, for in the last ten days
our census has come down a little and things stopped being quite as
strenuous as they had been since the first of October. Sometimes,
however, I find it hard to write and I put it off, thinking that I’ll be
feeling more like doing it the next day. I usually love to write. These
last few days, however, we have been most busy, for on the 13th at noon
we had notice that our long-expected 31 nurses would arrive that
afternoon. Capt. Johnston and I went down to meet them, leaving the
people here scurrying around trying to get enough food to feed all those
extra people and to work out the plans we made long ago, as to how we
would house them until the V. A. D.’s were taken away.
The next day most of the V. A. D.’s were taken away to the different
hospitals in this neighborhood, and to-day we are beginning to settle
down. The details of the records that are necessary, both for the
outgoing people as well as for the new-comers, have been very numerous
and complicated, but Miss Taylor and I and the little stenographer have
put things through in fairly rapid shape. I have yet many payrolls and
traveling expense vouchers and pay allotments and lists galore to attend
to, but the most immediate and important ones are finished.
We have started the new ladies all off on the wards and they seem very
much interested and thrilled and glad to be here. Since it is almost
three months since they left St. Louis, they are mighty glad to arrive
somewhere and get started to work. Poor things, they have to go through
the adjusting that we all had. They never will get used to some things,
such as the awful wounds, the appalling cheeriness of the men, and the
sight of the troops marching off to the front.
There is a perfect hubbub outside now, for the new enlisted men who
arrived to-day with the officers are celebrating with a couple of drums.
I have been so occupied all day I have not had a chance to see the new
officers, but I have seen Dr. Thomas for half a second. So E. may know
that her package will doubtless be forthcoming pretty soon.
One of my children has just been in here. A little while ago she
received a cable that her father is not expected to live, which she
can’t help interpreting to mean that he is dead, as she does not think
her family would have cabled otherwise. She is a night nurse and is, of
course, going right on with her work to-night. She is the first of our
group to whom a big sorrow has come. Of course, we all know they must
come, but when they do, we feel so far away.
I have been making many speeches this week. Just a little while ago I
had a long talk with all my American nurses; then of course I had to
have a farewell talk with the V. A. D.’s; and then all the poor new
nurses had to have me tell them, not rules and regulations, for they can
read those on the bulletin board, but a little about the way we all feel
after six months and some of the processes we have been through, which
they are pretty sure to have to go through too. It is very curious with
a group of people such as I have here, how they light up and are moved
when they are interpreted to themselves. It is the greatest delight to
me to try to make them see themselves and what they are doing, in large
terms. I try to fit the daily trials and depressions and difficulties,
and the way they take them, into their right place in their sense of
patriotism. I tell them how they felt when they were at the wonderful
service at the Cathedral at home, and at places where the bands played
and the flags waved, as in London, and such places, and then I try to
show them how their daily work can be a part of such feelings. And when
I told them of the change that had come over most of us in the six
months we have been here, I surprised them so much. I told them we had
come glad to pay that part of the price that was convenient. We had been
quite willing to give say six months’ service, and give up our big pay
for a while, and to stay as long as our future plans were not interfered
with, and as long as our health did not suffer, and so long as it really
was not a hardship to any one. But I had seen the change coming to us
all, that a bigger price than that was expected of us. I told them how
proud I was to see them all coming to the conclusion that no price would
be too big to pay for what we were working for. I told them of the peace
that I knew had come to them because individually they had decided that
their future plans did not count, their hopes deferred were of no
importance, or their health, so long as their efficiency was not
impaired, or their families, or their salaries, or their whole lives.
The change has really come. It has been most noticeable. I felt it in
myself of course, and no longer am restless and questioning. And the
questions of so many that came to me for the first few months about the
possible length of time, etc., have entirely ceased. About two weeks ago
I had to tell two nurses, for whom I had applied for discharge after six
months, that it was refused. One was to go home to be married and the
other to join her husband whom she married one hour before we left St.
Louis. Both were so splendid about the matter, and acted as though this
was the decision that they themselves would have made; I was most
impressed. And that is the spirit of the whole group. Nurses say all the
time, “I couldn’t be hired to go home now, knowing what I know now.” Oh,
they are so fine. The new group seem so surprised to find us so happy.
They also seem much surprised to find us so well off for food and
general conditions. We all look more husky and rosy-cheeked and fat than
they do.
I am going to send this much along with Phil’s, as there is no telling
when I can continue. The Gerard book and “The Chosen People” we are glad
to have. Thank you so much.
With loads and loads of love,
Julia.
Nov. 25, 1917.
We had our first military funeral on the 23d, for our little boy
Sergeant who died of pneumonia. It was most impressive. At two o’clock
all who could be spared from the wards assembled in front of the grand
stand. The procession started there, first the group of sergeants who
were honorary pallbearers, then all the Officers, then American enlisted
men, then British enlisted men, then about fifty blue-coated nurses. We
marched in twos down to the mortuary and lined up along the road; then
the quaint French hearse, driven by a man in a three-cornered hat, was
driven through the long line of his friends. His brother, a little
private from the Canadian Army, accompanied by one of our men, walked
just behind, and the six active pallbearers, his best friends, walked on
the two sides. Then we all fell in and marched the mile through the mud
to the military cemetery. It is just a big field, nearly filled with
small wooden crosses, each bearing the name of a soldier. Ours was the
first American laid there. The two padres were waiting for us in their
surplices, the dearly loved British clergyman, Dr. Page, and our new
young American, Mr. Taylor, who came to relieve Dean Davis. This special
place has been set apart for Americans.
It is a lovely, quiet place outside the wall of an old French
burying-place. Far off to the West were the blue, blue hills that are on
the other side of Rouen, and nearer a long double row of bare, black
poplars. And near were the rows and rows of others who had given their
all and gone on before. One could almost feel a welcoming stir as we
laid our first American among them. A little group of French people had
gathered to see what had brought so large a cortège to a place where
there are daily interments and where every day the firing squad gives
the last salute for the brave boys from our hospitals. The beautiful
words of the service had new meaning to them. Then the salute from the
firing squad, and “Taps” from the bugler. While the officers and most of
the nurses marched away, his Masonic “brothers,” led by our Rabbi, held
their symbolic ceremony. There were many flowers, weird French wreaths,
which were hung all over the outside of the hearse when it left the
mortuary. If only Evart’s mother could have been here, it would have
comforted her to feel the love and respect of all his friends and to see
the quiet, lovely place where he is laid to rest.
We know that both the American groups have been most fortunate to have
had no deaths before this. In the natural course of events they are
bound to come, and to have our first not till after six months have
passed since we left home, was not to be expected. We will have others,
but oh, if I could only bring all my nurses back home safe to their
families! Of course, it can’t be, some will have to be sent back because
of ill health; there is a question about the lungs of one now, and some
we shall have to leave behind. It is a fearful thing to have the
responsibility of one hundred women so far away from home. Sometimes it
all seems so much, too much for me,--their health, their happiness,
their reputation and morals, their general safety and welfare. I try to
remember that the responsibility is not all mine. There are strong men
helping me, but they only have the important things to attend to about
them; I have the accumulation of all the little things as well.
All our recently received patients have been so tremendously elated and
excited about the advances made towards Cambrai. It has been wonderful
to see their enthusiasm. We have been quite busy taking care of the poor
things, 71 operations in 48 hours, a couple of days ago. It has been
raining again, and such a wind and rain storm as we had all last night
and this morning, but this afternoon it cleared up beautifully and is
very cold.
A few days ago an interesting little incident occurred. There was a
knock at my office door. When I opened it, there was a patient in his
clumsy blue suit, steadying himself against the wall. “Can you tell me
where I can find the Matron?” he said. “Yes, right here,” I answered. “I
am the Matron. What can I do for you?” He was so wobbly he almost had
to lean up against the wall. “Somebody told me,” he said, “that you had
a violin. I am a professional violinist and I have not touched a violin
for five months, and to-day I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I got up
out of bed to come and find you.” I made him come in and sit down. As it
happened I had a new violin and bow, which had been bought for our
embryo orchestra, here in my office. The violin was not tuned up, but
that didn’t matter. The man had it in shape in no time and then he began
to play, and how he could play! We let him take the violin down to his
tent, and later I sent him some of my music. He was a shell shock, and
all the evening and the next few days until he was sent to England he
played to wrapt audiences of fellow patients. In our wards we have lots
of kinds of music, from gramophones to comb-and-tissue-paper bands. The
men are keen about anything that makes a tune. A lot of harmonicas would
be a great blessing.
We had such a wonderful lot of letters this morning. I got 12 and Phil
9. I had four from Mother--October 29, November 1, and November 8, and I
forget the other date, as Phil has it with him. We had a wonderful time
reading each other’s mail. I could not finish until way into the
afternoon, I had so many things to do. Letters do make such a
difference. I was so glad all these came this A.M., for it is very cold
and we admitted 250 patients at noon, but letters will counteract most
anything. Somebody wrote in the only copy of the _Survey_ I have seen
since I left home that the two things that did troops the most good were
letters and singing, and it is true about nurses too. Speaking of
singing, can you send me some copies of the new Army and Navy Song
Book--say 2 or 3 dozen, if they are not too expensive, or more if
possible? I have 100 women, but of course we never can all get together
at one time. The October 6th _Survey_ mentioned that book as excellent.
I’ll answer the letters soon. They were wonderful and full of juicy
bits. You are all so very, very dear to write so much and your letters
make such a difference.
Phil has his “Board” to-morrow and will soon know what is to happen to
him.
Lovingly,
Julia.
December 8, 1917.