174 N. Walnut St.,
East Orange, N.J.,
December 21, 1918.My dear Miss Turner,
This is just a note to carry to you my very best wishes for a happy Christmas season.
Every so and so often I feel moved to write to you, for the realization comes to me again and again with a persistence and strength ever increasing, of how much you did for me and for many other girls whom I know. Whenever I meet up with some old college pal we seem to mention you and think again of the inspiration you gave us. You did more, I think, than any other influence in giving us a firm foundation for an understanding of life - an understanding, and a feeling of reconciliation with some of the complex aspects of it so incomprehensible, seemingly - yet all springing from the basic elements with which you acquainted us. And you covered so much ground with us - the Vassar group of girls this summer spoke wonderingly of what you had won for them. Adelphia Allen and Margaret Conrad and Rose Miller and Dorothy Camp and Eunice Whitney - we just had a regular little talking bee when we met.
Billy Conrad called me up at Thanksgiving time and told me how enthusiastic she was over the work. It surely is a great thing.
I've been having great fun - teaching Spanish. I have 205 students in the lay school, including children in the 7th and 8th grades. I teach Spanish in the night-school too, so that I have outside of meals, sleeping, and school, only about two hours a day, which I put
itin breathing what is known in New Jersey as "the bracing air of Morristown" - and I find I need it.The rain is falling to-day - not very Christmas-like, yet it is beautifully peaceful, and I can't keep feeling what a wonderful Christmas-time this is to be alive in.
I should like to hear your lectures that have to do with medical work in connection with the war. How interested you must be! I have an army doctor friend, Anne and Sally Cook's brother, who occasionally has something interesting to say concerning that work. - And again I'm thankful to you for making me a less unintelligent listener.
Again - a happy Christmas to you!
Laura Baer