Women's Christian College,
Madras,
Nov. 28, 1929.Dear Miss Turner,
Katie Wilcox sent me a letter last week for me to send to Miss Smith's people but it arrived the day after the home mail left. In it she wrote much as in the earlier letter to myself, a copy of which I sent you, of Miss Smith's two days in Madura and of her death, but she also added a letter about the funeral. I am sending that letter to Mrs. Larrabee to-day, and will copy the last part for you. Katie wrote,
"We had a quiet, simple service in our home. A few of the choir girls and teachers from school were allowed to come also. They were dressed in pure white and the service began by their singing, "Peace, Perfect Peace." Then Rev. J. J. Bannings, Principal of our Theological Seminary took charge of the service using the Episcopal service primarily. The Principal of the American College, - Mr. Stoffer, - Mr. Dudley and Mr. Miller, both husbands of Mount Holyoke girls, two professors at the College, - Mr. Flint and Mr. Hess, - and the principal of our Trade School, Mr. Dickson, acted as bearers and as we laid her in the little spot in the cemetary [sic] beneath the shade of a beautiful palm tree, we who knew her were conscious of the benediction of a life well ordered and bravely lived in the service of others. What a heritage she has left behind!"
It all seems so unreal still! We had been anticipating her visit so much that it seems impossible to believe that she is not coming. Everything in the College compound looks different to me now, for ever since I came back I have been thinking, especially as I looked at the Chapel or the Garden, "How Miss Smith will love this." And such plans as Miss Stokey and I made! I think I never lived so much in the future as I have since I returned from furlough. But it is selfish to speak of my own sorrow to you who will miss her so very much.
Questions that cannot be answered crowd into my mind, - Was Miss Smith really too frail physically to undertake the trip at all, and was it wrong of me to urge her to come? Did the long voyage tire her and cause some new trouble to develop? Was the excitement of new sights too great? Was her heart so weak that the end might have come as unexpectedly in America?
Only one letter came for her by the last mail and I am sending it to you. Others will doubtless come in the next two or three mails and I shall send those to you.
Mrs. Larrabee has cabled asking that all Miss Smith's things be sent to you, and I shall do this as soon as the American Consul will give me permission to do so. Apparently there is a good deal of legal red tape which has to be dealt with.
Yours very sincerely
Edith M. Coon