Old Phaleron - Greece
April. 18, 1926
Dear Miss Turner,
How to make a long story short and understandable! Whether you approve or not in the end, I do want you to understand how I feel about this Vassar situation and why I have not accepted the opportunity (for it is a good one, I realize!) of applying for a junior instructorship in the Physiology Department there.
Your cable of March 25th did not reach me until Wednesday, April 14th. The message arrived in Athens on time - I was away at Delphi for the weekend (I might have sought aid from the oracle if I had known!) - and it was received by one of the American teachers - and tucked away - until almost three weeks later. She came to me in tears, with the cable, last week. That will explain why there was nothing but silence from me for so long. Had I wished to reconsider - and I did reconsider, although with the same conclusion - it would have been difficult to have done anything, because five days after I got Conky's letter from Vassar telling me that the position was open for application, and expressing Doctor Thilberg's wish that she might do something to make up to me for the 1923 affair (but she shouldn't feel that she has to make up anything to me for that - for there have been so many valuable experiences since then) - five days after, on the 28th of February I wrote to Conky and said definitely that I would not apply, and enclosed a note for Dr. Thilberg with the same statement in briefer form and with less explanation. Your cable is the only word I have had since then about Vassar.
And the way, Miss Turner! After putting the advantages into the left hand scale pan - for Vassar - the pointer went far in the direction of Poughkeepsie, - the place, the people, the chance for study, the vacations, the salary, the loveliness of the campus, the fact of a junior instructorship offered to a person of little experience - they had weight. And in addition there was the certainty of having a position settled before fall, and the knowledge that many friends, here and in America, - people whose opinion I respect - were advising me to do it.
But then I came up against these three things which have gone into the right hand scale pan and changed the balance.
First is this - that all the "grown up" working year's of my life - the last seven have all been spent in girls' colleges or in a girl's boarding school. Not that I mean that a campus is more or less rutty than any other place for I have seen people in grooves so deep in this part of the world, with all of its history, interest and color, that they couldn't see above their heads. But couple this up with my honest confession that I want to run away from teaching, from lectures, quiz sections and note books, that I don't feel that I should keep on doing it until I do like it for the sake of discipline - and you have one of my reasons. And I feel that if I should want to come back after some years to teaching, it would be possible, with the added disadvantage of those years and no rise in professional standing in the meantime. Am I wrong there?
And this is another factor - I have always had the hankering after laboratory work with a more technical turn - but because I was wavering in my mind as to what I wanted to do, because I had had no experience in 1923, the Vassar and C.C. offers came up - and I didn't follow the hospital work, the health department work, or the full time research assistantships any farther. Now I would like to run that idea down, and try my hand and brains in that sort of work. I have to support myself, which makes it impossible to consider the Harvard Medical Work under Dr. Drinker. That sounded very attractive - I wish I might say "yes" to it, but my financial condition is in a state where it needs a monthly salary large enough to keep me in food and shoes!! On the other hand, I am willing to consider a two months apprenticeship in hospital work, if it leads to a living wage after that.
I have put things badly and baldly. Perhaps I am not wise. If not - the consequences come back on to me. You have been very good - I do appreciate it.
There is nothing definite in the wind. The Rockefeller Institute replied that there was nothing open now, but that I should register again in the fall. The Woman's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston will hear from me [winking smiley face!] just as soon as I can get their address likewise the Philadelphia and New York equivalents of that organization. I asked Marjorie Preston for information and the address of the Pearl River Laboratory Director but I have heard nothing from her. If nothing develops before I leave Greece, I shall plan a fall campaign and hope for some corner!
Marion Nosser has just left Athens - we've had some good days together these past ten days. Unfortunately her vacation and mine did not hitch, so that I was a part time hostess, but Marion is a comfortable guest and not timid - and delved into every corner of the city alone, emerging each night with tear bottles excavated from the rubbish in the old cemetery and tales of lunches eaten in by-the-way cafés, - a crispy fish in one hand, a stein of beer in the other.
Greek Easter comes on May 2nd. After staying in Athens for the ceremonies connected with the season, we are going on to Crete - to King Minos' kingdom! I am really thrilled at the prospect.
This week I shall arrange an approximate itinerary for the summer - and you know how glad I shall be if our paths cross. I have decided not to register for either conference now, and to wait and see which I can weave into my itinerary. I prefer Stockholm. I do want to see something of Germany - and I would rather spend time in Dresden or Munich than at the A.A.U.W. Conference unless I were in the same place. It isn't as if I run abroad every summer.
These days must be busy for you, examinations approaching, passports and visas to get pictures taken (!!), and steamship literature to browse through. I hate to start planning the summer - it means good-bye to Athens and Greece - it means cutting roots again. I have been entirely with Greek people this semester - and know some of them for the first time. But then all sorts of quivers rase up and down my vertebral column when I think of seeing old friends again. They will have changed, I will have changed and it will be very interesting.
My thanks to you for the letter of March 7th and the information it contained.
Sincerely yours,
Charlotte E. Ferguson.
P.S. - Do you think me "a-ná-poth-e"??? It is modern Green for "contrary." C.F.
Hygiene lessons at Old Phaleron! Blow hard, Willie!