Boone School
Wuchang, China
May 23, 1938Abby dear -
For many a moon it has been in my mind to write to you but somehow it has been just one of those things never done. I did truly appreciate the Christmas message from you and Gertrude that came for Christmas 1936 but that winter and spring were particularly full of a number of things and I put off writing until I should be holiday-making at beloved Kuling. We celebrated our silver wedding July 9 and I expected to write to all our home friends about that auspicious occasion but as our wedding guests were leaving after our reception we heard the ominous news of the trouble at the Marco Polo Bridge. Ever since, as of course you know, we have lived a strange, tense life. For months my will-to-write was quite paralyzed; it was hard to make myself write to our girls even.
You see from Aug. 1 on we have been in a large measure isolated from the world. Our life-line indeed is the Hankow-Canton R.R. and it is little short of miraculous how the Chinese have kept that functioning in spite of constant air-raids. Up to date it has never been out of commission for a longer period than three days. The post-office was at first badly dislocated, naturally enough. Now things come through fairly quickly and regularly, but in the fall many letters were three months on the way and packages five months.
Thanks also to this railroad we haven't actually suffered for the lack of any necessities but I have to spend about half a day every week in searching the shops to find things. Sometimes it is hard to find coffee, sometimes salt and again it's sugar. Of course we have to pay war prices for everything, not only for things that come up the railroad but for locally grown things. Of course the population of the Wuhan cities has been doubled by the presence of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and refugees. I am surprised almost daily by the high cost of such ordinary things as carrots. Indeed I can buy fruit & vegetables that have come up from the south just about as cheaply as I can locally grown ones.
Our Central China College and the affiliated schools were thronged with students all the fall but when Nanking fell early in December this centre was swept by a panic and students melted away like a sugar-snow. One week I had thirty-five students in my Freshman English Lit. division and the next week two! There were also international trains leaving every few days until soon I felt like the last leaf on the tree. For example I was the only officer of our usually thriving American Woman's Club left in port and the only married woman left in our station! I have acquired an undeserved amount of face by standing-by, for up to the present I have had not the slightest impuse to do anything else.
We had to close all our educational institutions early and had a long winter vacation more or less disturbed, but finally we made a venture of faith and opened schools again. The semester has gone with surprising steadiness and earnestness and now we are beginning to wind things up in good order.
The recent news is disquieting and people are getting restless again. Nevertheless I am planning to go to Kuling immediately after College Commencement which comes June 13.
I can not tell you how devilish air-raids are. Even now after all these months I often feel that they must be only night-mares, that such horrors can't be true. The Japanese have been so occupied everywhere that we have not had even an alarm for more than three weeks. The last raid was our worst one. A bomb fell just outside our compound. The noise was appalling and the way our house rocked and shivered was terrifying.
Of course when we leave the house we never know what may happen. We make all our plans contingent on air-raids. We have all had adventures getting caught away from home. Twice I've had to practically run for home to avoid being forced into a public dugout.
I am sending this by air, hoping it will reach you in time to give my warmest greetings to our dear '96-ers, - "for '96 in spirit forever one will be." I shall be with you all in spirit and that will be inevitable since I shall be busy here with our Commencement doings. When the Chinese addresses soar over my head I shall dream of old South Hadley and the dear dead days.
I am terribly out of touch with everyone, partly my own fault, no doubt. Maybe sometime, dear Abby, you may have leisure and disposition to write to me. I shall certainly write to Gertrude from Kuling. If all goes well we shall be starting on furlough a year from now and shall hope to see many old friends.
What else shall I say? I am very well and always busy with all sorts of committee work (refugee babies home just now), lots of entertaining for the Mission and the college and almost as much teaching as a full-time worker. One thing is certain - I shall never rust out.
Everard is well too and absorbed in his work. He now owns a little sampan which we use on our East Lake and enjoy greatly.
I believe you saw Elizabeth at Christmas. How did she seem? Her life seems very hard and joyless to me.
My abiding and abounding love to you, my dear.
Ever your old friend
Lucy Fish Miller