Constantinople College,
Constantinople.
May 9th 1921.My dear Miss Turner,
I am quite ashamed to be writing you after all this long time, to tell you that I have been teaching history at Constantinople College this year, according to your suggestion, and that I have enjoyed it very much. You will have to forgive me and believe that I really have thought of you and your kindness in writing me, many times. Some how it is very difficult here to write letters to people in America - our whole life is so different and one feels so out-of-touch with the people at home.
It has been most interesting to have this experience on top of the more intimate one of the "interior" - there I lived as one of the people. Here more as an observer and seeing only the educated classes. It has enlarged my view point, and given me much more of a grasp on the situation out here.
I wish that you might see the Bosphorus, now. It is wonderfully beautiful with the deep pink judas trees and the white palaces along its banks. I have come to love it very much. Teaching history under such conditions is almost ideal. I have been able able [sic] to do quite a bit of studying of Byzantine history also in connection with my teaching. I wish that I could feel that it was right to stay another year, but I shall have been away now almost three years by the time I reach home.
Political conditions are very bad here. I am anxious to talk over the whole question with some of you people at college, and to get the American point of view. Things seem worse than when we came out two years ago, and all our work seems to have been in vain. I have just returned from a trip down in the gulf of Devinalt [?] where fighting is going on between the Greeks and Turks. I have seen the villages burning my self and the refugees coming in. It is the poor peasant folk who suffer in all these wars, and they are the ones who have the least interest. The allies seem now to us to be taking an attitude of indifference. We of course get very little real news from the outside world.
How is every thing at College? Have you plans to stay in South Hadley and have your garden this summer, I wonder? I remember with such pleasure my summer of farming in South Hadley. Wont you give my very best regards to all my old friends whom you think might care to hear from me. I shall hope to see you all some time next winter. I probably shall not reach home until late summer, as I plan a rather long trip this summer to Egypt and Syria, etc. Please give my special good wishes to Miss Neilson, Miss Ellis, Miss Purington and Miss Bertha Gault. I am sure that they will remember who I am.
Many thanks again for your kindness in remembering me.
Affectionately yours,
Gertrude E. Knox