American University.
Beirut, Syria
March 20, 1934Dear Miss Turner,
I find that my thoughts have included you repeatedly lately. I haven't an idea when I wrote last, but at any rate there are some new things to tell now. First, a large bowl full of perfect freesias on my desk. Do you love them. Then a specially beautiful stretch of days, our loveliest time of year, the sun getting pretty hot at midday - the flowers springing up every where - red anemones, - iris - freesias, roses of every hue, calla lilies (or are they cannas -) the big waxy blossoms that rotogravure brides always carry.
It is a busy stretch for which I'm glad. The work unwinds. In February I planned & dated every class for the spring semester and each week I check off as completed another series. Some of the courses are working out well, some - not. The public health course for seniors includes excursions to quarantine station, water works, isolation hospitals, etc. The mental nursing includes clinics at the only psychiatric hospital in the country and didactic work here. Occasionally seniors come asking for courses such as the younger students are getting. One senior wants some Drugs & Solutions. We are now staging bedside clinics 3 times a week for "any nurse off duty" and those in the pavilion concurred, and 15 or more students turn up. Occasionally an upperclassman off duty turns up in a preliminary class and when that class is Anatomy & Physiology, I am pleased. It is gratifying to be working on the general development-planning courses etc, but the real fun continues to be the classroom.
In the February section are 4 white Russians from an English school in Varua, Bulgaria, - one Bulgarian, 2 Persians from Teheran, 2 Persians born in Russian Turkestan and educated in an English school in Shanghai, - a Jewess educated in Toronto, - an Armenian orphan from the Presbyterian mission girls' school here, a Syrian from the mission school in Tripoli, 2 Palestinian Jewesses and I think that is all. It is a splendid group and developing a healthy regard for nursing. With such a big class one can wax eloquent and is also forced to being methodical. Tangents are still inviting, - but one must get through the whole of Anatomy & Physiology in 60 hours. I'm thinking of slipping in some review hours for the seniors late in the term, if my schedule works out. Their courses are planned to allow for emergencies & should be done before term ends.
I have a grand assistant, a Syrian of last year's class and when she gets a spare hour, she studies anatomy.
I'm well and happy, now and then startled at the passing of the years, not so sure of fame as I was 10 years ago, but perfectly sure that nursing was the right choice. I have hopes of doing a bit of studying some day, but that may turn out to be a day dream. It may be that next year I can get hold of a cadaver for the nurses course and incidentally have a chance at proper dissection of the same. I'm getting the content worked up this year so that a major part of my preparation time could be put in on that. It would be such a help. The medical students here are pretty sloppy & the dissecting room is a help to the fall class of nurses only.
I'm getting together some good slides, and they lend us microscopes as needed and occasionally an oil immersion. Histology still is intriguing beyond words.
And so on! Oh here is a good lantern and some fairly good plates.
The materia medica course has demonstrations of dogs with sedatives and dogs with stimulants, and other interesting things. The pharmacology department does it.
As a matter of fact, my impression is that the curriculum of this school compares well with any school at home. What kind of nurses we are producing remains to be seen. I think there will be some good ones. One child is quite perfect. She finds the studying difficult, but she is a perfect understanding bedside nurse. I love to lay eyes on her whatever she is doing. We have some grand ones really, and some terrible specimens too.
If the hospital closes this summer as it did last, I may come home for a month. I do it, thinking that in case we renew our contracts next year, I can stay on without returning next summer. Of course the politics and the flows in the place are wearing thru. by now, but I really would hate to leave these children high and dry, without watching at least a few classes out in the world. And truly, I don't like to think of anybody else doing my work. Conceited yes, but my critical power is fairly objective and we are getting somewhere. The patients do get good care in spite of the fact that the younger students have a better understanding than some of the older ones.
News from home this year has been sad. Did I tell you that my twin brothers' wife died of cancer in the fall. She left a 14 months old daughter, of course a beautifully healthy well developed youngster, alert and like her father as well as her mother. She has been added to the household of five, of my oldest brother Lauren. The boys still have work, except for Theo. who may be in a job by now.
What is happening to the world? My Austrian friends have tragic letters from Graz and Vienna. What have you to offer on the situation in the USA. Is the country standing or falling on the health and personality of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Shall we have a fascist or near-fascist state? What will happen when the 10, billion dollar budget comes due?
What kind of a place is the U. of California, for a masters in anatomy, with emphasis on histology, to be taken on one year's work? Or would Teachers College M.A. with a certificate in Nursing Education be more to the point? I can't quite figure the more desirable P. & S. masters in anatomy taking 2 years. It is a long time since I did any directed study, except as directed by the 9 am class tomorrow morning.
How are you? What happens in South Hadley. In six years time will Mount Holyoke be the place for Ellen Lyman, a haven of words and effects, a lover of traditions, an imitator of her charming father, and a responsible eldest daughter in a family of five? She has a feeling for color and oil paints and a gift for music. She is not a plodder.
I must not go on to another page. I hope this finds you in a spare moment and there is time for you to write.
Love
Katy