Read this in relays if it palls.
American University.
Beirut, Syria
Nov. 22, 1934
Dear Miss Turner,
Might it be about time for a Merry Christmas. Remembering other years I think to be certain I must begin early. It is the first coolish night. I have curled up under my down puff with the Radcliffe Quarterly. It has an article on the new physics - and was beyond me, far - but interesting. Theory is a fascinating thing & what a pleasure it would be to do away with reality, and know for a surety that our senses give us only what happens in the cerebral corex, and that papers and watches are aggregates of waves. The hard world would be easy to penetrate, and what I think of people would be the whole story, not what they do. Perhaps it would be well to come back to nursing. While I love the sensation of trailing along in the work of theories, I also love the contrast such trailing gives me between the mental life of a brilliant physicist and that of an economist when he surveys the international muddle and economic problems and health and sickness of nations.
The good work goes on. There is not anything I have done that is as stimulating as trying to get near Eastern minds to think. Once in a blue moon it dawns on the class what a simple theory it is to draw a conclusion. Mostly they like to memorize. My lessons are not planned well enough to offer duplicate definitions from day to day. One girl today, a Russian, said "I know what Inhibition is but couldn't you give us a definition[?]"
From scorning practical applications I have come perforce to building on them. Our anatomy and physiology class is built on the patient in Bed 7 - who has a spinal lesion. We keep reviewing nervous system with last minute reports on him and now are following the lady in Bed 16 who has a beautiful anemia, we being on circulatory system. Yedida Tsheuouraff brought back a report on her red count the other day and looked silly actually when I asked her the hemoglobin. The silly expression was a real encouragement to me. I can't get written answers to things, but I do believe they are getting a feel for the body, and mind perhaps. And they really laugh with me now when we refer to simple squamous epithelium and they remember their initial agonies over the same. Today we begin massage classes & surreptitiously a lovely muscle review. Oh yes applied natural science has a way of continuing interesting. [sic] I do love it and there are roots here, but again I am meditating a move. You said I would be a dumb idiot not to take this job, but continuing in it is another matter. Perhaps you will offer comment. When I came with Carolyn Ladd, erstwhile student at Yale School of Nursing, we supposed that Jane Van Zandt would be stepping out in 2 or 3 years. She has been here 30 and is simply swell. We now would not think of her going. She will be here another 10 years easily I should think. Well Laddie is principal and a good one. Also she is quite a good teacher, not perhaps with divine fire or the flair. Also she is brilliant and competent to swing the show alone. Also she is married to the head of the French School here and I should think settled for an indefinite period. So our system has some assurance of continuity.
My work has somewhat overlapped hers and hers mine in spite of our efforts not to tread on toes. Now that I have worked out the details and technique of the Practical Nursing course and trained up a fairly apt assistant, my impulse is to go afield into the practical teaching in the hospital and further into the total wielding of the curriculum. The truth of the matter is that both Laddie and I are not needed here. With a good classroom teacher who would keep hands off the formulating of policies she would be happier and also more fully occupied. About a month ago it dawned on me that I am not really needed to continue the development of the school. That is one side of the picture. The other side is my still unearned Masters degree. The PhD doesn't seem a reasonable goal any more, sort of a childhood ideal, that I might as well outgrow. I'm not developing academically at all.
Also there is the family. My swell sister-in-law, mother of five and foster-mother of a sixth (Theo's daughter) is up against a real burden and really needs moral support from near by. 7000 miles is too far. Of course Lauren, her husband, counts but he isn't the children's aunt and there is value in being there, not wholly am I speaking from a selfish viewpoint. Then there are 7 educations looming up ahead. It seems to me a year at T.C. getting their Teaching diploma or Nursing Education diploma or whatever it is might lead to a job where a financial future would be assured. And one would always have student nurses. It is perfectly true that each new class is better than the last and has always been so, and may continue to be so, and while I have a liking for ten nationalities all mixed up together in a classroom, I might find it a joy to struggle again with a flock of standard cut Americans.
There you are. I love it here - I'm not tired of it and if there were a possibility of my taking over the school wholly, I'd stay indefinitely. But I really think thre are too many chances to do even a wider job for me to stay in this narrower one.
Some days I wish I could launch out on a two years program for a Master's in Anatomy with an idea of that department in such a place as Teacher's College. But teaching the subject itself is more interesting to me than teaching others how to teach it, for I don't know how it should be done, in so many words.
I have an enchanting home - living room done in henna linen and blue, with a rug (borrowed) to start and complete the color scheme, a carved chest, a copper Persian lantern, Jerusalem pottery, Damascus chairs and gold and bronze chrysanthemums. Very nice. A bed room, more useful than lovely, but pleasantly colored, a kitchen as small as can be, a bathroom same size and a little square hall that goes by the name of breakfast room. It is a joy, of joys, this home of mine, and I am happy in it. The thought of tearing it to pieces is an hollow [sic] feeling.
The sure sign of a contented life is that waking sensation in the morning when the mind pounces on the work of the day. This morning it was the massage class. Tomorrow it will be teaching Bladder Irrigation.
I use the cook book a dozen times a week. The meal situation is so simple when I am only one. A favorite supper is boiled eggs and bread & butter. The cook book helps on the Sunday supper parties etc.
Do you give a Master's in Physiology at Holyoke? Brain wave! And for how much time?
The town news is not very exciting. Thanksgiving parties are all planned & Christmas parties are organizing. The calling season is open but not very active until January. Bridge is not so plentiful for me this year quite. There are no romances in sight. University gossip centers on the chapel talks on world affairs which bed fair to start a conflagration. Unfortunately chapel comes at 8:30 a time when I am never free. Faint rumors of closing Robert College, which may be unfounded. An epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis is one of the villages in the Lebanon. Rumors of trouble in Damascus, between Syrians & French, Spahis parading the streets. Elegant weather, beautiful as never before. Very little rain as yet. Oh it is a place,
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
Love,
Katy
As usual, this is all about Here and nothing about There. I hope your next letter brings word of an easier year with less difficulty with the back.
Oh, I must say, I was glad not to see any letter in Time from you. Why on earth did Chrissie expressly [sic] herself so rabidly. It was so unimportant a criticism. If they had cast slurs on Holyoke ideals, that would have been something to shout about. But "drab" clothes - mercy me! They are, sort of, sometimes. Or at least used to be. The only pretty thing I had in college was a blue plaid skirt and I believe that bagged at the knees after the first two years of wear.
My best to all good friends.
I found this on my desk one day. A surprise.
1 Syrian
2 Syrian
3 Armenian
4 Armenian *
5 Armenian
6 Bulgarian
7 Bulgarian *
8 Assyrian *
9 Russian (white
10 English
11 Bulgarian
12 Jewish
13 Bulgarian *
14 Moslem
15 Iraqian *
* Prizes