January 14, 1936.
Dear Miss Turner,
The book came today and I celebrated by reading A Doctor of the Old School. I don't know when I read it first. We had Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush in the parlor bookcase and it must have been a summertime, because one didn't prowl in that room in the winter.
Thank you several times over. It is just grand.
Today has been full. 6.45 and we read the 139th Psalm & sang Holy Holy Holy - dragged it. Then a class on postoperative care and that is one thing I know about first hand. I learned it in Twillingate and these children will learn it there or elsewhere, not in the classroom.
9-10 I called on a friend just admitted to the hospital and felt helpless not ever having had a baby myself. We are such fools sometimes in pretending to lend support.
10-12 I had a lab in Drugs & Solutions and did badly, was impatient. 12-1 went back and stood by Gladys and smoothed the fevered brow and mentally stewed because the doctor had dragged in Bill & let him sit in the corner. Gladys didn't want him there. 1.30-2 back to the delivery room. 2-3 a class on Digestive System which went reasonably well. Stopped in at the women's pavilion long enough to get Bill out of the room and look at the baby. He was blue and only half wrapped up. Found a nurse sitting at a desk, a graduate, and got her stirring, went to a lecture on Epilepsy & Pituitary disturbances - at 4 had tea and prowled a bit on the wards, came home, dressed, went to town & paid an instalment [sic] on my Princess Bokhara, bought some bread, made a call, arrived home at 6.45. Made some cocoa & ate a sandwich supper. Read the Ian MacParen, washed dishes and have reached bed.
I'll wake at 5.30 and start the same thing over again. It has been rainy and sunny. I saw Bill tonight & told him the usual things, suggested he had been a brick. He is a sort of idealized boy scout. He allowed it had been quite a day, but "interesting[.]" I didn't hold it up against him but was glad he'd said it to me but not to everyone around. It was interesting.
Oh yes, this morning I picked out a picture of the Cedars, ready to send you, before your book came. I'll send it along.
My plans are settled, to leave here in June, perhaps I told you. If I do not return, and I'm not making any promises to do so, I still think it won't be a mistake. I've been thinking about tendencies here. Of course this is not my reason for going, wholly. But people do take life easy. I do, more than I used to and when I am a little steadier and more conscientious, I get a little sympathy and am made a sort of martyr, which is all wrong. It annoys me to see someone who pretends to be carrying a job, work from 8-12 with a half hour off for cocoa and come back in the afternoon from 2-4 giving the impression of having worked a day. If I can keep out of sight and stick to my own woodpile, the thing is happier. Miss Young at Presbyterian leads a happier life than that tho goodness knows I wouldn't want to try to keep up with her.
There is probably quite a bit in this picture I haven't painted for you that would make a truer picture than you have. I don't quite know about next year. I'm writing about here and there. If the right job opened somewhere I might take it. It will need to be a busy year one way or another.
I'll be seeing you.
Love, as ever
Katy
Jan. 15, 1936