Women's Christian College
Cathedral P.O., Madras, India,
Thanksgiving Day, 1932.Dear Miss Turner,
The weather is raging & roaring & seething, coming down at the rate of 2 inches per hour, I should judge, & blowing at a hundred miles. I excused my class (hence the leisure!) for they were all drenched & I couldn't possibly make myself heard above the din. We're wondering if it's working up for another cyclone. It's exactly 2 years since I set off for Bangkok & the last cyclone descended. This end bit of November seems to be the appointed time for them. At the present stage it's rather fun, splashing about in rubber boots & watching the rain swirl thru the air. Whenever there's the least bit of a lull the frogs fill in the gap very efficiently. You simply can't imagine how they can bellow!
I'm feeling very, very much ashamed that it has been so many months since I have written you, especially when you have been so good about writing me. I think I wrote you from the hills last summer when I had your letter from the hospital, but none since then. I do hope you have got your strength back and are in good form again. The last I heard was from Berlin, when it sounded as though you still had a good way to go for strength. My sister Julia, the nurse one now married & in R.I., writes that she is having hemorrhoids now. It's the first time she has ever had any serious trouble of any kind. I am so sorry for her with her babies & house to look after.
My year here has been the most broken of any as far as research has gone. With Miss McDougall away Edith Coon felt more call to frequent meetings of the Executive Committee of the College Council. I am secretary of the Council & of the Committee & the first term seemed to go entirely into secretarial business plus continuing a Shakespearian play. This term the acting-vice-principal is away & I had to move up to that post. Very soon after, Edith got sick & I was acting-Principal for 6 whole days. It's amazing how this staff has changed since I first came. I am now one of the very most senior people. When everyone is here there are four ahead of me but 2 of those are away now so I am vice-principal! It has certainly cut into work. Also I'm having trouble getting subjects. My sleep experiments on Indians are such a good series that I awfully want a similar series on European women, but they don't sleep so quickly & they are too busy to give many hours to it. That bit seems almost hopeless. I'm continuing to build up the normal series for European women here, for standards, 29 subjects finished to date & I hope to get 10 or a dozen more before I go. I awfully wanted more calorie determinations of daily diets. But without a calorimeter & no assistant I simply can't do all the analyses in the time I have. My series of urine Ns on ordinary diet covers only 16 subjects. I hope still to build that up. But this is the end of November & it remains to be seen.
The reading I did in Bangalore was most profitable but all on the line of tropics & orient, not preparation for the preliminary exams. I got much thrilled with it & would dearly love simply to go straight on in that field & work up a tropical & racial thesis - which would happily occupy a whole year. Those preliminary exams are a curse. They do seem to me at the present moment a wicked ordeal - with histology & zoology included as well as biochem & physiology. My languages need a lot of working up, too. The residence is completed.
I don't know yet when I'm sailing. I may go with the Larsens who leave Colombo March 22nd or I may wait & go with Mary Austin of Wellesley about the end of April, via Pacific. The first would give me longer time at home, the 2nd would give a good spell for work here & allow me to see Radsma in Batavia & Earle in Shanghai & someone else in Honolulu. I'm dreadfully torn. The Larsens are leaving India for good in the spring. I shall miss them terribly, but am counting on visiting them in Denmark on my return to India.
At Christmas both the Larsens & I will be with the Frimodt-Møllers (whom I visited in Copenhagen) & then Mrs. Larsen & I are taking a trip north to Lucknow (to the all-India Women's Conference) & then to Agra, Dellie & The Rajputana cities. Mrs. Larsen has never had the opportunity, in all these years in India & I am so glad she can do it before she goes. A German girl here & I staged a big tea-party for Dr. Larsen's 70th birthday on Nov. 8th. There were about 80 of his friends there & garlands & speeches & presentations. It was very nice. Retiring from India is certainly a wicked wrench.
Will you please share this with Miss Stokey? I owe her letters: I sent a very small present yesterday to you with one for her inside. Miss Holt's I sent to Simmons as I haven't any idea whether she left 101 St. Paul for good when she went to Europe or whether she is back there now. I hope someone will tell me.
Much love to you, Miss Turner, and many good wishes for Christmas
from
Eleanor.We started negotiations with Lois TeWinkle about taking my place. I don't know how they are progressing.