A Letter Written on Nov 22, 1918

Harvard Club
27 West 44th Street

Nov. 22
1918

Dear Miss Turner:

I got your very nice letter this morning, with the welcome news that you have escaped the grippee, in spite of what your friends know to have been your devotion[.] All you say of your teaching and your building trials is interesting. When the new building is planned, do insist on beauty. Your girls are at their most plastic age and to work in surroundings of good taste is itself an education.

My family sail for France tomorrow. They came back on seven weeks leave. The hospitals in Paris are fuller than ever of our boys - the wreck of this most righteous war. I wish with heart and soul that I had been killed when on duty at the Massif de Morenvillers. Not that I don't want to live out my life - but what a fine fate - what a blessed legacy to leave one's family. A dead patriot is worth two live physiologists.

It was Miss Elizabeth Emerson who worked with me last summer. She is in her second year at J. H. Med. School.

Miss O'Neill is still at the helm - she often talks of you.

With every good wish
Yours sincerely
W. T. Porter