Esther Loring Richards, M. D.
1316 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MarylandSheborn, Mass
Dec. 25, 1923Lady dear,
Shortly after receiving your last letter I got word from home that Miss Davis has been taken to the Natick Hospital & operated on for an ovarian cyst with twisted stem; also that father had a bad cold & the doctor was coming to see him daily. I was speaking in Balto. that same week at a conference of 1000 people, so you can imagine my general status. Well, Mary Davis is at home doing very well, & her sister Fannie is helping out about the house. Poor father has been trying to dispose of his Jersey herd all the fall, & it has been a terrible job with his tremors & consequent difficulty in writing. Tomorrow is the date set for the auction. I check [?] the strain on father, but try to fix my eye on the relief & sense of freedom that will come to him when they are finally gone.
This is why I have not written you earlier about my holiday plans. shall try to stay on here till the end of the first week in January & help father straighten out this auction [...], so that stopping off at the College is out of the question I'm afraid. There is so much to talk about that I cannot write. Can you not come down to Balto. during midyears? Yes, service is one of the popular forms of amusement in certain academic circles. I know very well what you are up against at Holyoke. This point of view is partly a hangover from 19th century educational ideas, & partly a reaction to the pseudo-scientific talk which is floating about on the surface of many human minds today. If a person has radical notions in his head & would like to be thought original, he climbs on a soap box & shouts. When he is cornered he yells, "But it's scientific." His peons who have no first hand knowledge of science naturally believe all the fool says, & pitch into "science" with the blind apoplectic fury of a Bryon. There's no use arguing with them. I'd as soon spend my time trying to convince a paranoia that he was not the king of Spain. I pity them, of course.
Anna Yates told me she had the same thing to contend with at Bryn Mawr. I was distinctly conscious of the spirit when I was lecturing there last spring.
Thank you for the Wilson book. I have not had time to read it yet, but know I shall enjoy the book when I get to it.
I'm sorry I cannot stop off to see you, but it seems impossible this time.
With much love,
from
Esther