Jan 10th, 1934.Dear Miss Turner:
Your letter and gifts came to us just two days before Christmas. As our dedication came on Christmas Day I have been kept busy in helping with odds and ends of our new unit. This is the first afternoon since Christmas Day that I can sit down and do any writing. I want to thank you for your books to us. We like nothing more than books for we can get most things here except good books. Abby and Mary Jean will write to you soon. Just now they are busy with school work. This is their first term in a regular primary school. So far they have done well in their work. Their monthly report on the whole is good for their work. When vacation comes they would write to you and their brothers, so they say. My friends have been too good to us and we have been flooded with gifts. Patients just showered gifts on my two girls. I am so afriad [sic] they would be spoiled children. I have been very careful to teach them to share their gifts with other children. I was rather pleased to see that they gave away the better set of table golf to their little friends the other day as they have been given two sets this season. This year I have been more particular with their Chinese lessons as they can read English very easily. They read Cinderella, The Frog Prince, and The Sleeping Beauty and Peter Rabbit. With very little help they were able to understand it all. Abby is quite a little scholar for she can sit hours to amuse herself by reading "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. I do not think that she understands all but she can pronounce most of the words by phonetic sysytem. [sic] This little kodek picture [no longer with the letter] was taken when they were going out for skating. They have just started this winter. You see they are quite big girls for thier [sic] ages_ eight and seven.
Our children's new unit has six patients now. Three cases of pneumonia, one case of cervical adnitis, one case whooping caugh [sic] and one case measles. This department expects to do much preventive work among children of Tientsin. We want to immunize children against diphtheria, scarlet feaver. One primary school has responded to our invitation. Last Saturday we tested sixty school boys under eight years old and we found fifty per cent positives for diphtheria. We use toxoid now instead of toxin and antitoxin, the former gives very little reacation. [sic] We have a very fine doctor from Cheloo University who gives two mornings volunteer service to this unit. We also have invited another doctor to be the resident of this new unit. In the new unit we have a man nurse as the supervisor. As we take boys also a man nurse would be able to handle them better than women. As soon as weather is warmer I would take a picture to send it to you. This little division will meet a great need at Tientsin as doctors in town have no place to send their young patients. This is the only Children's Hospital of the city. All people have asked me why we got the money to put this building. Our answer is we earned it. We actually saved from our annual expenditures and built this building. Within three years we expect to build our second new unit. I am very happy in my work as every member of this hospital works with one desire _ to render good service to Tientsin Coommunity. [sic] Two doctors have given one morning free service to this hospital for more than ten years. The different stations are going on automatically without much help from us. Our work has been progressed rather slowly but we think the work is built upon a very firm foundation_ second and third stories can be added as time goes on. We are trying to make this hospital as P. U. M. C. of Tientsin. How I wish that you are here to see something of my work during these actives years of my life. One cannot always be as active as now I realize. One Editor of Tientsin Social Times was so impressed with our work that he wrote three articles about Peiyang Women's Hospital and her many activities.
Barbara Yen [MHC 1938] had heard from office and she is anxious to come to Mount Holyoke College as a freshman fall of 1934. She is going to try her Entrance Examinations. Indeed she shall be busy for she has to pass our government examinatuons [sic] before she would be able to get her diploma from her high school. Ofcourse [sic] she would have to pass her high school examinations. All mean extra work for her. But I think that it is fair for her to pass her Entrance Examinastuons [sic] before admiision [sic] to college then she would know if she would be able to do college work or not in America.
This is Sunday again. Abby is sick with an upper respiratory infection and I am at hospital for Sunday. Not long ao she was in hospital with chicken pox and was away from school tww [sic] weeks. Now she is again out of school for one week[.] She gets her lessons easily and I think that she would be promoted to her second term of second garde inspite [sic] of her lost school days. It is a great deal responsibility to have children.
China Medical Meeting for this year will be at Nanking. I am going to attend this biannual conference. Since my work at Tientsin I have not been able to attend one. I have decide[d] to attend this one no matter what should come in my way. After the conference I shall proceed to Shanghai for a short visit. I have not seen my relatives at Shanghai for three years already. I am working toward the building of our second new unit. Our old division for Obstetrics and Gynecology is too crowded. We have been so busy these days that there is only one single room vacant. I have few good friends at Shanghai and I would try to seek their financial aid for this second building.
Mary Jean wants me to take her out for skating this afternoon. I promised her if she could finish her review this morning which she did. Now I must stop my writing and I close this letter with much love.
Yours lovingly.
Me-iung Ting.