Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, Massachusetts
Department of Physiology353 West 11th Street
Claremont, California
December 27, 1940Dear friends,
It would seem to me nice to tell you what kind of a Christmas this was since most of you have had part in many Christmases of mine in years past. Christmas began in Berkeley where the Women's Faculty Club celebrated as we do some time before the real day. There was a Sunday night dinner at the Club which has many members who do not live there but have the privilege of eating there. I think they must all have come for all possible table space was filled. Many had guests. The number may have been up to a hundred. The dining room was decorated by the Department of Decorative Art - very useful. There were garlands at the windows which are on three sides, and these were held up by lovely groups of bells. I hope you have these in the east this year, of cellophane in different colors and with silver patterns on them, stiff enough to hold their shape firmly. There were conventionalized green trees cut in several sizes and stuck on the walls by the transparent sticker things. There [sic] had silver shadows, and were so arranged that they suggested receding forest aisles, very effective. The walls are a light tan in color. Other trees were under the wall lights. A real Xmas tree was outside on the verandah, with colored lights and most effective bright balls, etc. It was raining but no one seemed to fear for the permanence of these things in the wet, and they were surely all right the next day, when it rained still harder.
After a rather middling dinner - I think the committee spent the money on the decorations - we all went into the big lounge, where a low platform had been built in front of the fire-place. This was edged with greens - greens are much more abundant than with us, and the forests seem to be good for this lavish use for many years. The platform was simply arranged as the hall of an English manor-house at the time of Queen Elizabeth, and a woman who teaches dramatic art (?) at one of the high schools of the Bay area brought in her troupe of children to do the English festival. There were the carols and the entrance of the strolling singers, the fool, the family and the servants, and all done with great care as to historical accuracy. She must have had some fifty or more children in this, not counting the fourteen who fell out that very day with flu! It was all well done and with muchspirit though it was possible to see pinch-hitting once in a while. One little boy forgot a few times, but his part had reached him that day by telephone and he had had no rehearsal. It was really a most interesting evening.
My next Christmas was on the Sunday before the real day, a week after the other occasion. I was in Santa Barbara which is far and away the most attractive place I have yet seen in California, just in the way it lies on the shore, and up against the hills and in the beauty of trees and bildings and city planning. I went to the Presbyterian Church in the forenoon, where all the decoration was of poinsettias, I guess about a dozen huge bunches of them all across the front of the squarish auditorium. There were hedges of these in the town against the white and tan plastered walls of the low houses, most effective. The music was good, with a vested choir in red cassocks and white cottas for the women and red cassocks for the men. I have always wanted our carol choir to have red cassocks for Christmas - and it is surely most effective. This choir sang very well. In the afternoon there was a Community celebration at the Recreation Centre next [to] the hotel where I was staying, so I went. The audience was of all nationalities and all kinds of economic status Russian, Mexican, Irish as well as American near me. The program was first a whole Mozart string quartet, a bright merry one, but it was rather a trial for the children. Then there was a processional of a big choir, boys and girls, men and women. This had candles at the first, also incense, and the adults carried candles inclosed [sic] in square lanterns on tall poles. The procession marched and countermarched, singing carols all the time. Then they went up into the balcony at the back and alternating carols with well posed picture-groups on the stage, the usual ones. This was by no means as well done as the Amherst evening of last year, but it was good. There was another marching of the choirs at the end. The audience may have been 1,500 or so. There had been trees with presents at other times and places.
The real day I was there in Claremont with Grace Berry, with Christmas Eve over at the Inn with Miss Laura Knott whom some of you will remember as principal of Bradford in the old days. There were some scenic movies and a little to eat and drink, not a large nor exciting group. We had presents and much happiness around a tree in the forenoon. Grace and her companion Dr. Ruth Humphries, '13, [sic] play together very cheerfully, and they took me into their pleasure very generously. I found lots of Christmas mail here when I arrived and it has kept on coming - a great delight and making the distance between east and west a mere nothing.
The journey from the San Francisco area where I was so long down to Claremont took a week because I stopped at Palo Alto for four days and at Santa Barbara for two and a fraction. In Palo Alto there were two attractions, the place and the folks. The latter included Miss Louise Wallace, as delightful as ever though frailer; Jessie Tiffany Bailey and husband, fully convinced that Palo Alto is the best place on earth; Florence Danielson Davis, wife of a Stanford professor and with a girl and two boys who had flu while I was there so I saw less of her than I might have done; Blanche Lindsay Shepard who has been sick but is now better, two boys who are close together in age and play together most happily but with zest; Susan Almira Bacon with a charming house under a huge tree but with some restlessness of spirit I thought; also some other acquaintances related to San Francisco friends. With most of these there were meals or surely calls, and life was somewhat hectic. There were the laboratories to see under the guidance of Prof. Baumberger who went to Russia in 1935, also tea at his house with his wife whom I should like to see in a speed test in conversation with Miss Bacon. There was Stanford University to get a few glimpses of under guidance and alone. The chapel has most ornate decorations, mainly mosaics, with stained glass of which Mr. Conick would not approve, I fear. The walls have many writings sculptured on them, and I could not make out what they were for they reminded me of one thing only, the writings of Mary Baker Eddy on the walls of the Christian Science Church in Boston. I asked a boy who was selling pictures and he said they were chosen by Mrs. Stanford, things she wanted the students to have before them. I bought a pamphlet of them as well as pictures of the university. It is as different as can be from the Berkeley university - this the rich man's college - though I was assured that there are many scholarships for poor boys. The buildings are eccentric from the laboratory point of view, though they have their points. There are miles of chambers under the colonnades, dark, of course, but lending themselves ot the constant temperature idea very well. Prof. Baumberger had what Prof. Weymouth assured me was his pet in one of those rooms. There seemed no dearth of resources for elaborate experimentation. For me I am reasonably sure that Berkeley would be a better place for finding the things I need - but Palo Alto has charms.
One trip out from Palo Alto deserves special mention - that with the father-in-law of Blanche Lindsay Shepard, a retired physician boarding at the hotel where I stayed, lame, deaf, aged about 75-77, but still rather lively, very lonesome because his wife has died within two years. He took me off for the better part of a day, to see two Missions. One was in Santa Clara and completely restored, nothing of the old there, modern looking, though following the ancient lines. The other was in San Juan, and that has been restored almost not at all, less than any other of the whole lot. That town seemed backward, and like what it might have been for years, a dull old remnant of the days when things were starting in California. There was the old adobe house across from the Mission, there was an adobe shop selling antiques, where I could not have stayed long and remembered the difficulties of transportation to Mass., there was the sleepy street with almost no passing, and there was the Mission with its long cloister exposed to the sun, with its dark interior, with walls partly broken down by earthquakes, the olive trees planted by Father Serra's padres, and even a piece of the old adobe wall bordering the old road, El Camino Real, on which the monks went one day's journey on to the next mission. And the lovely fertile valley stretching away to the hills, where it took no effort to see the Indians working at the grain fields. But those Indians died by the thousands of small-pox and measles and were buried in trenches in the old cemetery. We came home through the miles of the Santa Clara valley, which means prunes, and walnuts, apricots and pears.
Santa Barbara charmed me. There I was all alone, and prowled about as fast or slowly as I wished, finding the strangest trees! And best of all a book which is recent and describes them all from their leaves. I feel as if I could now cope with these trees. There is an orchid tree, with the loveliest blossoms - one was obligingly in flower. And many other things are farther along than in Berkeley. The Mission was somewhat restored, but this one has never been out of use by the Franciscans, a flourishing group there now, with a most intelligent father to show us around. There were two old altars, both adorned with glass danglers to entertain the Indians, and mirrors so the priests who were saying the mass and facing the altar could also keep an eye on those same Indians! Oh, up at San Juan Bautista there was a wheezy old hand organ which played hymns to th[e] Indians. These relics are a whole new set, and most interesting. I have now seen five Missions and hope to add more. ---- There is also a bird sanctuary in which I could review the ducks I met up in Marin County - lots of them fed both officially and unofficially. I wished I had a supply to use myself. --- A charming hotel up on the hills at the upper end of town, where you can get lunch for not too much, and where you could spend a day for 8.00 or more in a lovely little house. much beyond the cabin class. The name is El Encanto, and the enchantment is there all right. --- A county Court House with a setting of wonderfully varied trees, large and small, a most fascinating place. I'd like to go back to Santa Barbara. It has public spirit. The Natural History Museum answered lots of my questions. It had a Christmas contest, the filling of baskets for definite needy families, and they were the handsomest things you ever saw, toys for the children as well as eats.
Claremont I do not know much as yet, though there has been a nice call on Miss Ann Young, and the meeting of other Mount Holyoke alumnae. There is a snow capped mountain to look at and all the citrus fruits by the mile. I shall stay here probably a month, though there may be short trips out in that time. My plans don't get made long in advance. My back is a good deal better, thanks be, though I can't do things long at a time yet.
And all along I remember the friends who are not here -
Affectionately,
Abby H. TurnerI thought my letter was done and Christmas over, but this day we have added another chapter, a Mexican Christmas. There is a man and also his wife here who are striving to tell the Mexican culture by a little theatre up in the hills above Claremont. They have a group of young Mexicans - gotten I know not how - with whom they put on authentic plays or adaptations. I will inclose [sic] today's program. First we had a most pleasing dinner, Mexican food adapted to the U.S. taste, i.e. not too hot. Then we went around to various and sundry craft shops, and I should like to send you all pottery and glass from these, such lovely colors. Then came the play - oh, I forgot that during dinner the waiters and waitresses, who are the actors, sang to us and danced most delightfully. There were enough of them so the service did not suffer. Then the play was as charmingly put on as those at Amherst, an[d] the theatre while not as elegant was as comfortable. "Las Posadas" means the nine days before the birth of Christ during which Mary and Joseph went around hunting for a place to stay. The boy in this Mexican family is told not to refuse to let anyone in during this time for the holy family might come! The piñata is a fancy and grotesque box which the family buys and in which all presents are placed. It is hung from a rafter and then struck with a club by a blind-folded child until it breaks and the presents are scattered. In this case the father is making the wax images for the crêche and the boy wants a piñata, and finally the father buys one for his wife - really for the family. The priest comes in to say that money which he had given to his father was not not [sic] put where he was told to place it - the father went to pray to the Virgin and forgot it! He and his wife go to look in the church for it. The boy is left at home and lets in a wanderer, really an escaped convict who has stolen the money. As they talk the story comes out from the boy, the convict models the Christ child which the father was doing when the priest came in, he is moved to repentance by the boy's tale and hides the money in the piñata. The boy goes to sleep and sees an elaborate vision, which makes the business of most of the play, all the Christmas story done into gay Mexican, as near to the Bible as Green Pastures. Finally the boy wakes, his parents come home mournful, the priest comes with police outside the door, but consents to wait while the piñata is broken, and of course the money is found! The convict's name is found on the image of the Christ Child, and all are glad he has repented. Everybody is happy and there are many songs and dances.
After this we all went back to the dining room and a piñata was broken by a little boy, also we all bought chocolate flavored delightfully with cinnamon, and ate strange little cakes (25 cents) and altogether it was like a party, for the director whom Grace knows and all the actors were right there with everybody. It had a most delightful atmosphere, and the place was so lovely, right on the edge of a canyon in the foothills. The main range is 10,000 feet high and snow-covered, perhaps ten miles away, but the foothills are lovely things.
I shall soon begin to learn Spanish! There is so much of it in these parts.
Dec. 28