xt798s4jnb74 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt798s4jnb74/data/mets.xml The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. 1940 bulletins  English The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Frontier Nursing Service Quarterly Bulletins The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. XVI, No. 2, Autumn 1940 text The Quarterly Bulletin of The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc., Vol. XVI, No. 2, Autumn 1940 1940 2014 true xt798s4jnb74 section xt798s4jnb74 I The Quarterly Bulletin of
The Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. »
‘? VOLUME XVI AUTUMN, 1940 NUMBER 2
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' A CI-l|LD'S PRAYER, |94O
ii A Now I lay me down +o sleep,
, I pray Thee, Lord, +he souls +0 keep
O+ o+her children +ar away
Who have no homes in which +0 s+ay,
Nor know where is +heir daily bread,
Or where a+ nigh+ +o lay +heir head;
Bu+ wander +hrough a broken land
, Alone and helpless. Take +heir hand,
Dear Fa+her-Iv1o+her God, I pray;
lg _ Keep +hem sa+e by nigh+ and day,
·, And give +hem courage when +hey wake. _
I This I ask +or Jesus' sake
Who was a Ii++le Child, like +hem.
God bless us all +onigh+. Amen.
Drawing through the courtesy of the P. E. O. Record
Poem by Carillon. from The Line O' Type or Two Column

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NATIVITY PAGEANT AT WENDOVER  
(See "Field Notes") ~
  L
THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN OE  
THE ERONTIER NURSING SERVICE, Inc. i
Published Quarterly by the Frontier Nursing Service, Lexington, Ky. ’
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $1.00 PER YEAR V  
  F;
VOLUME XVI AUTUMN, 1940 NUMBER 2 { ri
 
"Entered as second class matter June 30, 1926, at the Post Office at Lexington, Ky., `  Q
under Act of March 3, 1879."  
Copyright 1940 Frontier Nursing Service, Inc.  
AN INDEX IS ON PAGE 2
I l

 l
. FROM “lN MEMORlAM"
By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
XXVIII
The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
. Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish’d no more to wake, 4
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:
But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll’d me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry, merry bells of Yule.
XXX
With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol’d, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all. -
I We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in—hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.
·» ' Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
{ 7 Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
* ’ O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.
First published in 1850.

 INDEX  
J
ARTICLE AUTHOR PAGE  
A Frenchman on Union Now Andre Maurois 68  
Annual Tonsil Clinic 1940 Elisabeth D. Holmes 3  
Beyond the Mountains 72 {
maid Notes 80 l
First Impressions of a Pupil 2
Nurse—Midwife Catherine B. Uhl 6 A
From "In Memoriam" Tennyson 1 J
"F. N. S. Report Cannot Be Classed _
as Dull or Prosaic" Harrodsburg Herald 71 .
In Memoriam 54  
Letter from Bland Morrow on an ?
Indian Reservation 18  
Old Courier News 9  
Old Staff News 21  
The Gift of One Common Tongue J. C. Breckinridge 45 · i
The Silver Hen-—A Christmas Story Mary E. Wilkins. 57  
To the Children of the "City of Benares" A. McC. Blaine 44  
BRIEF BITS  
A Christmas Message Mary Breckinridge 67  
"BeWare of What You Wish" Goethe 91  
"Doan You See!" Contributed 91  
From a Letter The Living Church 53  
From a Scotch Calendar · 53  
From a Young Physician 8 1;
In Tragic Life, God Wot Meredith 91 AT`
Nearer and Closer Dickens 44  
"Lord Give to Men" Masefield 56  
Practically Electrified Co-Op Spotlight 67  
Teeth St. Bartholomeufs  
Hospital Journal 20 4 .
"Where a Railway Line Runs to  r· 
the Coast" Punch 91  
You Cannot Serve the Master K. M. Edwards 20  I
 
.  

   FRoNT1ER NURSING smwiom s
  ANNUAL TONSIL CLINIC—194O
  By ELISABETH D. HOLMES, Secretary to the Director
i To the average person, "tonsils and adenoids" suggest un-
J necessary little objects located in the nose and throat, which
sometimes become swollen or diseased and cause illness. Then I
? it becomes necessary to "have them out." This procedure is
i generally regarded as one of the most minor operations. The
‘ patient goes to a hospital, probably equipped with a special ear,
{ nose and throat section, is operated on by a throat specialist,
§ and after a day or two in which his throat is sore, recovers suf-
  Hciently to return home, and soon is able to take up his normal
§ activities.
  It is no such simple matter, however, in a remotely rural
  region where travel is still predominantly by horse or mule, for
{ a patient to get to a specialist many miles away or to pay the
‘   usual tonsillectomy fee. Yet, iniiamed tonsils and adenoids con-
  stitute just as serious a menace to health here as elsewhere, and
  are just as detrimental to the proper growth and development
lj of children. `
  Because this is true, a Tonsil Clinic has been held annually
  at our own Hospital at Hyden for many years. It is limited
g to children between the ages of {ive and sixteen years, since the
  Hospital has a capacity of only twenty beds; and we could not
  possibly care for as many as fifty or sixty adults at a time, the
  number of children usually admitted to the Tonsil Clinic. The
.l Clinic is one of the big events of the year in the Service, and
  one in which almost everyone in the F. N. S. has a. part.
  All during the year the district nurses take note of the chil-
  dren in the families they care for who are suffering the worst
  effects from bad tonsils. When time for the Clinic draws near,
  Dr'. Kooser gives each nurse a quota, usually four children. The
  nurses must get the signed consent of the parents of each child
.l‘·· _ for the operation, and tell them when to bring him in to the
F ,.  Hospital.
lg  Preparations at the Hospital to care for this horde of over
  fifty youngsters are extensive. As many patients as possible

 ' 4 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN  
are dismissed to make room for the children. Every extra bed  
and cot from the nearest outpost centers is commandeered for _"
the occasion, and brought in by truck. We have only one small J
operating room, so another one is improvised, by setting up a VA
table and equipment in the equally small utility room adjoining g
· it. All available gowns, pajamas and slippers are gathered to- Q
gether and put in a big box ready for the small patients. i
This year the children from five of the districts were ad-  
mitted on Sunday afternoon, October 27th. Several came to-  
gether from one district in a big truck, others were brought in
by their parents on horse or muleback, others came many miles  
afoot. Because every available nurse is needed for the nursing Q
end of this affair, a secretary from Wendover goes over to  
admit the youngsters. This consists in seeing that there is a gl
signed consent slip for each child; putting the necessary data  
in the Hospital Admissions Book and on the routine forms, and  
in writing his name, age, center, and nurse’s name on an identifi-  
cation tag which, much to the amusement of the young patient,  
is tied around his neck. A duplicate tag is made out to tie on  
to his clothing, he is outfitted from the box of night clothes,  
and then turned over to the nurses.  
After temperature, pulse, etc. are recorded and routine  
tests are made, including a test for coagulation time, which  
practically eliminates the danger of post-operative hemorrhage,  ji
the children are sent upstairs and put to bed. At the end of i 
the afternoon the ward is a gay place indeed, populated by about {
thirty youngsters, two or three to a bed, most of them giggling  l
and thoroughly enjoying the novelty of their situation. Even  
if we had enough beds and cots to allow one for each child,  {
there isn’t the floor space on which to set them up.  
For seven years, Dr. F. W. Urton, the eminent ear, nose c  _!
and throat specialist from Louisville, has been coming to Hyden  
to perform these operations, as a courtesy to the Service. For F 
most of these years he has brought with him the equally dis-  I? 
tinguished anaesthetist, Dr. Gregor McDougall Dollar of Louis-  
ville. They are usually accompanied by an interne, and in addi- < ., 
tion this year they brought Miss Mary Rose Gallagher, Super-  
visor of the Ear, Nose and Throat Section of St. Joseph’s In-   _
firmary, Louisville. Miss Gallagher did duty as scrub nurse i 

 E FRONTIER NURSING smavrcm 5
  the first day of operations, and her assistance was invaluable.
°  On Monday, October 28th, the operations on the first batch
,  of children were performed. That afternoon, the second lot,
  from the remaining eight districts, were admitted. When they
  were ready to be put to bed, the first group, now post—operative, .
Z were moved downstairs to beds set up in the Waiting Room,
» Clinic Treatment Room, and in the corridor. By the end of
  the second day, it seemed that every inch of the Hospital was
1 taken up with beds, both upstairs in the regular wards, and
L downstairs in the improvised ones.
  We are really proud of our mountain children. They are
l, wonderfully good, and rarely fret or cry. By evening of the
{ day they are operated on nearly all are ready to greet with a
  smile the plates of ice-cream Dr. Dollar so generously provides
  for them. There is of course the occasional child who becomes
ei frightened before operation. One boy last year, when discov-
Q; ered by the Superintendent wandering around in the wing of
  the Hospital used as living quarters by the nurses, told her
  quite candidly and with grim determination that he "was look-
  ing for the stairs so I can get out." Then there was the little
lj boy this year who objected strenuously to the identification
  tag being tied around his neck, because he saw some of the girls
 i so decked out, and deemed it an insult to his manhood. How-
 l ever, Dr. Kooser has a knack of dispelling such fears, and the
  rebellious ones soon submit to the situation peacefully.
  The patients are able to return to their homes from the
  second to the fourth day, depending on the distance they live
  from the doctor or nursing centers, and the Tonsil Clinic is
 j over for another year. Fifty or sixty boys and girls who other-
  wise would have been continually run down with sore throats
  and colds, and perhaps have suffered far more serious effects
  from diseased tonsils and adenoids, have had these obstacles
 _,j-  to their well—being removed, and have been given a chance to
T,  the good health which should be the birthright of every child.
  We never can express adequately the deep gratitude we feel to
  Dr. Urton, Dr. Dollar and their able assistants for their so gen-
'_  erous kindness in leaving their busy practices to come the long
 ` . distance to the mountains year after year to give this Clinic.

 6 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN  
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF A PUPIL Ei
NURSE-MIDVVIFE  
i
By CATHERINE V. UHL, R. N.  
EDITOR’S NOTE: These are excerpts of an article written by  
Catherine V. Uhl for her Alumnae Quarterly of The School of Nursing, l.
University of Minnesota, in April, 1940, soon after she entered the Frontier  
Graduate School of Midwifery. {
Well, after about 10 years, my dream of being a member of  
the Frontier Nursing Service has come true, or will if I accom-  
plish the rest of my course in the next three and a half months,  
and I’m having the time of my life. It doesn’t seem like work  
at all compared with usual hospital life, but it is work in earnest  
. and pretty tough at times. A couple of days ago we had two  
pretty good climbs, one about a half mile and the other a couple  
of blocks over rocks and boulders and through brush, and both E
resulted in wild goose chases, as one person was not at home if
and we didn’t locate the other house although we were very  
close to it, but couldn’t see it on account of the surrounding li
hill and vegetation. I had about all I could manage to carry  ,
my 145 pounds, including my boots and other clothing. The _
instructor (Miss Nora Kelly) carried the saddle bags weighing  V,
over twenty pounds as she said she was more used to climbing  
than I, and I was thankful, as the day was none too cool.  
Really, if you are a tomboy and a nurse too, this is quite  
an interesting position. I had to walk two logs about three  
inches in diameter across a creek the other day, and at the far  
end the water was a good waistline deep. The first day I did  
it, it must have taken me about five minutes and it is only just  
one treelength long. I didn’t know how the equilibrium would  
be with wearing the raincoat and carrying the bags in my hand,  
because we usually carry them on our shoulders as the load  
is more evenly balanced and does not seem so heavy as when  
the arm is hanging. But it wasn’t bad at all. Coming down U ;
from that house there is a steep slope and the heels of my  
boots sank in mud almost to my ankles. Q .
Keeping the boots shined bothered me somewhat before I 'i _ 
came, but after I arrived, I ceased to think of the effort it would  
Zi
 
l;
1

 . F1>.oN·rmR NURSING smavicm 7
  take to keep the mud off, as it just isn’t done. The best kind
§- of shoe polish is saddle soap, as it softens the leather and cleans
  them easily. Mine have had it twice this past week, and I
  should have been ashamed to go to lecture this morning with
  them looking as they do, but no one here bothers much if they
  lack a high polish.
  The war situation is much more noticed here and consumes
  more of the conversation than I had noticed before, because a
l; number of the British and Scotch nurses are still here and some
i; of them expect to return home soon. One left the day I came
  and two more are to start right after the end of this month, one
  of whom is the Hospital Superintendent. The night the radio
  first reported that the Bremen was sunk the air here was
  electric.
  I never saw a finer group in my whole life than the nurses
  here, and never hope to. Perhaps they get some of most peo-
, ple’s pettiness smoothed over in their hard contacts with nature.
& I always admired them from what I heard and read of the
 _ Service, but after seeing some of the inside I admire them all
 ] the more.
 v We have two classes a week, and they are always an hour
  and a quarter, and the lectures last almost two hours, but they
 E don’t seem half that long. Here are a few comments made by
  some of the mountaineers this past week: Some woman came
  in the other day and Dr. Kooser was attempting to get a date
  from her, and the closest he could come to it was that the event
  occurred during "Bean picking time." Another woman told him
  it had occurred "Oh, when the cowgot hurt last fall." One
  woman was telling us the other day about being a tenant on
  someone else’s property, and said that they were "living on
  Mrs. B——’s dirt."
  I was up for a hospital delivery from 10:00 p. m. to 1:00
;.  a. m. last Saturday night and then got up at 9:30 to go to church
 Q  with my roommate, and the preacher said folks who are up to
  about midnight Saturday night could hardly worship properly
  on Sunday. My roommate was up until about 2:00 a. m. We
  both wanted to laugh, but didn’t either one know that the other
V,. got tickled until we started to mention it about the same time
1  when we got out-of-doors.
l* .
1

 · 8 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN i
Another night a call came that a district family was ex- Zf
pecting a baby. The moon was about one-third full and was  
pretty where you could see it, but that gap was plenty dark j;
when we started, and the prospect of riding, holding a flashlight,  
and of fording the river almost paralyzed me with fright. '  
Usually the daddy—to-be or some neighbor comes for us, saddles Y;_
our horses, and brings us home; but since there was the in- y
structor and I, she told him we could go by ourselves. After jj
we got into the water it wasn’t any worse than crossing in day-  
iight.  
There is the Chinese gong for tea time, and tea time is  
very much to be attended here. Even when you are out on an  
isolated district you are supposed to have tea each afternoon  
f if it is possible for you to get in. They feel the relaxation is A‘
good for you, that it is a nice social occasion if a number of  
folks are about, and that a relaxation helps you to keep up  
your resistance and good health.
The mountains are beautiful and I’ve seen wild flowers I  
haven’t seen before, but shall not attempt to learn all of their I 
names this year. The other day I thought I was doing pretty  
well in recognizing names when others mentioned them until  
· one of the girls mentioned seeing something else while she was  
out and called it by name. I asked, "What’s that?" She said i l
it belonged to such and such a butterfly family. Well, maybe  ,
sometime I’ll get interested in the names of butterflies, but for Q_ 
the present I just think them pretty when I see them and call  
them color such-and-such.  
 se
. 
 
FROM A YOUNG PHYSICIAN IN THE WESTERN PART  
OF KENTUCKY  _ ’
"I’ve thought of the F. N. S. many times within the past few weeks,  ‘
too, since I’ve had to make several calls on mule-back to remote cabins e· 
which are far from passable roads. It has amazed me to Hnd so much ter- ._
ritory right here in Henry and Shelby Counties which is just as primitive·— _
~ though not so large in its extent—as the Kentucky mountain region. The ,
speech is similar to that which I heard in Leslie, Knott and Breathitt · ·
Counties, and conditions in the homes almost identical. I delivered a baby .
in one of the cabins just a week ago yesterday, with only a flickering oil  of
lamp for illumination, and millions of flies over everything"  

   FRONTIER NURSING smnvicz: 9
  OLD COURIER NEWS
 
  A wedding on September 27th of deep interest to the Fron-
‘   tier Nursing Service was that of our old courier, Miss Elizabeth-
§_ Rieman G. Duval, of New York, to Mr. Samuel Binford Valen-
. tine, of Virginia and New York. The bride was dear enough to
  Write us ten days after her wedding and tell us that she was
  keeping up her many activities. Aside from getting installed in
  her new apartment, which would be sufficient to fill the time of
  many brides, she had two English refugee children, placed with
  her mother at the Duval home in the country; she continued ‘
  writing her articles for the New York Times; her work for the
*· William Allen White Committee; and work with a youth organi-
  zation called "Committee of Eighty Million." On the subject of
  Union Now, she writes as follows: "It occurred to me yesterday
  after reading Robert Sherwood’s article in Life on this subject,
—;Q  that the usual dismissive label-‘Utopian,’ or impractical ideal-
  ism’ that is applied to such ideas is only true when they remain ‘
 I in the minds of dreamers and well-wishers. As soon as an idea
  becomes the common property of enough of the people, it is only
{  a short step away from. being put into effect/’
  • . . •
,= We wrote in our last bulletin of the engagement of Martha
  Bole ("Ma.rdie") to Dr. Graham Taylor Webster. They were
g married in Cleveland on October 19th and how we hope that our
z  good luck will bring them to see us before much time has
 , gone by.
Q  ` We are happy to announce the birth of a son, on October
Y-  26th, to Mr. and Mrs. William S. Kemp, Jr., of Princeton, Massa-
_.“  : chusetts. Mrs. Kemp was our courier, Rosemary Crocker, and
  writes as follows: "Of course both my husband and I are so
 ;· pleased with our little son—he’s such an adorable monkey-
sl  but I do hope that some day he’ll have a sister who will be at
 ’· Wendover before 1970 goes by."
· ' It is always a joy to us when our old couriers carry some
  of the burden of speaking for the F. N. S. ·During the autumn,

 2
‘ 10 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN `
three of the couriers have spoken as follows: Barbara Inger-  
soll, of Winnetka, Illinois, spoke on the 3rd of October to the ` ° Z’
New England Congregational Church of Aurora, Illinois, and
presented the F. N. S. with the fifteen dollar fee they gave her. Q
Marion Shouse, of Washington, D. C., spoke to the Washington »
Alumnae Chapter of the Alpha Omicron Pi Sorority the evening 3,
of Tuesday, October 8th. Barbara Glazier, of Hartford, Con- l NQ
necticut, has been very busy in our behalf. On October 16th  
she spoke to the Mothers Club of South Glastonbury, Connecti-   _
cut; on October 27th, to the Young People’s Fellowship of St.  
Luke’s Episcopal Church, South Glastonbury, and on November  
12th to the Philathea Club of the Advent Church of Bristol, Con- Q
necticut.  
From Marvin Breckinridge, now Mrs. Jefferson Patterson, ` 
whose husband is attached to the American Embassy in Berlin,  Q
we have several letters, and guardedly though they are written,  
we feel it is better not to quote from them, except just this one `· 
little bit about the radio work for the Columbia Broadcasting ‘
System she did before her marriage: "I’m glad to know you  I
liked my radio work, which was the most fascinating career for I 
‘ the six months I had it, and I would have stayed with it if I had ? 
not gone in for matrimony instead. Now my government does  jg
not wish me to broadcast because I am married to a Foreign  
Service oflicer, but I hope to go back to the air some time later  
when the world situation is less tense."  
.... __ 
Through the courtesy of Mr. George L. Harrison, 1520 A 
Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Treasurer of the  
British American Ambulance Corps, and lucky father of our old ”  
courier, Peggy Harrison, we are privileged to print bits from   j
two of her autumn letters, as follows: i f
I  
Scotland, September 13, 1940. N
"The greatest number of ambulances here in Scotland are  
converted ones, which are either, as some driver put it, rattling  .
I death traps or will fall apart within the next few months. Last l ;
l
l

   FRoN1·1ER NURSING smnvrcm 11
‘  winter in the icy conditions there were some very bad accidents
  just from one depot due to driving worn out ambulances. People
` at home can have no idea of the condition of some of the am-
. bulances.
 v "Yesterday, when I was in the garage a party of Newhaven
v_ fish wives came in. They had collected from AMONG THEM-
- FY SELVES enough money to buy one NEW ambulance (made to
  order) and a converted one. They are one of the poorest com-
?} munities in Scotland and have had exceedingly hard times in
  ‘ these last few years. They had raised the money entirely of
  their own accord, in gratefulness for the ambulance work done
{ for some of their men, injured or ill, off minesweepers or other
  craft engaged in even more dangerous work."
  II
  October 11, 1940.
  "What a day! Took . . . to Dalkeith and then brought the am-
1  bulance back to have a contraption put on it to prevent so much
l exhaust getting into the back. The poor juniors who ride there
4  have been made quite ill at times. When I got back, two hours
 E later, found that a regular stove pipe had been fixed on, leading
 5 right up to the top. As I drove along blue smoke poured mer-
 E, rily out, just as if lunch was being cooked inside. Five cars in
  eight miles nearly ran into me, as the drivers rubbed their eyes
  and stared and stared. Little boys raced after on their bicycles
  and old men pointed to the stove pipe with their sticks. It was
  so funny. As I went through the gates and slowed up for the
  sentry box, an old soldier on the other side said ‘Fish and chips,
Q  please Miss!’ In the afternoon when the work was over and we
  were all piling in the equipment, I started the ambulance, as it
A   always needs warming. It gave a roar and the engine started
qi'  racing at about 60 m. p. h. I turned the ignition off, but it had
  no effect. Now it’s rather alarming to turn the engine off and
 ' have nothing happen except more noise. The orderly rushed
j — off to find someone who might know a remedy and we pushed
` the old bus more into the middle of the courtyard. It would be ·
a good thing if it burst into flames but I don’t think the ducal
· ·` owner or the military would be pleased if the back premises
  caught on fire. We had the hood up and someone went for
l  
J

 · 12 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN ._
water. Before the orderly got back with a comrade, the engine  
gave one final bellow and subsided dead. Much to our relief it  
started in quite an ordinary way a few minutes later and we got 1.
back all right. It’s now having another session in the garage."  
.... l
The following letters from old couriers-—in the Republic  
of Panama, in England, and on a steamer approaching the Phil- {g
ippine Islands, will be of interest to their many friends:  
From Mrs. Alexander C. Northrop (Betty Harriman)-  
Republic of Panama, August 10, 1940.  
Marion Shouse’s letter has just reached me and I was aw- i'
fully glad to get it and hear all the latest news. It must be hard  
with so many of the familiar faces gone. Even down here, way  
off in the Panamanian jungle there is a great feeling of unrest.  ;
Most of the conversation, whenever we see any one else, is about  i
the latest war news. Life here is an experience but lots of fun.  
We really are isolated. The United Fruit Company owns a lot  
of land on the Pacific coast and operates a railroad line out of  
a place called Puerto Armuelles. I doubt if you can find it on  
the map. There are no roads at all, just mule—back. _The banana  
. plantations are about ten miles apart so unless you ride you don’t {°
_ see many other people except on Fridays when the train comes  
around and everyone goes into Port to shop and to the movies.  il
My Wendover training is coming in handy, for all kinds of un-  
expected things happen all the time. The Tropics are an amaz-  
ing spot! I am enclosing my donation to the courier fund and  
for whatever else you can use it.  
Second letter from Betty—October 23, 1940.  
I was so pleased to get your letter last month and have  
only been waiting for the Quarterly Bulletin to arrive before I  
answered. I have just read it from cover to cover and my hus- g
band now has his nose in it and is asking me all kinds of ques-  ri
tions. I was particularly interested in the letters from England  ,
and the description of your midwife training school. I must
, say it is a ghastly feeling having friends in England and not J
· knowing from one minute to the next how they are.
I will try to give you some idea of my life in the tropics but  
I find it difficult as it is so different from anything anyone has  E,
I:
l

 FRoN·1·11212 NURSING smzvxcm is
  seen or done. If I repeat anything I wrote before please excuse
  me, but as you can imagine with all the various descriptions I
  have written I get rather muddled. "Chiriqui" itself is about as
Q< far from the Canal Zone as possible and still be in Panama. We
  are on the west coast just south of Costa Rica. We live at one
ig of the centers about fifteen miles by narrow-guage railroad
  from Port. The R. R. is the life vein of the set-up as there are
Eg no roads at all. All travel is either by mule or little rail cars
  and of course the trains are used for hauling fruit. All the farm
  houses are about 40 yards from the tracks which are used as
  the main highway by everyone so it is more than entertaining
  to sit and watch "life" go by. There are many amusing sights, one
·. of my favorites being a big fat native woman under an umbrella
ij and a tiny mule beneath both of them. The Indians around here
  are amazing specimens. They live way off in the hills and will
_j  come down once a year to work for just enough to buy a little
  rice and beans for the rest of the time. They look as if someone
{_  took a Guard’s busby and pulled it down over their ears and
  then cut it off all around about the level of their eyes. As a result
 { they look like skye terriers and peek out at you with a rather
  Wicked grin!
gi The labor here is a grand mixture of J amaicans, all Central
gi American countries and the Indians. Therefore, the overseers
 Qi have to be able to mix their languages fairly rapidly. It annoys
  me no end to have my husband rattle something off in Spanish
  and I can't understand. Luckily we are stationed at a center
  with two more families as most of the farms are single and Way
  off the beaten track. We go into Port once a week to the movies
  and to play golf and see people. It is a real occasion. Every so
  often there is a party of some sort at the club in Port but they
  are few and far between. So you can see that any sort of festi-
  vities are a treat. It is a far ery from the gaiety of New York
g but I iind it doesn’t bother me too much. A really social event
 Q is to ride over to another farm after work and have dinner and
 ij sit around and talk and then come home through the bananas
in the dark. It is quite a sight especially in a full moon.
A Our houses are almost like living outdoors as there are no
A windows—just screens. They aren’t very pretty but very prac-
  tical and I am told, snake proof. Anyhow let’s hope so as this
I:
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 · 14 THE QUARTERLY BULLETIN  
part of the world seems to be the meeting place of every kind  
of poisonous reptile imaginable from Bushmasters to F'er-de-  
Lances. It is surprising though how few you see even out in i
the underbrush. We are provided with a very cheerful colored  
lady for a cook. She seems to be the pride of Chiriqui, and a lot  
of other wives are very jealous of us having her as she can do if
amazing things with the limited variety of food we get. Most  
people have Spanish cooks who are experts at cooking rice and  
beans but little else. We also have a yard boy who is crazy  
about chickens, so we have started a flock of our own and I can  
hardly wait for our iirst fried chicken dinner. Eggs and hens  
are a great luxury. The weather and diseases and all sorts of .Q‘
horrible animals make raising them a tough proposition.  
I have been so surprised at the amount of work that has to .
be done in banana farming. Everything from cutting the under- ;_ 
growth, pruning, fertilizing, trimming, etc., to spraying for dis-  `
ease control and digging drains and making roads on the farms  
and keeping everything in general good condition. After all  —
that, the fruit has to be cut and washed in acid and water to  
remove the spray, and loaded onto cars and taken into Port to  T
the ships. Lately there has been a terrific demand for fruit  
` and they are shipping out four and five fruit cuts a week. That 1
means a lot of work for everyone. This is very different from _» 
working in some manufacturing concern or bank, etc., as the  
boys have seven-day weeks and no hours, as they have to be  
here to out whenever a boat comes in. It is a fascinating way it 
of seeing how the economic system of supply and demand is ap- .  
plied. I ride out on the farm with my husband as much as pos-  ‘€
sible and I love to see how everything is done. The bananas Q 
are cut by a group of three men: o