Finding Themselves: The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in FranceStimson, Julia C. (Julia Catherine)
History
Finding Themselves: The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in France
Stimson, Julia C. (Julia Catherine)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Well, so much for the war, except that to-day we have had no convoys in
and are catching our breaths. I cannot tell you the details of the days
that have passed since I last wrote. There were so many deaths and so
many awful cases and such pitiful things going on all the time it was
hard to keep steady, especially as every one was much over-worked. Miss
Taylor and I had to stick pretty tight to the office work or it would
have swamped us; so we tried to keep up with ourselves each day, and
never left at night until we had every S. I. and D. I. letter written.
Of course the end of the month came along just then, and all the regular
monthly things had to be tucked in also. And of course there was no
possibility of having a clever man-stenographer for two days to do my
complicated British payroll, as I have had before, for every available
man was working night and day, hence I had to squeeze that in also. So a
job that takes about two solid days of an uninterrupted clerk’s time had
to be put into the midst of an office where people were running in and
out every minute; but it got done, and I was a bit proud when I finished
the thing at ten o’clock that night when the first reënforcement
arrived.
We have certainly learned what we can do. I don’t mind for myself, but
it breaks my heart to see my children get hollow-eyed and white, and see
them one by one succumb, at least temporarily, and have to be sent to
bed. They have done wonders. To-day, for instance, with 130 nurses here,
after all they have been through, I have just three in hospital; one
with diphtheria, one with a kind of trench fever due to exhaustion, and
the third, my dear, brave soul who came down from the evacuated C. C. S.
She has just “exhaustion” for a diagnosis. She was sent down without
baggage or the rest of the team, 48 hours after arriving. The last ten
hours of her trip were standing in a freight car packed with refugees.
She arrived here at five one morning dead to the world. She had slept on
the floor the two nights before as much as she could and been operating
sixteen hours straight before that. We were so thankful to get her back
safely. The men arrived safely later. Her C. C. S. was captured. She
went on duty 36 hours after she arrived here apparently as good as new,
but she could not stand the strain and could not eat, so we sent her to
the Sick Sisters’ Hospital for a rest. In quarters I have one nurse
recovering from gastro-enteritis and another with a bothersome knee, and
all the rest are working! Isn’t that doing pretty well for women? After
my two nights up until after two and going each morning as usual for
very, very busy mornings, making arrangements about new nurses and
seeing to their records, I had a bit of an upset myself and felt pretty
miserable. So one afternoon I went to bed at four and stayed there until
the next morning and have been much better since. It has all been
something of a strain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account