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
Now to go back a bit. Last Sunday I was down in Rouen! By Friday the
19th I was so homesick and lonesome for all my children and the hospital
that when some of the officers blew into my office and said they were
going back Saturday evening at five, after their meetings were over, I
decided I would go with them. It was very easy to arrange, and oh, I was
so glad I went. Our train was late and we did not reach the camp until
about nine-thirty, but I got a welcome all right! It did me more good
than anything else possibly could have done, and I came back renewed in
courage and strength in a most remarkable way, and perfectly sure if so
many dear people loved me so much and had such confidence in me, maybe I
could manage this awful job after all. Sunday morning I played with Ruth
and talked with lots of other people. That noon we had Maj. Murphy up to
dinner with us. Before that I went to the office and talked “shop” with
the “Little Matron,” as my children, who are now her children, lovingly
call her. I stayed with her in my old rooms that night and we talked
long into the night, much to the easing of my heart and mind. She has a
bed in the sitting-room, used as a couch, which she says is ready for me
any time I want to use it. Later I met lots of people, officers and
nurses, for tea in the mess. Then M. T. (Miss Taylor, the little
matron) and I had early supper together in her sitting-room. Then Maj.
Murphy said that he had been planning to go up to Paris the next day,
and he would go a day ahead, so he came along with me. We left at seven
and arrived at ten. Phil met me and we came home to this nice apartment
into which Phil had moved all his and my things that day. I am going
again to Rouen just as soon as I possibly can, because I need so much to
see them all. They don’t need me, for everything is going wonderfully
smoothly, but I need to see them. We don’t talk about their shop, for
naturally I am not doing a single thing about their local business, but
M. T. talks over my shop with me and helps me lots. That is certainly
the most wonderful group of men and women it has ever been my privilege
to work with. The more I see and hear of other groups, the more I
realize how exceptional ours is. And oh, how good they have been to me.
Most of them, I feel, will be my friends forever, and a few of them will
be some of the most precious possessions that a person could ever have.
Sundays are my own, and so I want to go down there often. The
anniversary of our leaving [May 17th] will be my next visit, I hope.
Printed in the United States of America.
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| The following pages contain advertisements of a few |
| of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. |
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* * * * *
A War Nurse’s Diary
BY M. E. CLARK
_Illustrated, cloth, $1.25_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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