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
And now I want to tell you a little about givers. To begin with, there
was an old lady in an Old Ladies’ Home in St. Louis who wrote to ask if
she might make for me and my patients some bookmarks with verses on
them. Of course I wrote back that she could. After a while along came a
box of about a dozen long ribbon bookmarks, all the colors of the
rainbow, with cross-stitched verses on them like “God is love,” “Be of
good cheer.” I got a wounded soldier that I knew pretty well to write
her the best note of thanks he knew how, and I have since heard from her
that she received his letter and felt fully rewarded for her pains. The
padre said he would help distribute some of them. I saw the soldier’s
letter. It was quite typical and was full of such expressions as “fed up
with,” “carry on,” “stick it,” “Blighty,” etc., and I am sure would be a
real object of interest and curiosity at the Old Ladies’ Home!
Then there was the King’s Daughters of Pilgrim Church, dear kind people,
who sent 40 lbs. of sweet chocolate to Ruth and me, also I don’t know
how many pounds of coffee. The chocolate was in four ten-pound cakes:
delicious chocolate about two feet long, a foot wide, and two inches
thick, Hershey’s. We’ve given it away in hunks. Nobody in all the world
ever saw such cakes of chocolate. We pounded it up, or rather cracked it
up with a hammer, and many people enjoyed it. R. never can have too
much. I have another 5 lbs. of sweet chocolate unopened as yet
(Maillard’s), put away for the time when rations fail us. There is also
a three-pound box of Chicago candy in storage on my shelf. We’ll eat it
all after a while, you may be sure. Then the fruit cakes, such wonders.
Mr. C. sent some simply perfect ones to both R. and me, and I have
another from Scruggs in St. Louis being saved. People are so dear. Mrs.
H.’s box of salted nuts, dates, and raisins struck a most popular chord,
they were such good things. A dear Jewish lady in St. Louis who hardly
knew me at all sent a box of cookies and little cakes, which didn’t
arrive in very good condition, as they were all in crumbs, but wasn’t it
kind of her? We feel like missionaries getting barrels. The Sorosis
Carol Club’s comfort bags have been coming and coming. They are now
stacked up in my sitting-room waiting till Christmas, when they are
going to give lots of pleasure to sick boys, who are so much like little
children. Think of a whole tent-full of men howling to have some powder
put on their backs because a nurse had just put some on a very sick
man’s back when she was rubbing his back for him. I have a letter to-day
that the St. Louis Comforts Committee of the U. S. Navy League is
sending us 100 wristlets. Well, we can use them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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