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A slow boat to India.
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June 28, 1936 S.S. KAISAR-I-HIND
Dear Eva:
We are approaching Malta and I may be able to post this there, or it may be at Port Said next Wednesday. The Mediterranean is beautiful and I wish we could take it all the way to Bombay. That would make over the geography!
I am hoping to get a new cabin after we leave Malta. Miss Miskinon and I are going to move out from our present quarters in any case. We are in a cabin for four and it is much too small for four; we can get an inside cabin for two which is relatively larger and we may take it, but the purser said he could probably do better by us after Port Said, if not after Malta. We want to dig into comfortable quarters before we meet the monsoon in the Indian Ocean. This is an old boat; one of my Calais-to-Marseilles friends said it was so old that it was only used in busy seasons. I could plan a boat better myself. The stairways all seem to be after thoughts, few and far between, and in most inconvenient places. It is an anti-climax after the Aquitania. There are six of us at a long table in one corner of the diningroom - a good corner and I don't see why more of it is not used. There are the four of us from our cabin and two young girls, nurses, who are going out to a Seventh-Day-Adventist hospital. They are very attractive young things, southerners - South Carolina and Florida.
I have just written a long letter to Miss Purington telling her all that I had picked up from Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd. They both feel that it is urgent to get on with the business of selecting a new principal for Madras, but Mrs. Dodd said "America is holding everything up - nothing can be done until they are ready to accept Miss MacDougall's resignation." She says that Miss MacDougall is slipping and that it is hard on Edith Coon, in particular, and on all the older members of the Staff to keep things up and not to let it be evident to everybody that she is slipping. They can't keep it up indefinitely, but they are so fond of her that they all do what they can. Miss Purington and I could tell the American Committee a thing or two but we dare not do it. Mrs. Dodd said that Edith could carry things for a year or so as she has done when Miss MacDougall goes on furloughs, but that it is not to her taste - she really does not enjoy being principal. Miss McDougall does, or at least did.
All my luggage is safely on board; I felt so pleased to see it. Our cabin is so small that I can have very little of it with me. There is no closet - only 3 hooks on the door and one near each set of bunks - for clothes for 4 people! Do you wonder that I want to move.
The meals are pretty good. We have rice and curry every noon the best curries I have ever had on ship-board, with the authentic Indian flavor. We also have ice cream every noon and night, and plenty of fruit. The tea is nice, but it is served in the diningroom as there is not enough space anywhere else to serve it.
I hope that FERNBANK will be rented otherwise you will be very short of money unless the B. & L. pays up quickly. I should not mind borrowing $50 or so from Geoffroy until the B. & L. pays up. I should not have paid anything back into it so soon. I did not realize that I was going to have so little. I miss my 8% cut very much. If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
I am writing the address of the Foreign Policy Association to have the address changed for forwarding it to me. Drop them a card and give them your address in case there is extra postage. It can't be much surely.
I can't hope for any more mail for two weeks!
With much love
Alma.
Dear Eva:
We are approaching Malta and I may be able to post this there, or it may be at Port Said next Wednesday. The Mediterranean is beautiful and I wish we could take it all the way to Bombay. That would make over the geography!
I am hoping to get a new cabin after we leave Malta. Miss Miskinon and I are going to move out from our present quarters in any case. We are in a cabin for four and it is much too small for four; we can get an inside cabin for two which is relatively larger and we may take it, but the purser said he could probably do better by us after Port Said, if not after Malta. We want to dig into comfortable quarters before we meet the monsoon in the Indian Ocean. This is an old boat; one of my Calais-to-Marseilles friends said it was so old that it was only used in busy seasons. I could plan a boat better myself. The stairways all seem to be after thoughts, few and far between, and in most inconvenient places. It is an anti-climax after the Aquitania. There are six of us at a long table in one corner of the diningroom - a good corner and I don't see why more of it is not used. There are the four of us from our cabin and two young girls, nurses, who are going out to a Seventh-Day-Adventist hospital. They are very attractive young things, southerners - South Carolina and Florida.
I have just written a long letter to Miss Purington telling her all that I had picked up from Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd. They both feel that it is urgent to get on with the business of selecting a new principal for Madras, but Mrs. Dodd said "America is holding everything up - nothing can be done until they are ready to accept Miss MacDougall's resignation." She says that Miss MacDougall is slipping and that it is hard on Edith Coon, in particular, and on all the older members of the Staff to keep things up and not to let it be evident to everybody that she is slipping. They can't keep it up indefinitely, but they are so fond of her that they all do what they can. Miss Purington and I could tell the American Committee a thing or two but we dare not do it. Mrs. Dodd said that Edith could carry things for a year or so as she has done when Miss MacDougall goes on furloughs, but that it is not to her taste - she really does not enjoy being principal. Miss McDougall does, or at least did.
All my luggage is safely on board; I felt so pleased to see it. Our cabin is so small that I can have very little of it with me. There is no closet - only 3 hooks on the door and one near each set of bunks - for clothes for 4 people! Do you wonder that I want to move.
The meals are pretty good. We have rice and curry every noon the best curries I have ever had on ship-board, with the authentic Indian flavor. We also have ice cream every noon and night, and plenty of fruit. The tea is nice, but it is served in the diningroom as there is not enough space anywhere else to serve it.
I hope that FERNBANK will be rented otherwise you will be very short of money unless the B. & L. pays up quickly. I should not mind borrowing $50 or so from Geoffroy until the B. & L. pays up. I should not have paid anything back into it so soon. I did not realize that I was going to have so little. I miss my 8% cut very much. If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
I am writing the address of the Foreign Policy Association to have the address changed for forwarding it to me. Drop them a card and give them your address in case there is extra postage. It can't be much surely.
I can't hope for any more mail for two weeks!
With much love
Alma.
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1.
We are approaching Malta and I may be able to post this there
I can't make out the postmark, but I think Alma must have mailed the letter in Malta, because according to the envelope Eva received the letter on July 11, and also I don't think she would have used a British postage stamp in Egypt.
2.
I have just written a long letter to Miss Purington telling her all that I had picked up from Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd.
Alma had seen Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd in England - see:
3.
She says that Miss MacDougall is slipping and that it is hard on Edith Coon, in particular, and on all the older members of the Staff to keep things up and not to let it be evident to everybody that she is slipping.
The Wikedia article for the Women's Christian College says that Eleanor MacDougall was the first principal, from 1915 to 1938. So the situation didn't get dealt with until a year after Alma had gone back to the US. Miss MacDougall has a Wikipedia article.
4.
I hope that FERNBANK will be rented otherwise you will be very short of money unless the B. & L. pays up quickly. I should not mind borrowing $50 or so from Geoffroy until the B. & L. pays up. I should not have paid anything back into it so soon. I did not realize that I was going to have so little. I miss my 8% cut very much. If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
I don't understand this. I do not know what B&L stands for. Wikipedia suggests Boston & Lowell Railroad and Bausch & Lomb. Boston & Lowell sounds like the sort of stock Alma might like, but I don't know.
5.
If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
This was around the time Fred, having been let go from the Westboro hospital, was spending a lot of time at Fernbank, going up to Canada to see Sibyl when the weather got to cold in the winter. His and Sibyl's daughter had been born in April in Canada. I guess Fernbank needed a new kitchen stove, but I don't know.
We are approaching Malta and I may be able to post this there
I can't make out the postmark, but I think Alma must have mailed the letter in Malta, because according to the envelope Eva received the letter on July 11, and also I don't think she would have used a British postage stamp in Egypt.
2.
I have just written a long letter to Miss Purington telling her all that I had picked up from Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd.
Alma had seen Mrs. Leith and Mrs. Dodd in England - see:
3.
She says that Miss MacDougall is slipping and that it is hard on Edith Coon, in particular, and on all the older members of the Staff to keep things up and not to let it be evident to everybody that she is slipping.
The Wikedia article for the Women's Christian College says that Eleanor MacDougall was the first principal, from 1915 to 1938. So the situation didn't get dealt with until a year after Alma had gone back to the US. Miss MacDougall has a Wikipedia article.
4.
I hope that FERNBANK will be rented otherwise you will be very short of money unless the B. & L. pays up quickly. I should not mind borrowing $50 or so from Geoffroy until the B. & L. pays up. I should not have paid anything back into it so soon. I did not realize that I was going to have so little. I miss my 8% cut very much. If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
I don't understand this. I do not know what B&L stands for. Wikipedia suggests Boston & Lowell Railroad and Bausch & Lomb. Boston & Lowell sounds like the sort of stock Alma might like, but I don't know.
5.
If Fred is in S.H. he could go to Boston to look up a stove.
This was around the time Fred, having been let go from the Westboro hospital, was spending a lot of time at Fernbank, going up to Canada to see Sibyl when the weather got to cold in the winter. His and Sibyl's daughter had been born in April in Canada. I guess Fernbank needed a new kitchen stove, but I don't know.
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