Letter to Alma from Eleanor McDougall: 12/19/1940
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A letter to Alma from a friend from her India days, who is now living in London during the Blitz of World War II. As Alma notes on the envelope: "Bomb hit home".
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This page is not a currently a stop in any Tour. But it's still worth your attention!
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Envelope frontImage #1 of five for this letterScroll down for the audio readingand for the transcript.
Envelope backImage #2 of five for this letterScroll down for the audio readingand for the transcript.
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1940-12-19: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
1940-12-19: tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
19 Dec. 1940
17 Berwyn Road
Richmond Surrey
My dear Miss Stokey,
It was such a pleasure to have your letter of three months ago, with all its kind friendly sympathy with our war plight. You would have felt still greater sympathy, I know, if you had seen us on the night of the 15th November, when an explosive bomb crashed on our little house, destroying a bedroom and the dining room beneath and killing our dear faithful maid outright, but just missing Miss Beard and me who, like her, were sleeping on the floor downstairs. We two made our escape by the staircase window which was blown in, and as the garage of our next neighbour was on fire we had light to see what we were doing. Air wardens and other rescuers were there almost immediately and worked like men possessed to extricate our maid from the ruins, but when after half an hour they found her body they saw that she must have been killed instantaneously by a block of masonry which had fallen on her head. Miss Beard and I were only a yard or two distant but were quite unhurt.
Our house and the garage next door were the only buildings damaged in the whole neighbourhood, so it must have been just a sporadic bomb, dropped at a venture. Everyone was more than kind and we received prompt hospitality and every kind of help. The house had to be pulled down but we recovered the great majority of our things, as the other rooms were not destroyed, and even of the destroyed rooms, hundreds of small objects came to light in the debris. But Miss Beard's beautiful furniture which was in those rooms was of course destroyed, and many of her things damaged by the fall of plaster and the rain which made salvage difficult the first two or three days. Still except for the loss of our maid we have come off very lightly and it all is part of what we hold to be a just and necessary war, so we take it as that. We are neither at all affected by what they call shock, but very tired by the dismal work of salvage, and I rather hope that Miss Beard will take a few months of rest in some country place before setting up housekeeping again. Our things are in storage, and we have moved into a furnished house to stay till the end of January. But I want to go on with my work at Edinburgh House and that address (2 Eaton Gate, Sloane Square, London S.W. 1) will always find me. We grieve over our delightful little garden on which Miss Beard had spent much loving toil.
I was almost living in Mount Holyoke at the time of the Presidential election, for, if you remember, I was there in 1932 when Mr Roosevelt came into power, and I felt strongly with you. Well, may all be for the best, and may this dark hour bring your country and mine closer together. It has been a great experience to be a Londoner during these past months and with all that we have gone through I would much rather be here than in India where I was through almost all of the 1914 war. I expect you get very exaggerated accounts of the state of things here - as a matter of fact London has suffered no vital damage as yet, but of course wounds and inconveniences uncountable. When you next come you will not find much difference, I think. May that time be soon. We very much miss the guests whom we were hoping to have with us in our Richmond home, for since the war became acute no Indian or American friends have been able to come to our island. Arulmani Manuel stayed till July and went back with First Class Honours.
Miss Beard and I were at Kew this morning enjoying lovely winter sunshine. A good deal of glass has been broken there, but no more serious damage has happened so far. We and my brother were in Kew Gardens in August in one of the first daylight raids; it seemed a strange experience then, but one that has grown very familiar since. People take them very calmly, and in the daytime they are hardly noticed unless the planes sound exactly overhead, but at night they are disturbing because our antiaircraft gunfire has to be so loud whenever the raiders are signalled as at hand. But we grow used even to noisy nights, and it will not always be wartime.
If you are in communication with dear Mrs. Thivy perhaps you would kindly tell her our news. She liked our little house very much, and we remember with great pleasure her stay with us. I heard with much distress from College that the great peltophorum tree in front of the main building came down in a cyclone in August; it is a sad loss to them, and I feel glad that I am not likely to see its absence.
My sister and her husband are still in India living at Kodai for two years while he completes the Revision of the Tamil Bible Translation. It is a pleasant life for him but a strangely empty existence for her, and it is hard on them to be away from England at this time. There have been some sadnesses there, Mrs Legh has died and Miss Vera Black, also dear old Canon Goldsmith, but perhaps you hardly knew him. Madras has been ordered blackout at nights, but I can hardly believe it practicable and perhaps it is only for the parts of the city on the sea front.
Miss Beard sends her love and so do I and we very often talk about you and wish for happy times when you will come and visit us in some new home, but at present we have not made any plans. The War has made distant horizons obscure; we live a week or month at a time.
But much love all the same, and my salutations to all at Mount Holyoke who may remember me, especially dear Miss Purington.
Ever yours affectionately
Eleanor McDougall
17 Berwyn Road
Richmond Surrey
My dear Miss Stokey,
It was such a pleasure to have your letter of three months ago, with all its kind friendly sympathy with our war plight. You would have felt still greater sympathy, I know, if you had seen us on the night of the 15th November, when an explosive bomb crashed on our little house, destroying a bedroom and the dining room beneath and killing our dear faithful maid outright, but just missing Miss Beard and me who, like her, were sleeping on the floor downstairs. We two made our escape by the staircase window which was blown in, and as the garage of our next neighbour was on fire we had light to see what we were doing. Air wardens and other rescuers were there almost immediately and worked like men possessed to extricate our maid from the ruins, but when after half an hour they found her body they saw that she must have been killed instantaneously by a block of masonry which had fallen on her head. Miss Beard and I were only a yard or two distant but were quite unhurt.
Our house and the garage next door were the only buildings damaged in the whole neighbourhood, so it must have been just a sporadic bomb, dropped at a venture. Everyone was more than kind and we received prompt hospitality and every kind of help. The house had to be pulled down but we recovered the great majority of our things, as the other rooms were not destroyed, and even of the destroyed rooms, hundreds of small objects came to light in the debris. But Miss Beard's beautiful furniture which was in those rooms was of course destroyed, and many of her things damaged by the fall of plaster and the rain which made salvage difficult the first two or three days. Still except for the loss of our maid we have come off very lightly and it all is part of what we hold to be a just and necessary war, so we take it as that. We are neither at all affected by what they call shock, but very tired by the dismal work of salvage, and I rather hope that Miss Beard will take a few months of rest in some country place before setting up housekeeping again. Our things are in storage, and we have moved into a furnished house to stay till the end of January. But I want to go on with my work at Edinburgh House and that address (2 Eaton Gate, Sloane Square, London S.W. 1) will always find me. We grieve over our delightful little garden on which Miss Beard had spent much loving toil.
I was almost living in Mount Holyoke at the time of the Presidential election, for, if you remember, I was there in 1932 when Mr Roosevelt came into power, and I felt strongly with you. Well, may all be for the best, and may this dark hour bring your country and mine closer together. It has been a great experience to be a Londoner during these past months and with all that we have gone through I would much rather be here than in India where I was through almost all of the 1914 war. I expect you get very exaggerated accounts of the state of things here - as a matter of fact London has suffered no vital damage as yet, but of course wounds and inconveniences uncountable. When you next come you will not find much difference, I think. May that time be soon. We very much miss the guests whom we were hoping to have with us in our Richmond home, for since the war became acute no Indian or American friends have been able to come to our island. Arulmani Manuel stayed till July and went back with First Class Honours.
Miss Beard and I were at Kew this morning enjoying lovely winter sunshine. A good deal of glass has been broken there, but no more serious damage has happened so far. We and my brother were in Kew Gardens in August in one of the first daylight raids; it seemed a strange experience then, but one that has grown very familiar since. People take them very calmly, and in the daytime they are hardly noticed unless the planes sound exactly overhead, but at night they are disturbing because our antiaircraft gunfire has to be so loud whenever the raiders are signalled as at hand. But we grow used even to noisy nights, and it will not always be wartime.
If you are in communication with dear Mrs. Thivy perhaps you would kindly tell her our news. She liked our little house very much, and we remember with great pleasure her stay with us. I heard with much distress from College that the great peltophorum tree in front of the main building came down in a cyclone in August; it is a sad loss to them, and I feel glad that I am not likely to see its absence.
My sister and her husband are still in India living at Kodai for two years while he completes the Revision of the Tamil Bible Translation. It is a pleasant life for him but a strangely empty existence for her, and it is hard on them to be away from England at this time. There have been some sadnesses there, Mrs Legh has died and Miss Vera Black, also dear old Canon Goldsmith, but perhaps you hardly knew him. Madras has been ordered blackout at nights, but I can hardly believe it practicable and perhaps it is only for the parts of the city on the sea front.
Miss Beard sends her love and so do I and we very often talk about you and wish for happy times when you will come and visit us in some new home, but at present we have not made any plans. The War has made distant horizons obscure; we live a week or month at a time.
But much love all the same, and my salutations to all at Mount Holyoke who may remember me, especially dear Miss Purington.
Ever yours affectionately
Eleanor McDougall
1940-12-19: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
The postmark one the envelope gives a date of March 23, 1941. Either Miss McDougall took three months to mail the letter, or else Alma lost the original envelope in which it was sent.
2.
You would have felt still greater sympathy, I know, if you had seen us on the night of the 15th November, when an explosive bomb crashed on our little house, destroying a bedroom and the dining room beneath and killing our dear faithful maid outright, but just missing Miss Beard and me who, like her, were sleeping on the floor downstairs.
I don't know what exactly the relationship was between Miss Beard and Miss McDougall. Oh, well.
I can't help wishing that Miss McDougall had mentioned the name of the dear faithful maid. Oh, well.
I find the last part of the sentence confusing. Was the dear faithful maid sleeping upstairs in the bedroom that was destroyed, or downstairs? I'm thinking downstairs. I just have this idea that the maid's room would not have been called a bedroom.
3.
I was almost living in Mount Holyoke at the time of the Presidential election, for, if you remember, I was there in 1932 when Mr Roosevelt came into power, and I felt strongly with you.
More confusion for me. When Miss McDougall says, "I was almost living in Mount Holyoke" does she mean she felt so much sympathy for Alma that she felt as though she were actually there? At any rate, it is interesting to hear what Alma apparently thought about the 1932 election. Of course Alma voted Republican, but apparently she was quite upset over Roosevelt's victory.
4.
If you are in communication with dear Mrs. Thivy perhaps you would kindly tell her our news.
Mrs. Thivy is in the Non-Family page on this website for India folks. She was in the US during the World War II, because she came over before war was declared and then couldn't get back home.
5.
But much love all the same, and my salutations to all at Mount Holyoke who may remember me, especially dear Miss Purington.
I'm not familiar with Miss Purington, but Alma mentioned her in:
6.
Alma mentions Miss McDougall in the above-mentioned 1936 letter to Eva, when Miss McDougall was still in India. Alma talked about a conversation with someone in London:
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.
Miss McDougall seems OK to me here, so I don't know what the issue was.
The postmark one the envelope gives a date of March 23, 1941. Either Miss McDougall took three months to mail the letter, or else Alma lost the original envelope in which it was sent.
2.
You would have felt still greater sympathy, I know, if you had seen us on the night of the 15th November, when an explosive bomb crashed on our little house, destroying a bedroom and the dining room beneath and killing our dear faithful maid outright, but just missing Miss Beard and me who, like her, were sleeping on the floor downstairs.
I don't know what exactly the relationship was between Miss Beard and Miss McDougall. Oh, well.
I can't help wishing that Miss McDougall had mentioned the name of the dear faithful maid. Oh, well.
I find the last part of the sentence confusing. Was the dear faithful maid sleeping upstairs in the bedroom that was destroyed, or downstairs? I'm thinking downstairs. I just have this idea that the maid's room would not have been called a bedroom.
3.
I was almost living in Mount Holyoke at the time of the Presidential election, for, if you remember, I was there in 1932 when Mr Roosevelt came into power, and I felt strongly with you.
More confusion for me. When Miss McDougall says, "I was almost living in Mount Holyoke" does she mean she felt so much sympathy for Alma that she felt as though she were actually there? At any rate, it is interesting to hear what Alma apparently thought about the 1932 election. Of course Alma voted Republican, but apparently she was quite upset over Roosevelt's victory.
4.
If you are in communication with dear Mrs. Thivy perhaps you would kindly tell her our news.
Mrs. Thivy is in the Non-Family page on this website for India folks. She was in the US during the World War II, because she came over before war was declared and then couldn't get back home.
5.
But much love all the same, and my salutations to all at Mount Holyoke who may remember me, especially dear Miss Purington.
I'm not familiar with Miss Purington, but Alma mentioned her in:
6.
Alma mentions Miss McDougall in the above-mentioned 1936 letter to Eva, when Miss McDougall was still in India. Alma talked about a conversation with someone in London:
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.
Miss McDougall seems OK to me here, so I don't know what the issue was.
1940-12-19: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---notes---~LINKS~---site navigation
DOCUMENT LISTS FOR PEOPLE:
- ALMA: DOCUMENTS ----- Incoming
- NON-FAMILY: INDIA FOLKS ETCETERA ----- Mrs. Thivy, Eleanor McDougall
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- DOCUMENTS SORTED BY WHERE THEY WERE WRITTEN ----- United Kingdom
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- AUDIO READINGS OF THE DOCUMENTS: 1940-1949
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