Letters 15
It's 1948 at Church Home in Baltimore and I appear on the scene.
May 18, 1948
This is as good a time as any to tell you I'm busy my rare off nights at home building a little crib. It's something like an exotic plant--I'm not sure what it will be like when it grows up, but I hope it will be the right shape and size to hold the expected heir. Tissie is in fine spirits and continues her work at WCBM.
Mohini Das, an Indian Christian girl whose mother is principal of Isabella Thoburn College for Girls at Lucknow, has come to Hopkins to do an internship in Obstetrics. Because I know some of her relatives out there she has been a frequent and welcome visitor at our apartment. She gave Tissie a gorgeous peach colored Benares sari, and not long ago she took us out to a hotel to celebrate her birthday. She and Tissie wore their saris and I felt like a very special gentleman with two such attractive Indian ladies in tow!
August 23, 1948
Flash!
REGAN ELLIS HOWARD was born today at 2 p.m. [Yay me!!] It is a little early to describe him but he seems to have a ski jump nose, my hairless forehead, and big strong hands. [Whaaat??]
Tissie’s mother, Mrs. Croft, has arrived to take charge of us all and will remain, probably, until we leave Baltimore.
September 4, 1948
The domestic chaos following the arrival of our first-born is gradually clearing up. The crib fits OK, but the child, when hungry, raises a voice like a foraging jackal! [After many years I have changed and believe am now quite pleasant.]
My long desire to get into some public health work in this country was fulfilled this week. I was appointed one of the clinic physicians to the Child Hygiene Bureau of the City Health Department. I take care of two of the city's Well Baby clinics, giving physical exams, inoculations, and miscellaneous advice calculated to bring the child through his first six years.
It is no mean education for a doctor to say nothing of a new father, and an incidental benefit is the respectable financial renumeration.
December 3, 1948
Time now for only the barest bones of news. We are moving tomorrow to a roomy first-floor apartment on Parkside Drive [The place still exists.]. Uncle Lee came by to urge us to go out to Ongole [Location in India of a Baptist mission hospital] soon, but he may concede an extra year, since after all my debating about it, the chance for a Surgical Residency fell into my lap for next year.
Dorothy D’Sena, our young Anglo Indian friend from Calcutta, has been offered an internship at Church Home through my recommendation. By this time she may have had other offers but she will be wise to come here. For one thing, as Assistant Resident, I would be in direct charge of her work and help her make the adjustment to American ways and unique opportunities.