January 26, 1949
All is quiet for the night-or maybe just long enough for a few lines to you. Since we are short-staffed, I've taken over two floors for one of the medical interns as well as helping him on five other floors. We have all kinds of patients with all kinds of illnesses, emergency room calls, and sometimes distress signals from the "Home" department. It was a big responsibility to get used to at first but now I can sleep any odd moment.
The results are out and I can announce that I came through the nine Maryland State Board exams in fine shape. I am now a licensed physician capable of anything from sticking a thermometer in your mouth to taking out your brain tumor. I can practice in this state and reciprocate licenses with 40 other states. If I have to retire from the mission field at the ripe old age of 65, I may still, have a few years of usefulness in this country. The license may then come in handy. Through my interest in the chapel I have been invited to act as lay reader at daily evensong. The chaplain doesn't seem to object to a blood-and-bone Baptist like me and I declare to you the lessons shall be slowly and meaningfully read, just like Grandmother Howard did up to 90 years of age.
Mother, it goes without saying that you have to make some adjustment to American ways again, and at the same time to a now physical period in your life. It's a shame that in moments of depression you should feel yourself a failure as a parent. You are to be likened to a star performer in an opera company who has demonstrated her excellence year after year to countless people. Then one day her voice fails to serve as usual. Does that mean all is lost, or that her previous record is cancelled?
You are not beginning life all over again. You are just in a new environment and must adjust to new demands and interests. Do not mull over the past, either its omissions or failures. No human being attains even his own ideal of perfection in this world.
Your selfless devotion all these years stands as incontrovertible fact. I sincerely and joyously acknowledge your share in making me what I am today. I often think about the time I received the student government award my last year at Woodstock. I regret more than I can say that I did not stop on my way down the aisle to pin the watch on your breast as grateful Indians have a way of doing things. You were the one who really deserved the honor.
I realise more and more what it demanded of you to bring up four sons in India. The happiest memories of our lives center in the home you made for us. Will we ever forget the low-hung mists of the cool December dawns...the rustle of the peepul tree's leaves in the front yard...the bulging red Christmas stockings? We took so much for granted, so little realizing it was your genius that provided our comfort and happiness.
The Chinese, I believe, have a saying that any woman who has planted a tree, or dug a well, or borne a child, has fulfilled her destiny in this world. You have done all three, many times over, so for your own mental health and out of fairness to the everlasting grace of God, stop that backward looking and get to work! Build a house or write a book or any crazy thing you want to.
July 18, 1949
I'm writing from the Ft. Meade hospital, I've not been home for four days and before that it was a solid week, we are extra busy at Church Home due to the periodic changeover from Medicine to Surgery. Medicine was bad enough but since July we've been going tooth and nail.
I usually have a full day in the operating room. In addition I have my own ward of surgical patients, and as Assistant Resident in OB I supervise the interns on the OB floor. Dorothy D'Sena, our friend from Calcutta, is one of my recruits and she is doing really well. We carry a prenatal clinic of about 50 mothers, so they filter in at all times for delivery.
I stopped working at the Well Baby clinic the end of June since I could not meet their daytime hours, but at once another opportunity presented. The U.S. Army, being short of doctors, uses some civilian medicos. I applied and was promptly accepted. In fact five of us from Church Home during our off-duty hours there take turns going to Ft. Meade, 20 miles out. We work one night a week and one weekend a month. We take care of all ambulance calls, accident cases, OB work and the general "rounds". We even got a little sleep sometimes, and we got paid by the hour!
Bill Parkinson, the Mission Boards candidate secretary, came down from New York lately just to let us know we are the most wanted family he's heard of. Doctor shortage on the mission field too.
September 22, 1949
Yesterday was one of the great days of our lives. We were accepted as missionaries by our Foreign Mission Board.
The procedure prior to our appointment was less formidable than anticipated. We first met with the Candidate Committee of about a dozen members and stated our Christian convictions and purpose before them. There was not much discussion since all the spade work had previously been done by the secretary who placed the briefs he made about us in the hands of the members.
The next day we and another couple, the Chester Galaskas, appeared before the entire Board and again stated our convictions and purposes. At this meeting we saw a number of people whose names had long been familiar like Dr. Jesse Wilson, Mr. DeTrude, Mr. Forrest Smith and others. Later we conferred with DeTrude about finances and with Steve Goddard the travel man, about shipping and our own transportation.
We hope to sail the end of August 1950, which will allow a month for packing and farewells after I finish at Church Home. We know better now how to plan with the Board's well-prepared travel folder in our hands.
We were designated to the South India field, though great needs exist in Burma, Assan and Bengal-Orissa too. I feel a great sense of responsibility for Bengal-Orissa and must try to work out some plan to help them there. I'm intensely interested in the public health aspect of the problem, but it takes careful planning.
My destination lies between Ongole and Hanumakonda, our two general hospitals in South India. Both are good-sized, with associated nursing schools. Both need many things besides doctors, but Mr. DeTrude (treasurer) has already warned me against hoping for any new buildings since the war-wrecked fields must be taken care of first. Well, we shall see. I know nothing of conditions yet. Nor of discouragement.
Dad, did I tell you I received the India railway posters you sent? They are like a breath of mountain air to my starved spirit. I tacked them up in my room at the hospital and there is not a doctor on the place who has not seen and admired them. Thank you so much.