Jax Fla. Friday night.

My Dear Sweetheart,

It was about this time last week when I mentioned that the clinic would be under way at this time. While it actually started at 9 this A.M. for the public, it started with me at 8:15 last night and at the time I arrived. Dr. K.S. met me and it was almost like one Frenchman meeting another (they fall on the necks of one another). He had everything all fixed and details arranged. We waited at the station until 8:30 when Dr. White arrived. Then we talked the thing over until about 11 o’clock, when K.S. went home, then Dr. White and I talked until we went asleep. We have double beds in the same room at the Seneca Hotel.

July 10, 1925 (Walter)

At eight o’clock this A.M. we had breakfast at the coffee shop with K.S. and I received your letter at the same time. We were at the State Health Building about 8:45 and there were two patients waiting when we got there. Two nurses and a girl were on the job right away. We had 22 patients during the day, but only 11 were “larva migrans” or “creeping eruption.” A few of them were also patients last summer and they remembered me by name. It was interesting that the cases developed at the homes under the same condition as they did last year, and it is the bunch of “repeat infection” cases that I want to study in detail with Dr. White when the clinic is over. We were busy all day and Dr. White “enjoyed every minute of it.” He saw his first cases today and he appreciates what the problem really is. It is now 10:30 and we have talked it when we were not working. He is in bed now.

Dr. White and I were guests at the Civitan Club for lunch with Dr. Arius. Dr. Arius is a laboratory man in charge for the state Health Board. The Civitan Club is very similar to the Rotary and the meeting was quite a “peppy one.” Tonight we had dinner at the place where Dr. K.S. and I usually ate last summer. He ordered the same thing and it tasted equally as well.

It started raining a few days ago and we had a pretty good shower today. Will have one most every day for a few weeks.

Jacksonville looks natural in every way and I feel very much at home here. There are lots of tourists here, even now, and the hotels are quite crowded. Dr. K.S. had made reservations for us.

Tomorrow noon we close until Monday and I hope to take Dr. White to some of the places where creeping eruption originated last summer and to verify some of the many things I have been telling him. He is certainly interested. Sunday we expect to locate a place on the beach where we can have living and laboratory quarters. Dr. White feels that what we accomplished in the work last year, stands out in a class by itself and above any research in our Bureau. It received very favorable comment from the Johns Hopkins people who are doing most of the work along this line. I don’t mean to “toot my own horn” but I wanted to tell you. I hope I can keep Dr. White for a month or six weeks, as there is no end to his knowledge.

Your letter, Dear, was the sweetest I have ever read and it is next best to a talk with you. You are so sweet, to have had one waiting for me when I arrived. It was so different from the ones I received a year ago. I appreciate what you said about saying “goodbye.” I, too, had a lump in my throat and I felt that you should be leaving with me. You don’t know how much it hurt to leave you. But there is a time coming, Dear, and then I can have you with me always. I should ask Mother Lewis and “Daddy” too, but it is about all that I can do to write you tonight.

It was real sweet of Thelma Lee and I am surprised that her feeling was so marked concerning an engagement. She is by no means an average child to have so seriously considered the meaning of the ring. It looks as though I have to walk on the hearts of quite a few in order to get you, and I only hope that all of them will be repaid with a joy which will counteract the good fortune I am to have. I have often heard that to get anyone you love, it is necessary to step on the heart of some one else and I guess my case is no exception.

But your love is something greater and grander than anything in the world to me, and there isn’t an hour but what I think of you, Dear. I wish for you every time I think of you. The thought of having you as “mine forever” is, indeed, the goal I desire more than anything else. I only hope that I can make you happy.

I love you more than I can “express” and here’s hoping nothing will ever “check” it.

With a sweet goodnight and pleasant dreams,

Your
Walter.