Tag Archives: Washington

March 8, 1925

Washington D.C.
March 8, 1925.

Dear Ina,

I haven’t had an answer to my letter and I wonder if I will get one or if there is some doubt in your mind as to where to send it. May be I don’t deserve an answer, but I’d like one just the same.

I expect to leave here about Wednesday for Jacksonville and I’ll be there for at least a week. Am looking forward to a good fishing trip while there. Dr. Kirby-Smith says they are biting good. Mr. Bishopp is getting anxious for me to return to Dallas and I am equally as anxious to get there. I certainly had some job here but it was worth the effort. With the exception of a very few evenings I have been on the job constantly since the middle of November. I did stop long enough to eat Christmas dinner with one of the men and his family. I have made between fifty and sixty thousand sections from the skin tissue taken at Jax this summer, and am able to demonstrate the thing in five instances. This was mighty good news to Dr. K.S. as he has been searching for the thing during the past fifteen years. There are no less than fifty reports in medical literature, dating back to ’92, and none have found the thing that causes the majority of the cases. During the past week have worked with a photographer in getting photos made, and I imagine it will take us until Wednesday to get prints and slides made. I hope to have Dr. White with me at Jax next summer, and possibly also Dr. Ransom. They will probably be there during the clinic.

March 8, 1925

March 8, 1925

I am in hopes of being at Uvalde during the spring, and there is no one in the world whom I want to see more than I do you. I trust you will grant me permission. I have something to tell you, and when I have told you I hope you won’t think I am so mean and heartless.

With every good wish, I am,

As ever,
Walter.

P.S. This is swell stationery for me to be using, and I only use it when I write to you.

November 30, 1924

Sunday A.M.

My Dear Ina,

I expected you to write me a pretty severe letter and I almost dreaded to read it, for I felt guilty of having been quite mean in writing. However, I was not aware that it had been so long. I was at West Palm Beach only a day when I returned and that probably accounts for the fact that I did not fill my promise in writing from there. I was rushed when I returned to Jax and I am sure that I did not write a letter of any nature until I reached Washington. But just the same it was mean of me to have waited so long and I deserved a good calling for it. Instead, you wrote a most wonderful letter and you don’t know how much I appreciated it nor how much it is helping.

November 30, 1924

November 30, 1924

You were quite right in saying that I could not be sure of myself in so short a time. I am not sure, and that is where your letter helps me. You seem to understand me and my dilemma. I know that everything will come out for the best, and I always feel that things happen for the best. The Supreme Being has a way of doing things that we cannot always understand. The fact that I met you and learned to care so much in so short a time, and that our ideas seemed so perfect in harmony, was no doubt more than a coincidence or happening. You haven’t heard me say anything about religion but in a large manner I believe in predestination. The Bible certainly teaches it in the case of Judas. I cannot believe that everything is predestined, but I do believe that through our conscience we are influenced by a Divine Plan. I believe we are held accountable for violating what our conscience dictates to us.

You have been an inspiration to me and you don’t know how much I really do care for you. I really feel that I love you best, but I believe that the other loves me more. Of course you and I have been together very little and I doubt if you can tell whether or not that you love me. My hope is that I can be with you more and then we will be more sure of ourselves. I had planned on seeing you Christmas, but it has developed that my work here will keep me going until after that time. I have worked every evening since I’ve been here and holidays too, except Thanksgiving when I had dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Roark. Mr. Bishopp writes that it would be fine to attend the meeting of the American Association of Economic Entomologists which will be held here during the Christmas holidays. I know that I can’t possibly finish the sectioning and staining before that time, so I’ll plan to attend the meeting. I came up without an overcoat as I expected to get through shortly, but am writing Mr. Laake to ship it to me. I had really planned on seeing you, Dear, and am disappointed. I hope you will believe me. Maybe I can run down for a few days during the early part of the year, that is if you feel that you would like to see me. If you don’t care to see me I would appreciate your telling me.

The sections of skin removed from patients in Florida have been brought here and I am working under Dr. White and am doing my own sectioning. They are first put through a number of solutions and then embedded in paraffin blocks. From these blocks I use a machine to cut the sections, which are mounted on slides in the order that they occur in the skin specimen. They are then subjected to 15 various treatments and stains, so that the complete structure can be studied microscopically. It is a tedious task and when they are completed I’ll probably have 20,000 sections for study. I wanted to give you an idea of what I was doing.

The appropriation bill has not passed as yet and we will not know until about April, but a request was made by Dr. K.S. with endorsements of the State and City Health boards. The Senator promised support, so no doubt but that we will get enough to do some good work in Florida another year. I believe the station will be permanent when it is established for there are a number of problems to be worked out by our Bureau on the line we are following.

I certainly enjoyed the work down there and I like the climate year round.

I am enclosing a newspaper account which we ran about the time I left Florida. It isn’t complete by any means and couldn’t be at this stage of the study. We also reported at the Southern Med. Meeting at New Orleans last week. I’ll send a copy of it when it is published.

You do understand me, Dear, and I hope you will be patient with me. I’ll try and not disappoint you again, for it hurts to know that I did not keep my word about writing from W. Palm Beach.

You are wonderful and your letters are an inspiration.

Sincerely,
Walter

Clipping in separate envelope.

Government Experts Finish Study of Creeping Eruption (clipping)

Government Experts Finish Study of Creeping Eruption (clipping)

November 16, 1924

Wash. D.C.
Sunday Nov. 16th.

Dear Ina,

It was nice of you not to be offended when I failed to write regularly. I have been rushed and am yet on the go. I thought it possible to get through here so that I could attend the Southern Med. Assn with Dr. Kirby-Smith at New Orleans, but it is too much. Am preparing a preliminary report for the meeting which will be read by Dr. K.S. when he gives his report.

November 16, 1924

November 16, 1924

I cannot tell you just how long I’ll be here but probably a couple of weeks or longer. I have not yet started on the sections of skin which were removed at Jax, and this is a long tedious job. As soon as I complete this part of it, I will go to Dallas. Have shipped lots of material there and hope to have the causative thing isolated so that I can make some detail studies of it when I get down there. This part of the work will have to be completed before I will know definitely just what I shall work with when I return to Dallas.

I have had quite a few letters from South Dakota and I know that the young lady really loves me, though for a long time I thought it was more like the love of a brother and sister. I want you to know about it though it isn’t pleasant to tell you about it. The fact that I lived with them and knew them so well probably accounted for the fact that I felt this way about it. I guess she felt so certain that we would be married that the situation became more like that of a couple who had been married for years or similar to a brother and sister who lived at home. She took everything for granted and in the meantime I felt that we were drifting apart. When I left there, the mother was very bitter toward me, simply because I didn’t stay there. The young lady, however, wanted me to do what I thought best.

That was the situation when I met you, and I have to admit that I fell pretty hard for you. Had you accepted when I proposed I know that I would not have kept up the South Dak correspondence. Since then the young lady has made me believe that she loves me, and there is no doubt in my mind. The mother has also written and she feels quite differently toward me now. I do love the young lady though at the time I met you, I felt that it was more of a brotherly love. You see I had been about the same as a father and brother to her for a number of years, and came to feel that way, rather than as a sweetheart. I want you to know just how it stands before you discover whether or not you do love me.

I have no plans to be married at the present time and under the conditions I believe it best to let a little time help me. It is a question of life time happiness and I don’t believe in rushing into it until one is certain.

I feel that I know her too well and that I do not know you well enough. I trust you will see it as I do and will understand that I have no secrets, but want to be fair and above board with everything.

Write me here for I will be here for at least two weeks.

Always,
Walter.

November 13, 1924

Postcard

November 13, 1924

November 13, 1924

Arrived here this P.M. Will write letter in day or two. Guess I’ll be here about 3 weeks. Address c/o Bureau of Entomology. I like Jax so well I hated to leave there. Will not go to meeting at New Orleans as I won’t have time to finish the work here.

Walter.

September 30, 1924

Jacksonville Fla
Sept 30 1924

My Dear Ina,

Was glad to get your letter and to know that you were feeling fine.

I have just received a letter from Mr. Bishopp to the effect that Dr. White is having so much to do that he will not be able to section the material I have sent him. The plan is to have me go to Washington about the 5th of Oct for a period of about two weeks so that I can do the work myself. I am glad to have the opportunity of working with Dr. White and also of doing my own work, as I have felt a need for a little more training and experience on this particular thing. I am very glad to go and I am very sorry that I can’t be in Uvalde, but as you suggested I guess all things work out to the best advantage.

September 30, 1924

September 30, 1924

I understand that Dr. Roark is in Dallas now and no doubt there will be a couple to come to Uvalde with him. I can hardly understand how Mr. Parman can take a vacation if they come down there, but I presume they have arranged something.

I have quite a few cases under my own experimental treatments and also have an opportunity of seeing quite a number whom Dr. Kirby-Smith is treating at his office. If work continues like this, I may not get away for quite a while. They keep me going just now. I locked my door so as to write you, for I know that otherwise I would only get started on the letter and would have to leave it, and probably would not get to it again for a day or so.

Have just had a call from one of the schools here that a number of the kids are infested. Will try and look them over tomorrow, and I am in hope that some new chemicals will get here by that time so that I can try them out there.

The ones I am treating are the ones who feel that they can’t afford to go to Dr. K.S. office, and I am utilizing this opportunity to test some new treatments. We have an effective treatment for cases when they are newly infected, but after the cases become old and resistant it is not so effective. Am trying others for these cases, as so many who go to the Doctors are old cases and quite difficult to treat.

Excuse the brief letter, Dear, but I must go. Have a man who can’t get down here or even get out of bed, and we are going out to see him. Has several hundred on his limbs and arms. Plumber by trade and hasn’t slept for a week.

With love,
Walter.