Tag Archives: larva migrans

April 9, 1925

Dallas, Texas,
April 9, 1925.

Dear Ina,

It seemed like old times “a year ago” to get your letter today and I enjoyed it very much. No doubt it will be only a couple of weeks before I see you, and I am anxious.

Am working on a manuscript and also doing some work on the cottage lawn and floors, so I am pretty busy just now. Hope to get through before we leave for Uvalde. The manuscript should be completed as soon as possible as it will be presented the latter part of next month and it has a number of hands to go through yet for the necessary criticism. Have been pretty much on the job ever since that work started and I believe we have a real contribution to make. Am anxious to get as much done as possible before next summer’s work starts, as there will be less credit in having assistance next summer. I am anxious to have Dr. White down there with me and I believe it will be arranged OK. In all probability we will have some one from another Bureau too, and I am not so eager for that. However, we must show the courtesy of an invitation as we are getting into another domain to some extent.

April 9, 1925

April 9, 1925

Had another letter from the little French boy a few days ago. He is a pretty prompt correspondent considering the distance.

I am in hopes that I can see more of you this summer than I did last year, and with a beginning earlier in the season, we ought to be pretty well acquainted before I leave Uvalde. It all depends on how many you are dividing your time with, and provided I can get a share of it. I hope you will be liberal enough to let me see you fairly often.

In what direction are you living from Uvalde? Are you between Regan Wells and Uvalde? I imagine we will be up there again this summer, and as far as I can tell most of the men are going to have their wives with them. This is a good reason why you should be considerate enough of me to let me see you. However, I wouldn’t want you to do this just as a matter of courtesy. Don’t let me impose on that sweet disposition of yours. We will talk it over, and see what we have to say about it.

Am glad that you are enjoying a vacation, and I hope you can come up to the Wells and spend some time with us. I think you would like Mrs. Roark and Mrs. Laake, and with a number of these ladies I think you would be properly chaperoned.

I wasn’t very nice to some of Mrs. Roark’s friends in Washington and she may not like me for it, but I wasn’t interested and I guess I was not very courteous in calling on them. I am yet of the same opinion that the girls don’t grow as pretty in any place like they do in Mississippi*. This is a comp. It would be nice if Mrs. Parman could come up to the Wells and spend a while with you up there, as I know that you two get along nicely together.

Looking forward to seeing you, I am

Sincerely,
Walter.

* Though Ina spent most of her formative years in Texas, she was born in Mississippi.

March 17, 1925

Hotel Stationery from “The Everett – European Plan”

Jacksonville, Fla. March 17 1925

Dear Ina,

Was pleased to get your letter this morning as I had considerable doubt as to whether or not you would answer. I am looking forward to my return to Dallas and for the time to come for us to go to Uvalde. I want to see you and lots more than you think I do. I don’t imagine I will ever square myself with you, for you have an awful opinion of me at present. However, I am not really so mean as it has seemed.

March 17, 1925

March 17, 1925

The winter has gone so quickly that I don’t realize it. I was so busy that I almost forgot about everything. I arrived here the 13th and Sat. Dr. K.S. and I went about 100 miles south on a fishing trip. Fished all day Sunday and had a real good time. Have had some work to do here and within a few days I expect to go to Dallas. Will be busy preparing a report for the American Med. meeting which is held at Atlantic City during the latter part of May. Dr. K.S. will be there with Dr. White, but I’ll not go to this one. Will get credit for my work just the same, and probably more credit than I am entitled to claim. Will tell you all about it when I see you. If you are not working then, I hope I can see you a great deal.

You mean more to me than you think, and I am anxious to see you.

Sincerely,
Walter.

Box 208
Dallas

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.

December 30, 1924

Washington D.C.
Dec. 30, 1924.

Dear Ina,

This is some stationery and I am using it to write to a mighty sweet little girl. I am not so sure that she wants me to write to her but when she sent such nice stationery I am going to write anyway.

Today I have been attending the scientific meetings and have found them very interesting. Mr. Bishopp came this morning. I had expected Mr. Parman too, for he is on two papers but I guess Mr. Bishopp will present them.

December 30, 1924

December 30, 1924

I met Prof. Harris of Miss. A&M this noon and have spent most of today with him. He seemed just as interested in me as when I left college and has been quite an inspiration to me. He has been talking to me regarding a PhD degree. He thinks that now is the time for me to work for it. I have been thinking of this for some little time and if possible I want to arrange so that I can get credit for my work with the Bureau.

I am getting along very well with the sectioning and staining and have the causative parasite in sections, but have not made an attempt to have it identified until Mr. Bishopp came up. The problem is out of our domain but if possible I want to arrange to continue the work.

I hope you will let me hear from you often as I enjoy your letters more than you know. I hope the New Year will be the happiest you have ever had.

Always
Walter.

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.

October 30, 1924

Miami, Florida,
Oct 30, 1924

Dear Ina,

Your letter of the 22nd was forwarded to me today and can assure you that I was more than pleased to get it. I didn’t remember that the date was four months from the time I met you, as it seems so much longer.

I am on my way to Homestead Florida tomorrow morning and will spend a day or so there. Will then return to West Palm Beach and spend about a week in work there. The latter part of next week I expect to be in Jacksonville and after a few days will go to Washington. You might address me at Jax as usual in the next letter, and week after next it should be sent to Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D.C.

October 30, 1924

October 30, 1924

My work is just as interesting as ever and I have had recent findings which make it seem that I can begin to see the “handwriting on the wall.” I hope that I have gotten at the real cause, but the details will have to be worked out partly when I am in Washington and mostly when I return to Dallas. When I return to Dallas I’ll have to be able to produce the disease experimentally in order to prove that I have the real cause.

I wish that I could see you and visit as you suggested, as quite often things come into my mind that I would like to discuss with you. To write them would only mean a confusion with possible misunderstandings.

I have never known anyone with whom I felt had ideas so similar to my own and whom I admired so much in so short a time. I wish it had been possible for me to have seen you more and to have known you better when I was there. There might be something that you would not like in me and vice versa. It is well to know pretty well what one likes and dislikes, and at times it requires some time to find out. I honestly feel that we know one another exceptionally well for so short a time but should know each other better. I do feel that I know the young lady in South Dakota too well to love her as a sweetheart, though I must admit that I care a great deal for her. I really care so much for her that I should have exercised more reserve in writing to you as I have. I have had pity for her and no doubt this has developed into a love much stronger on her part than on my own.

Will write you again when I return to West Palm Beach which will be about Sunday or Monday.

Always,
Walter.

October 26, 1924

St. Augustine, Florida
Sunday Oct 26th

My Dear Ina,

I came here last night and will probably be here until some time tomorrow when I will go down the state. Expect to go about as far as there is any land. Will spend a few days at Palm Beach and at the National Park south of there.

I stopped here because we had two severe cases of creeping eruption which originated here at exactly the same spot. Plumbers were installing a furnace in a new building and at one place both became heavily infected with creeping eruption. It has been about three weeks and at this time there should be a development in the soil which would be visible to the naked eye, and of such a stage that it could be determined. The peculiar part of the origin of infestations is that there is no particular reason from a sanitary point of view, and the places would never be suspected unless one was familiar with the origin of the disease.

October 26, 1924

October 26, 1924

I’ll probably be down the state for about a week or 10 days and when I return to Jax I’ll probably be there only a few days before I go to Washington. Will have to make a preliminary report so that Dr. Kirby-Smith can use it at the Southern Med. Meeting in New Orleans. It will not be complete, but a more complete report will be made at the Am. Med. Assn. in New York next June. Dr. K.S. will show the slides and discuss my report at New Orleans. It is barely possible that I’ll be there but I hardly think so as I’ll probably go to Dallas as soon as I have completed my work at Washington. I do not expect to be in Wash. any longer than is necessary for I don’t particularly like it there. So many do like it but not for me. I expect to work hard during the hours, which are short and to take enough library material out to keep me busy during the evenings.

I am sending some material to Dallas and I’ll still have something to do when I arrive there. There are several details which I would like to work out before next June. If possible I want to keep away from any co-operative work with the Public Health Service for I now feel that I have found bottom by myself and would like to solve the rest of it.

Lots of tourists coming to Florida now. One could count 40 to 50 cars per hour on a road leading to Jacksonville. Most of them go further south on both coasts. Sarasota on the West Coast is destined to become another Miami. Real estate is booming, but not ranch or farm property. The farmers own very little land, and won’t allow any body to fence theirs. Cattle run at large and anyone building a fence is apt to have it cut into pieces. The cattle are scrubs and worth very little. The markets handle a great deal of Western beef as the Florida cattle are so tough one can hardly eat it. Northern people have tried to fence large ranches and bring in pure bred cattle but the fences are always cut and if guards are put on them, some one shoots them from the bushes.

I am looking forward to Christmas time when I can see you again. It seems like a long time since I left Uvalde. I love you lots and can’t help but believe that you love me at least a little, though you won’t tell me.

Kindest regards to Mother, Father, and Sister and lots of love for yourself.

Always,
Walter

October 7, 1924

Jacksonville Fla
Oct 7, 1924.

Dear Ina,

Was delighted to get your letter this morning, though sorry that you had felt blue. Since you had intended writing to me the night before when you were blue, I wonder if I was in any way responsible for your unpleasant state. I certainly hope not.

October 7, 1924

October 7, 1924

It was interesting that your teacher friend came over from next door to tell her troubles. No doubt she feels pretty blue, but since she falls in and out of love so easily, the shock would not be so great as to one like yourself.

Dear, you will remember that I told you of my lady friend in South Dakota and that I felt that neither of us knew whether we loved one another because we were together so much. That I felt that we were more like brother and sister. Since I have known you and have fallen so hard for you, I have written to her very little and then such a letter as one would be apt to write any acquaintance. When I left South Dakota the mother was quite bitter toward me for leaving and assured me that she was going to break up all relations between the daughter and I. She was quite mean and I have had no idea of ever seeing her again. The mother seemed to feel that it was convenient to have a man about, and I came to feel that any man would do as well as myself. Though I did know that the daughter cared for me to some extent, but felt that it was due to constant association and living in the same home with them.

The father and I were very good friends and before he passed away he asked me to look after them. I located there and lived with them for five years. Then, having felt that my promise to him had been fulfilled I thought it best to return to my original vocation.

Recently the mother and daughter have been awfully nice and the mother seems to have had a change of heart toward me. She has written to me and I have also had some good letters from the daughter. The mother lost her sister a short time ago, and the daughter feels that she has only her mother who is getting older all the time. To some extent I still feel obligated toward them to an extent to see that they are getting along all right. I can’t help but feel that it is pity and the constant association with them.

I felt that I should tell you about it for I do not want to keep anything from you. I’d rather you would know and especially before you have found that you loved me. I certainly don’t want you to ever feel bitter toward me for anything, and there is absolutely nothing which I would keep from you, except lodge work. You can understand that it cannot be told, or at least your father will know.

I hope you will believe me, Dear, and will not think hard of me. I want you to know everything even though it may be displeasing to both of us. True happiness is based on a good understanding.

My work has been keeping me going and it will be a while before I go to Washington. There are too many cases coming in just now and I have lots of work going. If Dr. White is going to be in Washington all winter there will be no hurry on my part.

Write me here and I’ll let you know before I go up there. In any event, the letters would be forwarded promptly.

I have some very interesting cases here just now, some who have hundreds of lesions and can barely walk. Am planning on some treatment tests as soon as the chemicals arrive, which should be today.

I hope to have a letter from you soon, Dear, & I trust you will not feel hard toward me. I love you and had to tell you about it, though it might have been better had I kept it to myself for a while longer.

The trade for a ranch is very interesting and it should be easier and more profitable for your father. It sounds good to me, though I know it will be difficult not to be able to use a curling iron. She won’t mind that after she puts up her hair on curlers for a few times. The hot iron isn’t especially good for hair anyway.

WIth love,
Always,
Walter.