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.

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.

October 10, 1924

Friday P.M.
Oct. 10, 1924

Dear Walter:

Your letter came this morning, and somehow it gave me the queerest feeling. I have read it over six times already and still I can’t quite understand everything you said in it. You don’t know how much I would give for an opportunity to talk with you right now and find out just exactly what you meant.

Of course you understand that I refer to what you said in regard to your lady friend in South Dakota. I want you to understand that I don’t blame you in the least for trying to keep your solemn obligation, and admire you very much for your loyalty to your promise given the father, but I thought you had done everything you could already. Since the young lady and her mother are financially comfortable as you explained to me when you were here – unless you promised the father that you would marry the daughter, I can’t understand what else you can do to fulfill your obligation. Somehow, I was afraid I detected a tone in your letter that might indicate that you were still a little uncertain as to whether or not you really loved her now. If you are, please tell me. I believe every word you say, and you don’t know how much I appreciate your telling me the things you do. I hope you will not ever hesitate to tell me, whether they will hurt my feelings or not, because uncertainty is worse than the cruel facts. Of course you know I understand that there are secrets in lodges, and I wouldn’t think of being so unreasonable as to want you to tell me those.

October 10, 1924

October 10, 1924

You are not going back to Aberdeen, are you? Every time today that I have thought of the possibility of you going back there and falling in love with the young lady, I have actually gotten weak – and I have been thinking of it (or rather, your letter) all day. It took my appetite, and I just couldn’t get my mind concentrated on my work at the office. I didn’t think I had a spark of jealousy about me, but this letter certainly sounds like it, doesn’t it? I don’t know what it is, but I didn’t know before that I cared so deeply. I want you to know that I don’t feel hard toward you at all, because I don’t.

There are three things that would make me a mighty happy girl to-night, and they are: If I knew you would not go to Aberdeen, if I knew you would not ever fall in love with the young lady from South Dakota, and if I knew positively that nothing would happen to keep you from coming here Christmas.

Walter, I hope you will not think me unreasonable, and hope you will not misunderstand and feel hard toward me for anything I have said in this letter. I just couldn’t help but tell you.

Won’t you please sit right down and write me some kind of a letter right quick?

I don’t mean to be jealous; I don’t mean to be unreasonable; I don’t mean to be – oh, I don’t know what I mean.

Anxiously,
Ina

October 14, 1924

Jax. Florida
Tuesday PM.

My Dear Ina,

Your letter came today, and Dear, I am awfully sorry that you were so much concerned, and I am writing right now as you requested. I am sorry that I caused you the anxiety, but it is a pleasure to know that you care enough to be concerned over it. It really makes me feel that you do care and I love you for it, though my letter was not written for that purpose.

I have never had any desire to keep anything from you and I simply wanted you to know. The young lady and I were quite intimate during my stay in Aberdeen and I have felt very much like a brother to her, she says father too. I know that she cares for me but I can’t help but feel that it is like she would care for a brother. She has no brothers or sisters, and the mother is mighty jealous of her. The mother did not like it when I left Aberdeen and personally I didn’t care, for I didn’t feel that it was necessary for me to stay any longer. I never promised the father that I would marry his family or any member of it, though I know he was in hopes that I would care enough for the daughter to make her my wife. When I was there she did not go with anyone except myself and on one occasion the mother reminded me that I did not give her a chance. I hope she has had chances enough since I left, though I doubt if she has gone with anyone else.

October 14, 1924

October 14, 1924

When I wrote to you last the daughter told me that they were planning a trip South next summer but were waiting for an invitation. What could I do but invite them, though I doubt if they will even consider coming. You can be assured, Dear, that I have no intentions of going to Aberdeen. Should the Mother die suddenly, the girl would probably wire me and as a sense of duty I might go under those conditions. Here’s hoping that she doesn’t die. I certainly intend to see you Christmas. I am looking forward to it. It seems an awful long time since I saw you.

Must go to dinner now, but I wanted to write you a little tonight anyway.

Lots of love
Your
Walter.

October 18, 1924

Jacksonville, FLorida,
Sat. Night Oct 18th

My Dear Ina,

I have thought of you a great many times since I received your last letter and would have wired you, but felt that my letter would soon be there. I wrote as soon as I received yours.

I couldn’t believe that you cared for me enough to be affected in that manner, but Dear, it almost makes me shout with joy to know that you do care. You have a great deal of reserve not to have told me before, but may be you didn’t know until then. I usually express my feelings and I guess it would be better if I were more reserved too. I believe I talk more freely to yourself, for it seems to be the natural thing to do. Just seems that I know you so well, and love you so, that I just have to tell you. I want you to know everything and I am apt to hurt your feelings but I certainly don’t want to. If you only knew just how much I do love you I am sure that what I told you about the young lady in South Dak. would not affect you at all. I only wish that you knew whether or not you loved me enough to let me bring you back with me at Christmas, when I will see you. But I want you to be sure and I’ll wait until you know whether you love me that much or not. I only hope that you will be frank with me and tell me regardless of how you feel toward me.

October 18, 1924

October 18, 1924

Your last letter was the sweetest I have ever received and if you knew how I felt, you would feel that someone loved you a great deal.

You can rest assured that I have no intention of going to South Dakota and that I really love you and want you. I’ll see you Christmas and while I would like to have your answer then, I want you to be sure of yourself. Will wait until you do decide.

Had a mighty fine letter from Sis and she is very happy. Wants me to stop over with them when I return from Washington. I will, if it can be arranged satisfactorily. I am not sure about the time I’ll return nor the route either. I want you to know her for she is some sister. She admired your photo very much when I saw her and I know she would love you. I am equally sure that you would like her too.

Write soon, won’t you, for I love you and only you.

Your,
Walter.

October 19, 1924

Sunday Afternoon.
Oct 19, 1924.

Dear Walter:

Your letter came as a relief, and it made me happy again. I had already figured how long it would take you to receive my letter, and then how long it would be before I could receive a reply. Your letter came exactly the hour I expected it, and it certainly saved me a great disappointment by its being on time. When I mailed my last letter to you I almost felt like doing as our Court house janitor’s little four year old son did a few days ago. The little boy’s Aunt at Yoakum, Texas had just sent his mother some pretty red beads, and nothing would do but that the mother must write the aunt at once to send the little boy some beads too. They sent him down to the postoffice alone to mail the letter. That was at eleven o’clock in the morning – noon came, but the little boy did not return. His parents searched, but he was nowhere to be found. Finally, about three-thirty in the afternoon, Son came home. When they asked him where on earth he had been so long his reply was “Well, I was just waitin’ for my beads.” So I felt very much like sitting in the post office and waiting for a reply to the letter I had just written. I suppose you thought I was foolish for writing such a letter, but I hope you will forgive me for it. That was just the way I was feeling, and just the way I would have talked to you had you been here, so I just wrote it. I want you to know that I appreciated the letter you wrote in reply, and appreciate your frankness in telling me of the things that thappened while you were living in Aberdeen. I sincerely hope that the whole affair will turn out for the best.

October 19, 1924

October 19, 1924

Mr. and Mrs. Parman returned from their Tenn. visit two days ago and reported a “grand and glorious” time. They were gone only two weeks, and a high school boy here took care of things while they were gone. None of the entomologists from out of town came for special work while they were gone. Mr. and Mrs. Parman came by this morning and asked all of us to go up in the canyons with them to spend the day, but Claudelle and I had some special church work today, Papa was out of town, and Mama didn’t want to go without us, so we didn’t accept the invitation.

The Baptists have been having a big revival for the past week, and we have been enjoying it very much. I think a revival of the “old time religion” is the finest thing in the world for Uvalde right now. There seems to be so much hatred and strife among the people here and some people refuse to speak to each other – all on account of political differences. It is a terrible condition of affairs, and I can’t help but believe that this revival will do a great deal toward re-uniting them.

No, we haven’t moved yet. I think it will be the first of November before we go. We went up to the ranch a few days ago and think we will like it fine after the house is repaired some. We are very anxious to get out there so that we can begin to make it look more like someone is interested in making it look home-like. The weeds are about waist high in the yard, part of the fence is down, the doorsteps are almost down, and dozens of other things need repairing.

Walter, it makes me awfully happy every time I think of your coming Christmas. It seems like an age since you were here, but really it will have been only about six months Christmas since I first met you. That is a half year though, isn’t it. Anyhow, I surely will be glad when the time comes.

I must hurry and mail this so it will get off on the next train.

Sincerely,
Ina

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 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.

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.

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.