Finding Themselves / The Letters of an American Amy Chief Nurse in the British Hospital in France

by Julia C. Stimson

This letter was not meant for a eulogy, though it seems to have turned into one. But my attention has turned to our unusual good fortune in having such a leader, by the fact that other Chief Nurses do not always get the kind of help and coöperation that I am getting. What would I do if I had forbidden my nurses to do something which I felt was wrong or inadvisable and then the director of the Unit reversed the action? It is an unbearable situation to conceive, but I am afraid some Chief Nurses may have to face just such difficulties. But here such a situation could not possibly exist. Other Units have sneered a little at what they call our religious attitude, having nightly services on the boat, regular attendance at services here, and making the whole thing a prolonged act of service. But as Dr. Murphy said when he talked to our nurses that last night in London, there is only one way of bearing the close contact with such pain and sorrow, of bearing whatever discomforts we may ourselves have to bear, of working out our own internal problems of antipathies or antagonisms, of keeping our souls serene, and that is by doing it all with the deepest religious motive and in utter devotion to service. I have heard him say many times, “We have come to serve in whatever way we can and as long as we are needed.” And so I look ahead to the future with the greatest peace of mind. I am not afraid of any difficulties with my women or with the men.

My women are splendid. A few, of course, have periods of rearing, but they all have steadied down most beautifully. And I think now that it was emotions strained almost beyond endurance at first that caused the rearing. We are all happy, contented, and well, and I am so proud of the spirit of coöperation I find among them I can hardly express it. I certainly have some wonderfully splendid women with me. Some of them have queer exteriors and some queer ways, but they are fine within. Every now and then I put on the bulletin board some little poem about the meaning of the war and the ideals we are fighting for, or a paragraph from some newspaper about America’s quick response to the call for help to defend these ideals, and you ought to see their heads go up and their eyes brighten. They don’t care that they have had bully beef twice in one day or that the knives and forks are sticky, and they have no tablecloths or butter dishes. It would be so hopeless if one did not get a response. My bulletin board is the side of a packing box put on a standard just outside the mess door.

I seem to write such queer things. I was going to tell you about our Fourth of July party. We invited the other American Unit (from Cleveland) down to a baseball game and tea. It was a great success, as the day was fine and we could have our refreshments on the grass under some trees. Miss Watkins, our dear dietitian, and some of the others worked all the afternoon getting sandwiches, and strawberries, and tea, and little cakes, and lemonade ready, which the doctors paid for. It was a great success. Then after dinner we went up to No. 9 General, where the Clevelanders hold forth, and had a little dance in their nurses’ mess hall. We stopped at 11, as we all had a half hour’s walk home. It was a wonderful night. Dr. Allison and I brought up the rear of the procession and discussed the affairs of the universe.

July 10. Ruth and I have been to town this lovely afternoon to do a few errands and wander around the quaint little back streets and visit the wonderful churches. I am having an extra serge uniform made. It has already been a month in the making, but it will probably be finished soon now. It looks as if it were going to be very satisfactory. Before we came back to our camp we had supper at a very French place and enjoyed our omelette aux champignons, sole frite, petits pois au beurre, salade aux fines herbes and café and pêches to the very limit, although we had to pay the very limit for it, and all felt very extravagant when we saw the bill. Food is very expensive, but the French are not losing anything from the English and American trade. They tack on all sorts of prices to everything they can get away with. It is very restful and relieving to the mind to get away from the hospital, and I try to do it at least once every week for the best part of an afternoon.

We are not working too hard here, any of us, but I find that I am pretty tired most of the time because I cannot escape from my responsibilities at any time, even when I am off duty, which is not much except in the evenings because I am right in the middle of things all the time, and each one of the sixty-four has some question to ask almost every time they see me. You see everything over here is different, the details are hard to learn, or rather they are hard to get over to each one of the sixty-four. I have not been sleeping very well for the same reason. I hear every one that goes by my room and I hear all the women in my hut get to bed and all they have to say as they get ready for the night, and I hear them all get up in the morning etc. But I keep thinking that I shall get used to all of this and not be so noticing. I am better than I was in London or on the boat. I have my room fixed up so that it looks quite comfortable. I probably shall spend most of my spare time down here in the office in the grandstand, for down here I am more isolated from my responsibilities. Just outside are the doctors’ tents, but when they perform their ablutions out here in front of my door, it does not disturb me in the least, because it is not up to me whether they are as comfortably taken care of as possible. Their quarters are even more primitive than ours. Many of them are two in a tent in which they can hardly stand upright, and their toilet articles are laid on a box and their clothes they have to hang on the tent pole. We all have a little washstand, and an enamel basin and pitcher and pail, which were furnished us since we arrived here. With that and a small table and a little shelf and some hooks in the corner we can be very civilized.

Hot water is a very great problem, for all our water for cooking, washing dishes, and bathing 104 women is heated in two small tanks over little coal fires, and the supply is very inadequate. But little by little things get made more practical and sensible. So many things were unnecessarily uncomfortable. My next domestic job is to find out how to get dishes for one hundred people washed when hot water is entirely insufficient, so that they are not always sticky and smelly. I presume it can be done, but at present I acknowledge I am baffled. I am taking it for granted that you are interested in these sordid details. They really seem very important over here, although to you in America they probably do not rank as highly as stopping hemorrhages and writing letters for dying soldiers. They truly don’t to us all the time. But this is a trivial letter meant for only a few who want to know details.

To-day our Major Fife, the U. S. Army man who joined us in St. Louis, with two other regular army men, took over the command of the hospital, and Col. J. left. Col. J., the English O. C. (Officer Commanding), has been perfectly charming, and we are all very sorry to see him go. He has been transferred to a neighboring hospital camp, not very far away, so we still may see something of him. Yesterday afternoon, late, I had a little tea party here in my office, which was very delightful. A few days ago I had met the two Colonels of the Australian hospital camp, which is on the other side of the race course, and as the one who is the M. O. (Medical Officer) said he wanted to meet Major Murphy, I invited him and the other O. C. and had Major Murphy and Col. J. and Miss Taylor, and we had a very nice party, with tea, bread and butter, and jam. Then afterwards we took the visiting Colonels down to see some of the American apparatus that we are using on some of our cases. Our Surgical Hut looks like a carpenter shop. We have about ten beds under a wooden canopy frame, to which the poor shattered legs of our blown-to-pieces men are fastened. When a leg is broken in half a dozen places and there are several gaping infected wounds besides, it is something of a trick of carpentry and mechanics to make the poor fellows comfortable, put on extensions so the legs won’t contract, and yet make it possible to irrigate the wounds. We have some wonderful arrangements. It is remarkable the way pulleys and ropes can be arranged so that the men can pull themselves up with their hands to let the nurses rub their backs and change their beds. So many men come to us with terrific bedsores to add to the distress of their shattered legs it takes much ingenuity to take care of them. We have one man who is practically slung in hammocks which are attached with counter weights to the frame over the bed. These small hammocks, or slings, go, one under his shoulders, one under his lower back, and then his leg is in a frame with weights attached to the foot. Rubber tubes are run in and out of his thigh, and knee, and his wounds are irrigated through these tubes which are perforated. This method of irrigating is the Carrel Method. The men in this hut are getting to feel they are such an interesting show, so many people come to see them, that they have begun to make fun by rattling a coin in a tin box and taking up a collection when people ask what they are doing that for.

It’s about time I went up to my room now, as it is after nine and the doctors are beginning to go to their tents and I must sit here ticking away on the machine with the door open. Some nurses came in to talk to me so I was disturbed, even when I thought I had got away from them. They meant well and only came to inquire if I was not well, because they thought I did not look well and were worried. Wasn’t that dear of them. It’s only a lack of proper sleep that makes me look a bit queer. I am not a bit sick, just a bit “groggy.” I really am quite brown, and my hair is quite curly! from all this dampness. It rains part of every day almost.

Good-night for now. It is always fun to think at night, maybe I will get a letter to-morrow. You just cannot imagine how much letters count. I never had them count so much before.

Much love to you all.