She kept in touch with all the doctors and students who had been at any time connected with the Hospital, if writing only at notable times such as the big anniversaries or when some special report or Fair souvenir was published. She always inquired how they were getting on, and whether they received the annual reports of the Hospital which were always sent to their latest address. And so she was kept informed of their changing circumstances, their successes or discouragements, their marriages, their husbands, their children, and their problems of many kinds.
In beginning practice they had the varied fortunes which might be expected from differing individualities, equipment, resources and environment. Some found doors already opened to welcome them; some had to make places for themselves. One of the latter group writes to her:
I am now doing very satisfactorily but I often think how prophetic you were when you used to warn us, saying, “Five years of waiting and starvation are before every one of you.”
Their addresses were scattered all over the world—over the United States from Maine south to Florida and west to California; on the north to Canada; and east and west to England, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, India,[23] Persia, Japan, China.
In keeping with the breadth of view which characterized her and her director associates, no discrimination has ever been made at the New England Hospital regarding sects, races or nationalities in students, doctors, nurses or patients.
As we have already seen, Dr. Zakrzewska had always a large circle of friends among the famous and high-minded men of her time, and her influence with the men in the families of her patients has also been noted.
It remains to add a word as to the number who were proud to call themselves her “boys.” A specimen letter from one of these latter, signed by a name well known in Boston, says:
Dear Doctor:
As no person in the world outside of my own immediate family is dearer to me than yourself, I want you to be one of the first to know of my engagement to —— ——, and I am sure you will approve of my choice.
Trusting that we may meet before long, I am as ever one of your boys.
She had no theologic affiliations. Her clear vision and her keen reasoning powers were unsatisfied with any form of dogma, creed or ritual yet elaborated. And she found these latter unnecessary to the development of a rule of life which reconciled the untrammeled intellect and the highest ethics yet evolved by an upward-struggling humanity.
She was able to organize instinct, training, reason, observation, experience and personal association, and to add to these the communion with the great minds of the race which is to be derived from reading—each continually checking up and correcting all the others. So she developed a mind which she kept in a wholesome state of flux, ready to modify any conclusion as new light rose above the horizon.