The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1922-06-29
LITTER FROM HELEN DIZNEY
Taiku, Shansi, China,
May 1, 1922.

btat TTltHuss-
There never will be more oppor-
tune time to write this letter have
Rad in mind to write for so long.
The opportuneness lies in the fact
that we are cut Oft from all mail and
there are no immediate letters to be
answered. You are probably better
acquainted with the civil war Of Chi
ma, thru cable service, than we are
here in China, for we don't even get
Chinese newspapers from the coast.
We ourselves are far from strife, for
ours is a peace loving Governor. He
even turned down the great war lord.
WI Pei Flu, when the loan of our
Shansi troops was asked, and more
over the good man said, "You can't
take the Shensi troops thru Shansi."
and backed it up by sending troops
up to the Yellow River to see that
the troops went thru Honan instead
of Shansi. The last we knew def
nitely was that Chang Tso Inns
troops from the north and WI Pei
Fu's from the south were centering
around Peking, and the fact that no
mail is coming in proves that the
railway between here and Picking is
torn up. We also know that the
railway between Peking and Shang-
hal is torn up. Foreigners are in no
particular danger.
There are those, among the many
| call friends. who profess to be in
terested in my work. These l will
now bore with a detailed account of
my work. I have now reached tina.
state of proficiency with the Ian
guage that enables me to put in four
hours day oiling the wheels of the
two hospitals under my care, four
other hours of the day being spent
in gaining further proficiency in the
language, and incidentally getting off
language credits. The speed with
which | do the latter is nothing to
amaze anybody.
Why not take you thru the hospi-
tai with me? We will go thru the
small gate that opens into the Wo-
mems Hospital court. and save the
long walk down to the motor road
and into the big front gate. The
gate is locked, of course, both for
safety of property and because Chi
ma has always kept her women in
licked courts, and far be it from US
to turn them loose, The gate is be-
side the church just outside the big
compound gate, the compound being
the walled in space where We for
eigners live. The little distance be-
tween the two walled in courts affords
an enticing glimpse of the fields
green with winter wheat, men busy
blowing, men at the wells drawing
water and pouring it into small irri-
cation bitches, and back of the fields
the solid, gray, impassive wall Of
Tia ,ku city, from the center of which
rises the beautiful white pagoda,
cleaning like ivory in the sun, and
in the shadow of which the mission
aries were killed in 1900. The new
building you see is the new Esther
I. Barton hospital, gift to the wo-
men of China from the First Con-
gregational Church of Oak Park, Ill
inois, and named for the wife of the
pastor. Isn't it beautiful, with it's
sober gray walls and gay green roof
that curls up at the end? The up
stairs is the living quarters for the
women Chinese and foreign medical
staff and nurses. To the left down.
stairs are the rooms to be used for
clinic, chapel and Offices. My pride
shall know no bounds when "H. Dig
rey, r. N, Superintendent of
Nurses" will be printed elegantly,
but simply on one of those doors. To
the right of the entrance will be one
ward, one private room for foreign
women, one for Chinese. If the door
between the two hospitals were open
we could see clear thru to the front
door of the Mems Hospital. But
that door is discretely locked, and
nobody has key except the doctors
and me. OF / don't divide this para
graph nobody will read it thru
The rooms to the left along this
corridor are dining rooms for pa
tients and nurses, kitchen for cook
ing the women's food, and a room
fer the man who does our coolie work.
VIC are now in the part of the hos
pital that burned, and that used TO
be the entire Women's Hospital. We
call it the Restored Wing because it
dent seem right to keep on saying,
"the burnt wing" while there il