The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1939-01-16

In the beginning she mao though
Of him as boy although he vas
already 80 when he arrived that
day in the Rolls She had never
thought Of men as men because all
her life had been so full-there
were never enough hours in the
day: and because she was. In her
way. great woman, few men
had ever come her way 10 whom
she did not feel superior, not only
as a woman but even at times as
a man. In the beginning he had
seemed more like the embodiment,
a very attractive embodiment to
be sure. of an idea, something to
which she herself had devoted her
whole life and her immense ener-
gies
Her own story had begun long
ago as the child of an eccentric
Scotch doctor, who chose to settle
in Sourabaya, practicing his pro-
fession when some one needed him,
but far more interested in his
laboratory, in tropical fevers. in
curious diseases.
Undertaking Life Time job
And so his daughter had been
brought up in the East, not like
the child of a merchant or civil
servant, raised in a compound or
in the foreign settlement and sent
to England to school. She had lived
at times almost like a native.
knowing the sons and daughters
of the local merchants and the
half-caste children of Dutch plant
ers. She could speak Dutch and
Malay perfectly by the time she
was TO- and by the age of 30 she
had learned Hindustani and Gu
jerati as well. When she was 20
she went to England to train for
nursing.
II was the first time in her life
she had ever been out of the orient,
and although she loved the misty
beauty of the Scottish hills and
the quiet green of English gar
dens, they were always strange
to her And everything she saw
seemed small and rather drab, for
in her heart and in her soul We're
all the violence, the magnificence
and the squalor of the East.
Then after four years she had
come back without regrets to the
East, where she felt at home.
happy in the grandeur and vio-
lence and the color which Europe
never knew. She got as far as
Bombay, and after she had been
there a little less than a year
there came an opportunity such
as warmed the heart of a woman
like Miss MacDaid. In all Bombay
there was not another woman who
would consider it. but Miss Mac
Daid had said yes Immediately on
one late December afternoon when
she found herself in the office of
the hospital superintendent, talk
ing to the rather stocky little
Indian in European clothes who
was the great Maharajah of
Ranchipur.
He wanted to found a hospital
and a training school for nurses.
He wanted to educate his people
in the care of children. He wanted
to stamp out plague and cholera
and the terrible malaria, which
disappated the energies of his
people. A kind of makeshift hos
pital already existed, but he
wanted to establish one of the very
best and most modern of hos
pitfalls, like the ones he had seen
in Germany.
They looked at each other for
full minute-the squat Maharajah
and plain, vigorous, young Miss
MacDaid-and in that moment
there passed between them an I'M
Outstanding and a sympathy which
from then on was never to be
broken, either by intrigue or preju-
dice or despair
The Scotswoman said simply,
Eyes. Your Highness, I'll go"
The Maharajah said, 1T won't
be easy, you know. Miss MacDaid."
I've lived in the East all my
life, Your Highness. I know the
difficulties. All l ask is this OPP
portunity."
In those days the work of the
Maharajah was only Just begun
and the town presented a strange
spectacle of chaos, not alone the
physical chaos of roads and streets
under construction of new build
ings going up. of old rookeries
being town down, but what was
much more important, of the
spiritual and psychological con-
fusion of a whole people in the
process of having their lives re-
made by their ruler and a hand
full of educated subjects.
The Maharanee had just finished
her book urging the women to
come out of purdah, to learn to
read and write, 10 undertake pro-
LESSONS. Her high school for girls
had just been opened and the
daughters of ministers and princes
and Brahmins had been ordered
to attend it willy-nilly. side by side
with any Untouchable girl who
wanted to learn.
Into the midst of this came Miss
MacDaid and her thin, pale satel-
lite. Miss Eldridge, to find a hos
pital with earthern floor, leak
ing roof and a native pharma-
copeia. stated by a half educated
surgeon more concerned with the
cut OF his European clothes than
with the welfare of his patients,
and a couple of doctors, whose
equipment was a strange mixture
of midwife's superstitions and old
fashioned science.
There was puerperal fever and
recurrent tvphus the ever-present