Rotorua to Wairaiki
Sallie Dear,
Here we are at the funniest little inn you ever saw – just like a little roadside cottage. We left Rotorua this morning at eight and coached till noon – then got into a little motor boat and crossed a lake of boiling water. It was bubbling up all around us and whenever we got near the shore the steam was simply pouring out from the blow holes all around.
Father’s letter of credit and tickets came last night. Just happened to remember we had and brought our lunch with us and ate it in the boat, then walked about four miles over the worst slidy gravel you ever saw, but for them who likes geysers and hot springs, etc. I suppose it was very interesting. The last big eruption was twenty years ago and that smashed up everything and buried most of the neighboring towns. We have to spend the night here and tomorrow we coach to Wairaiki.
Father went fishing on Friday with some other people and had a fine time; they brought back 24 lovely, big, rainbow trout.
I got a perfectly fine book – Dr. Watson’s Handbook for nurses. It has everything imaginable in it, and is so interesting that I couldn’t put it down – read it through from cover to cover, and now want to settle down and really study it.
Father’s rib is all right again. Do tell me where Nell Calvin is now, and what about Miss Lilly? My I am so glad Shang is so much improved, and do take good care of your own precious self. What are you giving for Christmas this year? I want to know all about it and what pretty little things are people making? Don’t forget c/o American Consul, Sydney, Australia.
All my love,
Alice
November 3, 1912
Florence Nightingale
Under Royal Patronage
Grand Hotel
Rotorua, N.Z.
Dearest in all the world!
Your letter was so lovely and just like you – so encouraging and sympathetic that I have quite worn it out by reading it so many times. You know you have always been the only one who has taken me seriously and not had a fit when I mentioned the hospital. It is a fine idea – getting the books now. I have been over to see some of the nurses in the hospital here but will have to wait till I get to Wellington to buy the proper ones.
Did I tell you that in Aukland I bought a real pretty Delft blue silk crepe evening dress, very simpl[y] but just what I need – something to wear on board ship at night. I have had to throw away that blue over pin satin with the little pink roses. The tropics simply it and the last time I wore it I was afraid it would drop off me before I could go to bed.
If you have any ideas that there are short comings in the way you have brought me up, for mercy’s sake banish them to the four winds because if I ever tho’t I could bring up my own children half as well as you did me I should feel that I was an exceptionally good mother and my only wish is that, in future years or in fact from now on I can simply make you bust with pride because whatever I do that is worth while will all be due to you.
I believe I told you about that woman who was at the Glenavalon and now here – Miss Wood. She had rheumatism badly and a nervous breakdown so came here for a few weeks. This whole place is simply covered with a thin shell and they don’t know when houses and everything will go through. The other night about two weeks ago Miss Wood was hobbling along in the dark to the sulphur baths, it was just before we came and her foot went through into a hole and she strained her back quite seriously and lay there an hour before a nurse heard her screaming. Since then she has hardly been able to turn in bed, get up from a chair, or anything. Her electric treatment and massage are so terribly expensive each day that she thought she wouldn’t dare have a nurse too so I have been dressing her, taking her to the soda bath in a chair each morning, and the doctor taught me how to give her a wet pack which she has for two hours every afternoon. She is now able to walk a little and feels better so I am delighted at having done a little something. She really is very nice but why is it I have such a fatal fascination for old maids. They always like me. Perhaps it foretells that I am going to be a kindred spirit! She reminds me of Josephine at Lake Forest only isn’t so kittenish but has given me some practice in stoking a fevered brow. If I had only had a cap and apron I could have been quite happy.
We have seen everything long ago that there is to be seen, but father wants to wait till his letter of credit and tickets arrive and we expect them tomorrow so shall probably leave the last of the week.
Father is taking massage and baths for his rheumatism and yesterday he went to roll over on the table and thinks he broke another rib. I am worried about him because it hurt badly and it gets so cold here at night that I am afraid he will catch cold and make it worse. I haven’t had on a wash dress since I left Samoa and it is quite a relief because I was sick and tired of white.
You had better send after this to the Consul, Sydney, Australia and they will be forwarded to us.
Oh! I love you so much.
Alice
October 29, 1912
The Maoris are not very interesting but queer. The women all have their lips tattooed solid black and five black streaks from their mouth down to the chin – most unbecoming and the men tattoo their whole faces.
Tiny Town Tours
Under Royal Patronage
Grand Hotel
Rotorua, N.Z.
Sallie dearest:
Your letter from Samoa came tonight – written just two months ago – doesn’t that seem a dreadfully long time for mail to come but I surely was glad to get it. After going to some more dinners etc. in Aukland we left on Saturday and came here – this being the place in New Zealand – it is just like Yellowstone Park, full of geysers, boiling springs, etc. The Maoris (the natives) build their houses each beside a boiling pool and then do all their bathing, scrubbing and cooking right in the pool – fine scheme isn’t it? There are loads of sanitariums and people come from all around to take the baths, all of them are hot. There is a woman here who was at the Glenalvon when we were and she is taking different treatments and baths for rh[e]umatism so I have been taking some to. There is one that is the nicest of all, I think. It is almost as big as our tank at the station – right out in the open with only a board fence around it and at one end a little corridor leading to the dressing rooms. They won’t let you wear anything in for fear some one with skin disease might go in so everyone strolls around without a single stitch of clothes on and then swims in this lovely velvety very hot water. You can look right up and see all the stars. We usually go to that one at night. This morning I took a mud bath. It is supposed to be splendid, but it is so strong of sulphur you can’t open your mouth or you’ll choke. I am so glad that father is interested in them because he has had a lot of rh[e]umatism lately – needless to say the men’s baths are separate from ours.
There has been a theater company playing all over N.Z. called Tiny Town, twenty little midgets. Father and I went to see them one night in Aukland & they were splendid. They came up on the train with us and spent three days here at this hotel. It is the best in the place, so they evidently do everything up in fine style. I have all my life wanted to really know and talk to one of these people. The first day they went out to the geysers & got caught in the rain, later I went upstairs & found one little woman wandering around with some wet clothes in search of a maid so I asked her if I couldn’t help her. I borrowed some dry stockings from a little three year old girl which just fitted her & did all I could to make her comfortable. Her room was next to mine. There was an other little woman in with her and they seemed to like to have me come in and talk to them and they often came in my room too. They each had a huge trunk that they got in America and when they packed them, they laid all their clothes on a chair nearby and then climbed inside to pack! Oh! They were the cutest things you ever saw all perfectly formed and seemed quite like other people – very bright and entertaining. This one whom I was particularly friendly with is 25 and has two sisters a little younger. She is just 30 inches tall and the sisters are still smaller while their father and mother and two brothers are all nearly six feet. The sisters are soon going to join the company. Most of them are from Austria or Germany but speak English perfectly as they have traveled everywhere & wouldn’t give it up for anything they have such a good time. It certainly was fun being with them and I was sorry when they left today.
My grandma hasn’t come for the last two times. If she hasn’t come by the time I get your answer to this do tell me what to do; that will be about four months or a little more all together – that all sounds rather Irish, doesn’t it? Don’t forget about the cards too!! Won’t Marie & Ruth have glorious times together in Pittsburg.
Heaps of love
October 22nd Alice
Many, many, happy returns of the day.
Theodore Roosevelt shot
GLENALVON,
AUCKLAND,
N.Z.
Angel dear:
At last your letter came, the first that I have had since the middle of August. Just think of it – my oh! It did seem good, the one you said you sent to Samoa evidently didn’t get there in time, but I suppose they will forward it. Tomorrow it will be four months since I left home. I always count on being away two years because we can’t possibly stay longer so I can’t be disappointed but always hope it won’t be nearly that long. However now a sixth of the time is past.
Never have I been any where where the people are so hospitable or entertain so promptly. Every day I have been out to tea or to drive or something of the sort. Father is taken around to inspect schools, etc and then we both have gone together to so many dinners. There aren’t many real “sights” to see here but the country around is beautiful and there are lots of pretty little lakes. We went across the harbor to see some huge [kawi] trees. The pitch or sap drops off the limbs and soaks into the ground, then after a long time they dig it up and it looks like huge lumps of amber. They use it for jewelry and I believe for varnish too.
There are lots of people here who sing or play very well so we have music every night. It is awfully nice. We just heard that Roosevelt had been shot and perhaps fatally. Isn’t it dreadful! – I can just imagine all the excitement it is causing at home. You remember how ignorant we tho’t the English were about America? Well, they are nothing compared to the people here. It is perfectly ridiculous the questions they ask me. Which coast N.Y. or San F[rancisco] is on and if Florida is a “district” or a town! And all such things. Father doesn’t want to go to Rotorua till it gets warmer so I don’t know when we shall leave here.
Oceans of love,
Alice
October 16, 1912
