Being Amber Rhea

My Mom has been using The Google - and using it better than I have, apparently! She found this letter written by Virginia McMaster Foard, a.k.a. Gin-Gin, the McMaster family matriarch who lived to be 102 and whom we suspect was the last owner of the family house in Columbia.

Many nurses developed a closeness to the servicemen they cared for, be they American or otherwise. Nurses spoke of the soldiers’ spirit and valor, like Virginia McMaster Foard, 1896, a Red Cross nurse in France, U.S. Base No. 1, Bellevue Unit during World War I. She wrote this in the fall of 1918.

I have been so desperately busy since coming here I have not written a letter, I am what is called a hospital teacher. I answer inquiries, etherize severely sick, wounded, or gassed soldiers and, incidentally, do all I can for anybody, such as giving flowers, fruits, “smokes” and try to ease home troubles of any nature. I visit the desperately ill, and if a long illness, write once a week to family; in case of death write to nearest of kin…

The English soldier has a smile that will not come off when he gets to an American hospital. Our men are fine. The harder they are hurt the more cheerful they are. They all get the grumps when they are neither sick nor well, but that is perfectly natural. Convalescence is a hard period, and when they get away from battle they do not think restrictions are necessary, showing a national lack of discipline. I talk to them like they were bad boys, give them a good scolding, or laugh at them. I feel so helpless, so futile, such an appalling job. I simply can cast myself on God’s mercy and ask Him to use me each day. I believe I am helping. The boys like me and often I am told I am like their mothers or aunties. You need all the tact of a woman of the world, a never failing good cheer and good humor.

Death seems so close, it certainly is “swallowed up in victory”. Immortality does not seem vague to these dear boys.

Fascinating!

My mom also found this after Googling “Katherine McGregor McMaster.” She was my great-great-grandmother and was known to the family as “Mama.” (I guess that makes her a matriarch, too!) She took her three children back to the house in Columbia to live after her husband, James Woodrow, Jr., died at a young age. Interestingly, according to rootsweb the address of the house was listed as 1427 Laurel Street in 1900. There’s some other info there that might be helpful to me when I go back to Columbia in December!

Also, Mama’s daughter, Katherine Hamilton Woodrow, is the one I may have mentioned a while back, who lived in Decatur in the 1940s. Eventually I’ll get back to trying to track down her old house.

I bought some new stationery the other day. Yes, I’m talking about actual paper, for writing actual letters. I’m going to write a letter to Gran asking for some family history details, and I’m going to include a print-out of this letter, hopefully to motivate her. She knows so much, and unfortunately, one day she will be gone and that information will be gone too, unless someone records it. And that someone is me! I might even do a podcast with her, although I think she might be gunshy. You never know, though! I think I’ll spring the concept on her at Christmas.