3 A.M. 4/13/39
Dear Lenore,
Just in from giving another talk before the Manhattan Medical Society but I must get a word off to you before turning in.
Seems ages since I left you standing in the window as we pulled out - a lovely picture that completely filled my vision as the miles sped by. Lowell left me to my thoughts and we came to Charlotte in the evening with hardly a word having been passed. We spent Friday night with an old friend of his, Dr. Green and left early Saturday morning for Oxford, N.C.
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There we had dinner with Lowell's grandmother, went all through the orphanage his grandfather started and then struck out for Washington. We arrived at my home about 10 PM to find things in an uproar my brother having just been brought back from the hospital with a broken leg which he sustained earlier in the afternoon when the ladder on which he was standing to give the roof a Spring coat of paint broke and dropped him about 30 feet. Lowell spent the night with us, then pulled out for New York early in the morning. I stayed to see how my brother
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was going to make out. During the morning I took my mother to church and then spent two hours with the Dean of the medical school.
Next I went to see Dick Hill. They plan to build at Howard a nursing school some what like the one at Spelman. This is the dope. Learn all you can about the school at your place, run by your department I believe, so that when you come through Washington you'll know all about it. They plan to use it as an experimental school, attended largely by children of the
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faculty and a few other select kids. Dick will recommend you if you like the plans and the set up and plan to have you carry on some of your own work too. In the schemes for the future are also plans for a "Little Theatre" on the campus. This should be right down your alley. The members of the drammatic [sic] department are also friends of mine and a word about your training in costumes and designing will I'm sure put them definitely on your side if the job materializes and competitors appear. When you come through you can stop with my sister Mrs. Nora Drew Gregory. I've told
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her about you and I'm anxious for you to see some of my folks. My talk with Hill was entirely satisfactory except that all the plans are in such a formative stage that nothing definite is possible at present and probably will not be until next year.
Sunday afternoon I went down to the Lincoln Memorial to hear Marion Anderson sing. In all my life I have never seen such an impressive thing. With the soft rays of a pink sun gleaming against the white marble beauty
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of that magnificent structure and reflecting itself in the long still pool of water that stretches off towards the Washington Monument she raised her exquisite voice in song and lifted with a sweep of melody a whole race to higher levels of thought, feeling and hope. Countless thousand paid her the tribute of almost reverent silence when she sang her songs of joy and sorrow. She held them beneath her magic sway, making them laugh or sigh at will and when she finished with "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen" many eyes were moist with unashamed tears
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and hearts too full for words. Filled with a strange pride and awed by the loveliness and significance of it all my thoughts went out to you and in the beauty of the moment I communed with you and found my happiness increased. Oh how I wished that you might have been there with me.
On Monday I took my brother back to the hospital, poor devils leg was giving him so much trouble, and after further Xrays the cast was removed and the leg reset under general anaesthesia [sic]. The pictures taken on Tuesday suggest
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that the whole thing may have to be done again, this time by open operation and nailing of the bone fragments in place. I was terribly sorry to leave him in such rotten shape but he's in good hands and my time was up.
Last night I met your mother, father and Leon, spent two hours in your home and tried to explain the rapid action of our few days together. Your mother was sweet, your dad tolerant, courteous and kind; your brother puzzled but darned decent. Needless to say I wasn't at my very best but I think I
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managed to get away without creating too bad an impression. Your brother offered to take me to me your fiance but I thought perhaps I'd do that the next time. He also said he had a lot of things to tell me but then decided that it would probably be best for me to find them out for myself. So far all is well. I left Phila. at 11:22 PM and got to bed about 3 AM this morning.
Now it is nearly 4 AM and I have to be on the wards at 7 so for tonight little girl I'll have to leave you to seek my
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lonely cot but in my dreams I shall come to you and be near you and so pass the hours in a new found joy.
Sincerely
Charlie
Received your note on arrival.