Letter from Margaret Baumeister to Minnie, April 24, 1953 — page 2
Book 2, Page 224 ·1953
Transcription
the leg subsided, the hospital routine refreshed the child. He made friends among the other children, and has been putting on his outdoor clothes, playing with the others out on their terrace, where they have an outdoor playground. Dee tells me he cares little for her visits, is fond of his nurses, and completely absorbed in the life of the institution. Today, the visiting-hour is at 6 pm and Dee said Puck told her she had better not come, today, that he would be too busy to have visitors.
“What in the world will you be so busy about, that you cannot spare a few minutes for your mother?” Dee asked him.
“We have got to make our costumes today,” Puck replied.
“Costumes?” said Dee.
“Yes,” the boy replied, “You know that big Circus that is in town? Well part of that Circus is coming to our hospital. We are going to have a performance. And we are all going to have costumes on. We are going to kind of be in the Circus too. So you see, I won’t have time to talk to you today.”
Tears of joy were in Dee’s eyes as she told me this. The fact that the child is at peace, is not afraid, has given his trust to those who care for him, has lifted half the burden from Dee’s shoulders. Her cold is much better. She is sleeping late every
AI Notes
Second page of the April 24, 1953 letter from Margaret Baumeister to Minnie, on plain yellowed stationery in blue fountain-pen ink. Continues the account of Puck’s adjustment to Memorial Hospital, including a charming exchange about preparing costumes for a circus visiting the children’s hospital. Recipient ‘Minnie’ here is Mary Annie FitzSimons Allston (the compiler’s sister) — she is Dee’s aunt, as the page-223 opening confirms. ‘Dee’ is Emma Dee Walker Corbell (the compiler Amy’s daughter, m. Dr. Robert Corbell Jr. 1938). ‘Puck’ is the Corbell child being treated for deep X-ray therapy at Memorial Hospital — named after his grandfather James Pickens Walker (the elder ‘Puck’). The 1953 ‘Minnie’ is the younger one (Mary Annie Allston, the compiler’s sister), not the compiler’s mother who died Jan 1934.