Hotel Muehlebach, Kansas City, Mo 22nd January, 1933
Dearest Parents,
I do find it so difficult to realise the passage of time, and I’m afraid it’s ages since I wrote to you. I snatched some time in the train a day or two ago to write to Biddy, so I’m afraid you got left out.
Since Briarcliff, I’ve been in Princeton, Washington and Louisville, and am now in Kansas City. We had four days in Louisville, which the inhabitants somehow manage to pronounce as if it were only one syllable Lou’lle, and where we had an enthusiastic reception, because the Group had been there two years ago, and things were pretty well started. This place on the other hand is absolutely fresh ground and no one has heard of us much before, so it’s quite a different situation which is interesting. Today being Sunday, I talked to what is known over here as a Sunday School, the most noticeable feature of which is that there’s no one under 25 among the pupils, and a good many of quite 50. It was held at the peculiar hour of 9.30 and I had to get back at 10.30 to go to a church with Francis Goulding. So I didn’t see much of its inner workings. I got back to find someone had come to fetch us, and off we sallied together to a Baptist church. The Baptists appear to be the largest, or at any rate one of the largest denominations in this country, and particularly here in the middle west, but they were all remarkably dashing in appearance, and the women were painted to the roots of their hair, and I don’t really know how much they all took in of what we said, but they all intimated that they wanted to know more, and came up and shook hands with us after the service, and said they felt inspired. So that was a good thing.
I’ve spent most of this afternoon asleep, and Francis and I have again been detailed to go somewhere together, and address a young people’s meeting.
We met an awfully interesting man yesterday, the director of the railway in this part of the country. Someone happened to meet him at lunch, the day we left, and the old boy got so interested in all of us that he came to the station to see us off, and then decided to come part of the way with us, so as to be able to talk some more. He told us among other things about himself that he’d been what he called railroading for 40 years, and remembered Buffalo Bill, whom he’d known personally, and he’d driven engines in the days when one had to carry a gun all the time for fear of being set upon by Indians. He also told us that one occasion he and five of his friends went out with a piece of rope to catch a man and hang him, and that when he looks back at it now it seems impossible that he should ever have lived in those times. He’d been on a trek like the one in the covered wagons, and had swum across a river holding on to a horse’s tail, and that he didn’t think that his sons could ever have the adventure he had when he was young. Whole towns have sprung up where there used to be herds of bison, and Indians, and everything is quite different. He was the most awfully nice man and let one man, Hallen Viney, a cousin of Col Varley of Aylesbury, drive one of the engines to his great delight, and we all climbed about on it and inspected it, and pushed the various buttons to see what happened. It was all great fun.
The next day of recreation is going to be in the Grand Canyon, and Frank is giving us a day’s holiday to spend the day there on donkeys.
I’m afraid I must go and have some supper to fortify myself against the young people, so honeys, as one is called here by everyone, even the chambermaid, I think I shall stop. Yes, Francis has just rung up.
Love from,
Mary
English