Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittm 89
Q. Wha was that?
A. Mrs. Gertrude McCdlough. She is dead. Sne was ente3taining her
missionary club and wanted me to come up and tell about prospective
trip. This is all practically entertahmnt and so on. ?/ow this is
another poem. "Excuse this brief and faulty rhyming, deq little madam
pres$dentw-I was president of the local association. "Tlis hard to mike
poetic cMg, express what in our hearts we t h W e ha= all gloomy
thoughts unspokefle wish you joy," and this is the nursea that are giving
me this, ''And this small token/Our love will always do thq same, accept
it not with cold derision/This magic wand will f'ulfill yo@' need, tdll
make of you a charming vision and prove it is a friend in+ed/[nlhen ycDu
mive in Vladivostok, if wily Huns attempt their spell ad terria you
with their coarse ta.lk/This weapon then my serve you well/All jokes aside,
although seas divided us and we through life's pat march are whirled/the
same good friend will watch beside us the patest rather \in the world."
Now that was written by a Miss Wilbur, who was a secret and nurse to
Nm. Lawden when Governor Lowden was the governor. The rt was a curling
iron, the weapon. "Use it as a weapon." And I never used it because I
was aMd I would blow out the electrl city out" there, and I didnl t use it.
I wasn't doing much curling those days. Oh, by the way, I didn't put on
my other hair. I thought, lWell, we're all hornfolks, and I'm going to
we= this wound home, this is own hair. I like my wh3te hair. (chuckles)
Q. I do too. It l s-very attractive.
I
i
A. Now did I get started about going to San Francisco? ere was a scene
at the station here in Springfield which I want to mntioa to you, my folks
were all there. And ~QI old father, he looked paler than I had ever seen him.
When I shook hands with him to leave the thowt passed
that I may not see him again. And I felt sure that he
sm. And then I stood on the end of the traln and saw
who had been very, very ill, close to death during an
bow, and I took care of him, he was very precious to
that's in Florida now and is going to have a cataract
stood out on the tracks and waved to m just as long asland I waved back.
So that Is in here.
Q. You had quite a contingent to see you go.
A. Yes. And then on the way, another little thing that on the
way to Chicago. I wrote, I was answer4.ng a nice letter,
nice letter I received from Gladys Coffin. She dled l.&t
on the verge of asking the Kreider girls who kept
she was well enough for me to let her know what I read
answering her letter that was in connection with
was ;too ill then.
Now in California, we had quite a good bit of the, actua ly. I left here
the nineteenth, I think it was
1
and it was the thirtieth f May, 1919, that
we sailed on the Nippon Mam. And we had several days, i$ was ten W s or
mre, in San Frmcisco, and we ckidnTt waste..W tw, see- everything
there was to see. We were ea given alittle foot trw?k:thatwwe packed
our clothes in. Then we had to have them fitted, som of them. Then we had
d