https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/LWBBJS
August 30, 1918. Dear Margaret: I shall have to be very careful in writing this letter because I am making a carbon copy to send to Gertrude in answer to the letter from her which I am enclosing. So if I seem cold, just remember that this is not one of my regular letters to you, -only just a family letter to tell about the events of the last few days. With these preliminary precautions I shall proceed with my labor-saving experiment. On Tuesday the Social Hygiene Demonstration became the possessor of a Dodge car. And the same day the Fuel Administrator issued a statement asking the public not to use cars on Sunday, – and that after the staff had planned to rent the car on a mileage basis and to visit Jamestown and Yorktown to see the places where our earliest history was made. I would like to catch the man who told the F.A. that we had a car. Well, anyway, I have had one lesson in running the thing, and I am almost as proficient in it as I am in teasing the typewriter. On Tuesday evening I received a telegram from Mrs. Rippin saying that there was a bad state of affairs at Petersburg and wouldn’t I please rectify. The report was that the prostitutes who crowded the jail were being marched through the principal street in gangs to the clinic for treatment. How the picture stimulates the imagination! This gave me a good excuse for visiting that very interesting city, although I cannot see just why anyone should think that Petersburg’s troubles were mine just then. As the trouble was in Miss Brown’s territory, I told her about it, and she decided it was time she made an initial visit to the place. I know you will be glad to hear that I had the pleasure of traveling with an interesting young lady. I did my usual race to go out to my room to pack a bag in five minutes and make the train- the five five in the afternoon. We reached Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy in two hours of riding through the woods. Cool, ferny, damp woods that are probably there because mosquitoes have fought off the settlers for hundreds of years, and have devitalized them with frequent doses of the plasmodia of malaria. At Richmond we took a car between stations intending to check our bags and get something to eat before starting for Petersburg. But just as we approached the station, a priest in a touring car called out and asked me if I was going to Petersburg. We both hopped in and had a delightful trip of twenty-two miles over a highway wet by a recent thundershower. We passed several big places although most of the country was just woods. One large place had a large dairy heard grazing over a lawn, while nearby under the trees was a herd of elk. We reached Petersburg at 8:30, an hour earlier than we had expected, and had dinner at the hotel. Rooms had been engaged for us by the extra-cantonment lieutenant, Lt. Orcutt. As it was too early for bed and too late to do any business we took in a movie to wind up the day. When my long-distance phone message to Lt. Orcutt arrived, Colonel Carter was around. He evidently was a little deaf, because he protested against reserving two rooms in a crowded town for two officers traveling on expense account. He always shared his room with another officer and took people into the other berth of his stateroom, etc., etc. They finally made him understand that the other officer was a lady and I