Anna V. Blough letter to dear ones at home, Jan. 9, 1914

              Ping Ting Hsien, Shansi, China
9 January 1914

Dear Ones at home, -

I suppose this date is right, tho I have no calendar. Am hoping the mail will brin me one before I get lost in time. For some reason, last w ek went by and I did not get a let er sent home. Have missed but few weeks since here.

New Year came and with it a great many greetings from people around here. I think I told you last year the way they do is to send their calling card. Since we are guests in this town, we wait till others send theirs to us, and then we send our back to them.

We had a meeting on New Years day t the chapel for making reolut ons It was encouraging to hear that they had such good ideals and were going to try to reach them this year.

Weather has been colder the last week. Several times has been ten above zero. Tho several days we were out to play tennis and had to take our wraps off. Have a little snow at present. Guess it is colder with you. Well if it got as cold here as in Iowa, we would need more than paper on the one side of our house. The side that opens to the court is mostly paper windows. But we usually can make our rooms very warm.

Our Chinese lilys have just been in bloom. They were so pretty. Mine had two bunches that had ten on each bunce. Now I have a pink geranium in bloom. What plants do you have at home this winter? Jennie, do you have any?

This next Tuesday Bro. Crumpacker and Dr. Wampler are going down into the mountains on a hunt for wild hogs. Last Bro. Crumpacker did not get any and he felt quite disappointed over it. We hope they will bring some back this time. The wild hogs make better meat than your fancy ones at home. But they are not as sleek and fat by any means.

By this time Ida has likely gone back to Chicago and Howard to school in town. Hope you all had a nice time together. We had no one extra here, but enjoyed it anyhow.

Today I made a beginning at holding a short service with the opium patients in the womans refuge. Will do it every Saturday now as Minerva can not get away on that day because it is bath time at the school. Today I told the story of the paraylytic let down thru the roof and had short prayers with them, for my vocabulary was not very great. But I enjoy it and hope to be able to do more all the time. Yet it pays best to keep at study most of the time for awhile yet.

This last week there came a woman fo treatment for her baby, from a distant village. The baby was such a pitiful sight. It is seven months old and is blind and full of sores. They went back without any help. A good many come who ca not be helped. But some are helped in a most wonderful way. Last week I watched an operation. The shin bone of the leg had been broken for a man and never growed together. Saw the whole process.

The other day Emma and I went to see some Tai Tai’s. They are wives of Officials under the old government. They dressed with skirts to recieve us and their clothing were of silk. We had to use some ‘Ke che”, or ettiquette there. Even tho they had b en offended before because they heard at our service opium denounced, they received us very politely and seemed nice. They served us with tea and some kind of cakes with nuts in them. The young son of the home had on tan foreign shoes and seemed to be quite an important personnage. A Chinaman looks very queer in foreign clothes. We ti k they look best in thei own kind. I mean to get some of their kind later. 

Best wishes to all there.

Anna V. Blough

P.S. Just got a kerchief for Xmas gift from a woman in Colorado whom I never knew.