Letter from Dora Giffen to her family, September 22, 1925

American Mission, Fayoum, Egypt.
Tuesday, September 22, 1925

My Own Dear Home Folks:
A little over a week since I last wrote, so I must write some kind of a letter tonight. We have been busy these days and tomorrow I hope to get off to Port Said to meet the City of Harvard. It is reported due on Thursday. After I meet it I can tell you all about the trip, who is planning to go, etc. I am stopping off in Cairo on my way back, to do several little errands.

I am afraid I have not been very good at answering your letters lately, so before I go any further allow me to say that I did receive that first letter sent via Cleveland quite some time ago; then last week here comes another one sent that route, but without the extra few lines that you suggested be added. I think I have received all your letters now. Did I not mention having received your alumni speech? It was very good. I was reading it on the train that time I went up with Aunt Callie after Ass’n, and both she and Miss Roxy Martin wanted to hear it. They pronounced it very good, too.

You are going to have a time with letters this year, aren’t you? I would suggest a sort of Round Robin, only I am afraid they would take an age to get here, and I do sorely miss your letters when they don’t come every week.

I have always neglected to tell you about the little cake or muffin tins Mrs. Grant left with Susannah to give to me. They are ones you had when we were youngsters and I remember them – some round, some heart-shape, several different kinds. I thought how like Mrs. Grant to think to do a thing like that. I got them when I stopped in Tanta on my way up. She had remembered that you used to make cakes in them for us.

I reached home all right last Monday, and everything was going as usual. The teacher in Alexandria to whom I wrote said her father was not willing for her to teach so far from home, so on Friday when I got the word I sent for one of our last year’s graduates and she is teaching for us now. Laura and I made out a new program on Sat., on Mon. I got up early and copied it in order to have it posted by 7:30 A.M., and now things out to go a bit more smoothly.

We started two new things in school yesterday: inspection of the girls the first thing in the morning to see if they are clean, and a “monitor system,” we are calling it; it is instituted in order to get the girls to do more talking of English. Then 2) in another two weeks we are starting something else new – a new school where our old one used to be, - in the church. We have gotten permission of the pastor and session and are getting busy now having new benches, tables, chairs, and a dulab made for the two rooms we are going to use. We are going to have just the two lower classes in this school. Our reason for starting it is to catch and hold for our older classes the little girls whose parents think they cannot send them to our new school because of the distance. Already one of our last year’s teachers; who so far has not been teaching for us this year, has promised to teach. Just this afternoon I called in one of our last year’s graduates – a different one from the one I called upon on Friday to help out – and offered her a position as teacher in this new school. She is to tell me tomorrow her parent’s reaction to the offer. We want two teachers in the place.

Our second hand piano arrived from Cairo last Friday morning and we went over to the station and oversaw the removal of it from the car. I don’t think it was banged around quite so much because we did that. I have gotten Stikmat Samuel, a graduate of the P.M.I. in the Class of ’24, to give lessons in piano to three of the girls at present in the school who want music very badly. She is not willing to take pay for helping us. On Friday afternoon she, her sister, a brother who is entering Beirut University this fall, and her fiance’, Fahmy Khaleel, called to see us. Do you remember Fahmy? He is about Willard’s age and a sone of Mr. Kahaleel in Assiut. He is in the midst of a special course in agriculture which he is pursuing in the University of Edinburgh. He says he saw young Bill Wishart when he (Bill) attended the same Univ. last year.

We had a little call on Sat. from Sara and Victoria, our two last year’s teachers who are teaching in Sennoris this year. Victoria asked us to send for some American Magazines for her, since she is publishing a paper in Arabic and wants some good stories. She has bitten off more than she can chew, I fear, if she is going to try to translate English into Arabic to that extent. I feel perhaps that I know her ability in some lines better than she does herself.

We have been having our ups and downs the past two weeks. I hope things are well on their way towards getting settled. I showed the Sub-Mudir and the District Minister of Education thru our school one day last week. We have over a hundred girls in school. Some parents pay up nicely and many don’t. Dr. Askren gave us a little microscope last year, so last week I sought a little diversion in teaching the 4th year class how to use it.

Laura and I have had several games of tennis lately. Ralph Galloway is sick with what the doctor thinks is a mild case of typhoid. I hear that Mrs. Sievers, who comes from Aunt Dora’s congregation in Seattle, is to be our near neighbor during October. She is to be with Helen Noordewier in Beni Suef until the beginning of a new term in the S.O.S.

Goodnight. Sweet Dreams. And lot, lots of love from your own Dora.
A goodnight kiss.

I am anxious to hear more about Father’s trip to Seattle.