Margaret Woodrow Wilson to Edith Bolling Wilson
Title
Margaret Woodrow Wilson to Edith Bolling Wilson
Creator
Wilson, Margaret Woodrow, 1886-1944
Identifier
WWP16138
Date
1919 December 31
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
Dearest Edith
I am borrowing the Doctor’s tytypewriter so as to be sure you will be able to read this letter, but I know the letter will be a mess, for the typewriter is just enough different from mine to confuse me utterly.
First as to Father who is hardly off my mind a minute these days. You know I told that Doctor Grayson wanted letters From New York Physicians about Docrtor C. He himself wanted to write to Doctors here of course. But I thought it might be a good thing if Doctor Cowles had in his possession letters forom Doctors of standing previous to this date. So I just out and out asked him if he had (The nerve of me!) and he, instead of being mad or hurt at my asking, said yes that he had some written from time to time when he was applying for State Licences and when he tried to get into the army during the war and to ask his secre_ for them. I did that and sifted out a few that I thought would be of interest to you and to Doctor G.
Doctor G. promised me to write to Doctor Evans Evans whose standing here as a diagnostician cannot be disputed. I -asked him to do this because I happened to hear Doctor Cowles speak of having called him in for consultation
I don’t want you to think from the references in some of the letters to Doctor C’sknw knowledge of insanity that that is his speciality. He specializes in all mental and nervous diseases. This sanitarium that I am in is exactly like the one referred to in the letters. There are no ijnsane here but while I have been here I have seen a man with melancholia get well and a woman with paraylsis agitans which other doctors, almost all of them, declare incurable leave the sanitarium with her disease much improved and entirely arrested. She could walk fast and perfectly and only one arm trembled but even that arm she could use pretty well. My but she is happy.! He has taken casses in insane asylums that he thought curable and cured them. I asked him yesterday if he had taken cases of strokes or of thrombosis when they were of twelve months standing and he said, Yes and cured thren them or all but cured them. That is some muscle remained uncured but the members were usable. You know for years one muscle in Jessie’s foot remained paralysed after she could walk perftectly. Doctor Cowles’ postgraduate years at Harvard were devoted entirelty to the study of the integrative activities as he expressed it of the nervous system to blood chemistry and to arteries and veins . and to the tissues of the brain I have heard some pof his patitents talk of him and their gratitude, particularly of the poor ones, izs pathetic. He has cured epilepsy over and over again; I am feeling rather sick this evening, I must say, for that operation was almost as bad areral as a real tonsil operation. It did not he hurt me at the time (Thursday) but it sho has hurt since. I suppose maybe I shouldn’t be sitting up to write this, but I just could not let a another day go by without doing so. I expected to do so yesterday but could not get the letters from the Doctor’s secretary yesterday as she was so terribly busy. My throat is hea h healing alright, but I have to have a slight operation ohn my nose in about ten days and then wait for that to heal!The two doctors say that when they get thought through with me I ought not to have much trouble of any kind because aside fmrofrom from from the functional troubles that I-have had I have no organic trouble of any kind and am very normal haven’t even any “tendency to indidgestion” as the other docotrs say.
Darling Edith you will bear our suggestions in mind even if you do not agree with them, will you not? And by the way you will not tell any one what I told you about Doctor Grayson? I do not recall your actually promising not to do so, but I told you them, taking for granted that you would not. Doctor Grayson especially of course I do not want to know what I said, but what I said is absulutely true. I think if you don’t mind my mentioning it, dear, that a neurologist ought to be in almost continuous attendance on Father with his regul regular doctor. I do not believe that Doctor Grayson is enough of a specialist in nervous and mental diseases, (and either a stroke or thrombosis comes under this head as the start of both of these is in the brain and affects the nervous system) to handle Father’s case safely for two weeks. I’m just telling you all I think, darling, for I would not be happy or true to myself or Father if I did not.
I must to bed—I’m sick with fatigue.I love you devotedly and for ever and for ever;
Your loving,
Margaret.
PS. I told Doc. I was sending these to you for you to read and would wish you to turn them over to him.
I am borrowing the Doctor’s tytypewriter so as to be sure you will be able to read this letter, but I know the letter will be a mess, for the typewriter is just enough different from mine to confuse me utterly.
First as to Father who is hardly off my mind a minute these days. You know I told that Doctor Grayson wanted letters From New York Physicians about Docrtor C. He himself wanted to write to Doctors here of course. But I thought it might be a good thing if Doctor Cowles had in his possession letters forom Doctors of standing previous to this date. So I just out and out asked him if he had (The nerve of me!) and he, instead of being mad or hurt at my asking, said yes that he had some written from time to time when he was applying for State Licences and when he tried to get into the army during the war and to ask his secre_ for them. I did that and sifted out a few that I thought would be of interest to you and to Doctor G.
Doctor G. promised me to write to Doctor Evans Evans whose standing here as a diagnostician cannot be disputed. I -asked him to do this because I happened to hear Doctor Cowles speak of having called him in for consultation
I don’t want you to think from the references in some of the letters to Doctor C’sknw knowledge of insanity that that is his speciality. He specializes in all mental and nervous diseases. This sanitarium that I am in is exactly like the one referred to in the letters. There are no ijnsane here but while I have been here I have seen a man with melancholia get well and a woman with paraylsis agitans which other doctors, almost all of them, declare incurable leave the sanitarium with her disease much improved and entirely arrested. She could walk fast and perfectly and only one arm trembled but even that arm she could use pretty well. My but she is happy.! He has taken casses in insane asylums that he thought curable and cured them. I asked him yesterday if he had taken cases of strokes or of thrombosis when they were of twelve months standing and he said, Yes and cured thren them or all but cured them. That is some muscle remained uncured but the members were usable. You know for years one muscle in Jessie’s foot remained paralysed after she could walk perftectly. Doctor Cowles’ postgraduate years at Harvard were devoted entirelty to the study of the integrative activities as he expressed it of the nervous system to blood chemistry and to arteries and veins . and to the tissues of the brain I have heard some pof his patitents talk of him and their gratitude, particularly of the poor ones, izs pathetic. He has cured epilepsy over and over again; I am feeling rather sick this evening, I must say, for that operation was almost as bad areral as a real tonsil operation. It did not he hurt me at the time (Thursday) but it sho has hurt since. I suppose maybe I shouldn’t be sitting up to write this, but I just could not let a another day go by without doing so. I expected to do so yesterday but could not get the letters from the Doctor’s secretary yesterday as she was so terribly busy. My throat is hea h healing alright, but I have to have a slight operation ohn my nose in about ten days and then wait for that to heal!The two doctors say that when they get thought through with me I ought not to have much trouble of any kind because aside fmrofrom from from the functional troubles that I-have had I have no organic trouble of any kind and am very normal haven’t even any “tendency to indidgestion” as the other docotrs say.
Darling Edith you will bear our suggestions in mind even if you do not agree with them, will you not? And by the way you will not tell any one what I told you about Doctor Grayson? I do not recall your actually promising not to do so, but I told you them, taking for granted that you would not. Doctor Grayson especially of course I do not want to know what I said, but what I said is absulutely true. I think if you don’t mind my mentioning it, dear, that a neurologist ought to be in almost continuous attendance on Father with his regul regular doctor. I do not believe that Doctor Grayson is enough of a specialist in nervous and mental diseases, (and either a stroke or thrombosis comes under this head as the start of both of these is in the brain and affects the nervous system) to handle Father’s case safely for two weeks. I’m just telling you all I think, darling, for I would not be happy or true to myself or Father if I did not.
I must to bed—I’m sick with fatigue.I love you devotedly and for ever and for ever;
Your loving,
Margaret.
PS. I told Doc. I was sending these to you for you to read and would wish you to turn them over to him.
Original Format
Letter
To
Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt, 1872-1961
Files
Collection
Citation
Wilson, Margaret Woodrow, 1886-1944, “Margaret Woodrow Wilson to Edith Bolling Wilson,” 1919 December 31, WWP16138, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.