[Typed Letter, Signed, Written to Missionary Friends, Reporting on Travels in China, Including Visits to Hospitals]

Peiping, China: June 4, 1936. About very good.. [2]pp. Folio. Old fold lines, minor wear, a few contemporary annotations. Letter written by a nurse visiting China, relating her itinerary in China which includes numerous trips to local hospitals and leper colonies. Minnie Goodnow was a registered nurse who served in France during the Great War. After her return to the U.S., she was a nursing administrator in several hospitals before embarking on this journey. She writes: "I am having a trip that is no less than wonderful. I had three objectives in mind for it, -- to see the world, or some bits of it; to see hospitals and learn something of what was being done in nursing education in several lands; and to see something of missions at first hand. I'm doing all three of them -- superficially, but with great profit to myself. ... I went up to Chiengmai with some of the mission people, staid with Dr. and Mrs. Cort, saw the wonderful leper colony, and had a marvellous time. Here in China I have had a steady diet of missions and hospitals and done sight-seeing, too." She goes on to relate her itinerary, which includes trips to Shanghai, Nanking, Hankow, and Changsha, as well as a stay at a Buddhist monastery -- "Can you fancy the thrill I got from spending the night on top of a sacred mountain, in a Buddhist monastery, in the heart of China!"

She continues: "Miss Stephenson went with me to two 'country' hospitals -- to complete -- or add to -- my education! They were those at Siaokan and Tiean, and were most interesting. I also saw the old-fashioned leper asylum at Tiean, which is on the way to becoming new-fashioned. Then I came here to Peiping, where I have been for nearly four weeks. I am giving a short course in History of Nursing and doing sight-seeing, also meeting people." She tells her reader that after China she plans to travel on to Indian with a similar mission. An interesting look into the culture of American travel and mission work in China in the 1930s.