Tommy had been having blood in his stools for about a month-then he started vomiting.
The Victor with Al boarding it
1962 May 30 to Estelle.
Letter written by Ina Erickson from Lae to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA
Dear mom and dad,
Well for the first time in two months, I am back to semi-civilization. Al was on a trip. Tommy had been having blood in his stools for about a month. Then on Sunday he started with a bad diarrhea and I gave him some medicine. Then he started vomiting on Monday. He seemed a little better. His stools were less frequent and not quite so watery and he had vomited all day. Then on Tuesday he started in again. I had been giving him try sulfa and about noon he had five large, all water stools. So I just decided I was going to have him in even if I had to pay for the trip myself as the Victor, our boat would be gone for the next two days and what would I do if something really happened. So I brought him into the doctor in Lae. I was glad I did as that night he was so distended, vomiting and so many stools. He drank and drank and drank, he was so thirsty. I was up most of the night. Then on Wednesday he was so much better. I took him to the doctor and got a different kind of sulfa on Thursday. He ate well with no vomiting and only one stool that was almost formed. So I think it’s better. Thank God. The sulfur I was giving him for the diarrhea seem to clear the blood up to. So I’m real happy,
Guest house at Ampo near Lae. The Lutheran Mission headquarters. Photo from Journals of Karen McCann a short term teacher in new Guinea from 1961-1963. Her journal link is here:
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~mccannkin/misc/NGchiii.html
Al will be coming in with the Victor tomorrow as we will go home with him then. A runner took a note to him so he knows we weren’t home. Both Paula and Tommy vomited all over me coming on the boat as the sea was quite rough. But I did not vomit. Maybe I’ll make a sea traveler yet. We were almost to Lae so I was putting some nice clothes on Paula and then she vomited all over it. I’m learning how to swab the deck.
Al and I and Paula have been well and I’m not pregnant though. I do think it about time we thought of having another one as the family with only white children there is to play with. The native children always give into them and so they will be so spoiled when they get back to the states.
They had a movie on African animals and how man is making a desert out of most of Africa by cutting down the trees. We had a ride in a car out to the school.[1] Paula was excited to go far and wide in a car. It’s her first one in months. She was so interested in the movie as it was the first she’d seen out here.
Tommy walks a little by himself. He’s taken off a couple of times across the room. He takes off to Paula and then falls against her when he reaches her and knocks them both down. It used to make her so mad but now she laughs with Tommy. She’s a little better at helping him walk but will occasionally pull him back words.
The dispensary hasn’t been too bad lately with only some bleeding‘s that we had a hard time staffing and measles upon measles upon measles.
I hope all is well and that you will enjoy your summer. Paula says grandma now when I show her pictures of you and dad. Mitty for Mickey. She decided the little girl on our wedding picture must be Bala as she calls herself.
I was looking for a curtain material here at the mission where people from home send piece goods but there weren’t any large pieces so I guess I will have to order some from Montgomery wards. My it’s nice to have a catalog.
Are you going to have a garden this year? Paula sure has a time with heat rash. It was so humid here at Lae she broke out from head to toe. Today it’s a little cooler so it’s receiving a little with just one cool day and it disappeared. I had a note from Leonard O and he doesn’t sound like he minds the service as much now as he did at first.
Time has gone fast. It won’t be long and will have been here a year already. We’ve been remembering last year this time was really hectic. God‘s blessings
Love Ina and family.
[1] Presumably: Bumayong High School about 8 miles north of Lae in the Mountains.
Bumayong High School campus. Marty and Florence Heist, run the school. They and their children were on the Oronsay ship with the Erickson’s.
Photo from Journals of Karen McCann a short term teacher in new Guinea from 1961-1963. Her journal link is here:
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~mccannkin/misc/NGchiii.html
