Beulah Hurley Waring letter

Busaluk Ooyezd, Russia,
8th April, 1922.

Dear Friends:

Much snow has blown across the steppes since I wrote,
bat I now welcome a bit of leisure. Have just had a round with the
curse of the country, typhus, and having ousted him rather quickly
and easily, am taking the excuse to loaf awhile, If 1 —— .
another year, I'd welcome this easily won immunity, but I expect
to leave for home by June, I bitterly resent the loss of thes to
others as Well as myself.

The section of the Famine Area assigned to the Friends
is Buzuluk Ooyezd, about the size of the State of Indiana and last
fall having a population of about 650,000. The British have the
Western part and we the “astern end, ana our volicies and plans are
worked out together. Por months we have had the backing to feed
nearly all the people, but transport is so fearfully slow we can not
- food enough for half and they keep on dying right under our eyes.s

These last weeks have been a life and death race to get
food out to villages before the spring thaw makes all roads impassable,
and we got out what we had, but always it seems so little, Now the
roads are quite impassable "and may be so for weeks, but the kiddies,
anes of them at least, are safe until the end of the monthe

With the food ‘assured until next harvest, we can at last
turn to other things we dared not touch befores, Soap "and bed linen
and underwear are woefully lacking, and, unless we get them, epidemics
' will ron wild this summer, We feed about 1500 children in Homes and
Hospitals, and nowhere is a sheet or a blanket on any bed, just dirty
mattresses, many made from our sacks and filled with shavings. Most
of the children had only a single garment and no change, bat cur bales
of clothing from Philadelphia and AeieCe are righting that, though we
are woefully short of underwear e

In a Home for tiny vabies we were feeding 140 daily rations,
but from January lst to february 15th 111 died. As you see, food alone
will not save them. It needs linen and soap and medicines. This need
increases with the summer months ~ ali sorts of new demands come as ithe
snows melt. It is estimated that 9000 bodies lie unburied in cur section,
and We are issuing food rations to special groups in each volost to get
them buried 8.3 rapidly as possible,

One dares not even do too much for the Homes as it means
only increase of abandonment of children and a further swamping of already
Overcrowded Homes, These are putting up a gaiiant fight with whai they
have, but, even here where the children have the best chance, they are a
pitiful lote They can not grow on the food they get, oniy hope to keep
alive until better times come.




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Of course our daily lives are often an ordinary round of office
or warehouse and household doings, but always there is the tragic back~
ground of wailing at one's doors and windows by the poor waifs who can
find no place anywhere and tomorrow will be found dead. It seems ghastly
to pay no heeds Will we all come out impossibly hardened brutes?

We guickly become very Russian in the way we Sleep behind sealed
windows, and can smell an open window or door several rooms away. Also in
the way we Wwex very gay and hilarious whenever we do get a leisure evening
or a Sunday off. One of our interpreters plays the accordion, most of
them dance, and I am learning scme of the Cossack and other Russian dances
that have always fascinated mee I wish you could hear them sing FOOs
They seem like veal brothers to me anywey and always will, for in those
early days of terrible beginnings with only Miriam and me to start all our
feeding, the Chief being dcowm with typhus when we reached our new quarters
here, we all grew very close together, and it was only their absolute
devotion to cur common task that ever brought us safely throughs

Phe country itself fascinates me as always. We are east of
Jerusalem and Bagdad and the eastern limits of Africs itself, and we see
all sorts of people. The camels always make me feel as if I were living
a movie, They complain to Heaven about the cold, the work, everything,
and their voices are terrible, and the brutes look like nothing on earths —
Then the plains stretching off forever like the sea, and to the north a line
of lovely foothills to the Urals. MHxpeditions across these frozen plains ~
to visit more distant villages are whole stories in themselves. Ill teil
you of them some Jay.

Don't worry about us perscnally, for with oux own house and every
chance +o be clean and warm and well fed, we get on very well, and it is
thanks to the loyal support you ali give that we can Keep even so many on
the mape But, oh, the horror of it when the price of a few battleships
dedicated to life instead of death would put in transport and food enough
to save them alli |

The marvel to me ig that the Government with its siender resources
can a@co as much as they ere doing in getting in seeds and food and in keeping
wp the care of children. No matter what ills one may lay at the door of the
Soviet, it is an inspiring thing to find any government that puts children's
interest to the front without question or dispute the; way they do it heres