belligerent’s boat before they got halfway to their destination. Had she known, she might have had to wrestle with the decision to stay safe and sound in the American setting to which, admittedly, she had grown quite accustomed.
But she and Fred had boarded the boat with complete confidence that this was the next step in the life they were building for themselves and their growing family. And when on the second day at sea they received news that war had been declared in Europe, nothing about that decision had changed for them.
The headlines alone struck fear in many a heart. It wasn’t supposed to happen. The Great War, World War I, was to have been the war to end all wars. But now it was happening. Again. A less courageous or even less determined woman might have taken one look at the newspaper headlines and carried her curly-headed two-year-old onto the first boat home.
But she was making this move of her own choosing. Hers and Fred’s. And she had remained committed to it, even when the lovely white skin of their elegant ship was covered in grim gray, camouflaging it to run unnoticed amid its naval escorts each time they entered dangerous waters. No use telling the enemy there was a boatload of civilians here. They were safer in their disguise. Still, they were on a belligerent’s boat—the boat of a people who were now the enemy of those who “owned” the waters. Safer, perhaps, cloaked in gray and surrounded by military vessels. But that just meant that to part of the world they had become an enemy vessel.
October 1939—Iloilo, Philippine Islands
The trip across the Pacific was pleasant for the most part. War was declared the day after we sailed, and with Canada entering the war a day or so later, we found ourselves on a Belligerent’s boat. War precautions were taken all the way along—no running lights, deck lights practically nil, all portholes and windows heavily blanketed at night, no radiograms sent or received in order to keep position secret, the course changed frequently, a naval convoy from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and en route the ship which is usually a sparkling white was painted a battleship gray.
Dorothy admitted to no one that she had waited for the fear to surface. It had been one thing to take herself off to India as a young single woman. But this was her family. She waited for a sign that these were waters into which she dared not wade. But none came. Quite the opposite, in fact.
With all the talk of war, a person of lesser courage might have arrived in the Philippines huddling in fear. And in that state might have seen every new place and new situation as threatening. But if there was anything Dr. Dorothy Kinney Chambers was not, it was timid, nervous, or fearful.
. . . We left Manila on the inter-Island boat and it is a lovely thing. The trip was delightful. We arrived about ten Wednesday morning, and were met by about twelve of the thirteen missionaries here, and some thirty of the students and faculty members. It surely was a royal welcome.
Dorothy carried with her a deeply rooted internal optimism, an ironclad faith, and a commitment to serve closely held at her very core. So she’d sailed with her little family to Manila, running through the nights in blackout mode. She’d crossed to Iloilo on a little inter-island shuttle boat to set up housekeeping.
In a bit of a swamp.
Overrun with red ants.
Sunday October 22, 1939—Fred’s letter to his mother
...I don’t know what I expected to find in this house when we moved in but I felt it was the most barren place I had ever seen. There were not even hangers or pegs to hang anything on. No light shades or globes. There are floor plugs all over the place and that helps some. No clothes closets and two places for storing things: one in shelves alongside the entrance to one of the bathrooms and some shelves in one of the bedrooms. These are just open shelves and until we got a dresser, we were liable to look up and find our favorite pieces of “round-abouts” on the living room floor where Carol had dragged it. If I remember correctly we had a guest one day and Carol came out waving one of her mother’s “unmentionables”. So we are making the best of it while we wait for our stuff to arrive from Assam.
Two one-burner alcohol stoves and one electric hot plate occupied the counter in the tiny kitchen of their bungalow which admittedly had seen its better days. They served as Dorothy’s cookstove. Fred only marveled at her facility with the crude setup and never once disparaged the menus that had to be adapted to the quaint circumstance.
Almost instantly Fred was elevated to the deanship of the Department of Theology, and the class preparations consumed much of his time. But it was his passion, and throwing himself wholeheartedly into his work was far more blessing than curse. For both of them.
They were even getting used to the cold showers. “Shower rains,” Carol called them. There would be no hot water in their foreseeable future, so best to get used to it.
One thing two-year-old Carol refused to get used to was “Nee-Nor”, a local girl who Dorothy took on to help with the house and look after Carol while she studied for her medical exams. Carol refused to take direction from Nee-Nor and adopted quite an attitude about the girl.
“Carol Joy, there’s still food on your plate,” Dorothy remarked one day as she popped into the kitchen to put a kettle on for tea.
“I. Not. Yike,” Carol pouted, arms folded and brows crouched as low on her forehead as she could possibly manage.
“Ah. Well, then, I’ll just take it for my snack, then. Thank you very—”
“No!”
Carol burst into tears and threw her little arms around her plate. “No take Caro din-din!”
She wailed horribly, as if losing the food was the greatest catastrophe she could imagine. And yet a moment earlier she’d refused to eat it.
Dorothy was perplexed. “Carol Joy, please stop sniffling. I thought you didn’t like it so I was going to eat it so it didn’t go to waste, that’s all.”
“No. I yike dis!” she cried.
“Well for heaven’s sake, little one, I won’t take it if you want it. But why did say you didn’t like it in the first place?”
Carol dragged her fists across her eyes and gave Dorothy a look that clearly said she was the dimmest bulb in the box.
“Yike dis,” she said, pointing to her plate. “Not yike Nee-Nor.”
Dorothy was taken aback. None of the three of them had much of a bond with the new girl yet, but she’d certainly seen nothing to warrant such a tantrum.
It stunned both her parents to see this unaccepting behavior from their bubbly daughter who already had most of the folks on campus wrapped around her little finger. But the toddler simply would not take to the moody Filipina. And once additional issues began to materialize, it seemed to her parents Carol was already a good judge of character.
“So we’re letting her go?” Fred asked after dinner.
“As much as I dread training a new girl, I think we must.”
Had they not, they would never have met the beautiful Rosa Caimosa whose gentle heart knitted their little household into the smoothly functioning oasis it soon became. Their little world settled into a happy routine and Dorothy was able to focus on studying for her Philippine medical certification. Tantrums became a thing of the past. Indeed, Carol could be heard singing all over the house, even teaching Rosa her very favorite song.
A sunbeam, a sunbeam
Jesus wan me fo’ a sunbeam
A sunbeam, a sunbeam
I be da sunbeam fo’ he!
November 4, 1939
Finally decided to make a stab at the exams in Manila now. The hospital is going to be in rather a difficult position here due to the fact that the Board of Control has elected a Filipino as acting director during Dr. Waters’ absence (and there is a good deal of feeling that once in he will not be gotten out.) The European group will not go to him, and if the hospital is to keep the European patronage—including American, it will be only by having a European or American doctor on the staff. Inasmuch as they are the ones that more or less support the hospital, financially speaking, it wou
ld go rather hard with the hospital finances if they go elsewhere.
If I don’t take them [the exams] now it means waiting probably until next November, and it would be still more difficult to get away than now, so I plan to go to Manila a week from Monday and will have to be there a week due to lack of daily means of transportation between the two points. The exams last only three days, but there is a holiday after the first one, and that spoils chances of getting home on time. Such a lot of red tape to go thru to get registered for them. Hope I can pass the things, as I am afraid that if I don’t I’ll not have the nerve to try again.
Wednesday evening Covells and Feldmans and ourselves went to dinner at the Cathedrals—Feldman is pastor here and graduate of Missouri University and Rochester Theological. We like them both very much.
Had a letter from Martha Gifford in Gauhati the other day, and from that, dated Sept. 17th, we learned that our things had not been shipped [from Assam] up to that time, and we have still had no word as to what has been done regarding the selling—that is, the amount realized—when they will be shipped, etc. Do so wish the things would arrive as it makes me handicapped in so many ways.
In the sixth month of her pregnancy, feeling both strong and well-prepared, Dorothy left Carol and Fred in Iloilo and took the island boat to Manila. In a week she would take the exams and be back in the arms of the two people she loved most in the world.
But an insidious menace awaited her in Manila. It turned her week’s stay into three, nearly compromised her exams, and very nearly cost the life of herself and her unborn child.
Its name was dysentery.
Chambers Family Passport Photo
August 1939
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WANNA DANCE, PRETTY LADY?
December 22, 1939
I came home Tuesday afternoon—23 days in the hospital—but am gaining strength daily, and altho still trying to be careful, and not trying to do more than navigate “in low”, I feel lots stronger today than yesterday, etc.
Carol is growing so fast and is developing more independence every day—both a good and a bad thing. She is sleeping in her room at night now, but our doors are in line, and so she can see us in the morning when she wakens (at five or five thirty). She is often so tired by nine that she goes to sleep again for an hour or so, and then doesn’t sleep in the afternoon when Fred and I would like to have a bit of rest. Twelve to two is siesta time around Iloilo, and no one goes anywhere. Stores and business houses are all closed during those hours, and there are no classes, so------.
She is talking in more complete sentences all the time. Her interest in books continues to grow and she knows more and more of the stories. When she sees Fred coming, she frequently calls out “here come Daddy boy”.
As soon as Christmas is over, must begin to get to work in earnest to make ready for February. Have to get a bassinet made, and hope to have some sort of a bath table made that will give some more drawer space. Do hope the freight from Assam will get here early so that I can get curtains, and things of that sort finished up before the “party” in February. Dr. Waters thinks that the chances for carrying thru until term are good inasmuch as I didn’t lose things with all the dysentery, fever, etc.
“What’s the matter, darling?”
Fred slipped behind Dorothy as she placed two half-spent candles on the pretend fireplace they’d constructed for Santa in the living room.
“Nothing, Daddy-boy, why do you ask?”
Dorothy turned her face up for a kiss.
Fred caught her chin in his hand, surprising her by the unexpected response to her signal that she wanted a kiss. “This is me, dear girl, and I’ve watched you wander around the living room for half an hour, picking up things and moving them here, then there, then back again. So what’s wrong?”
“Well look, Fred. Just look around.” She stepped away and turned a slow circle. “I mean, it’s Christmas but, well, does it look like Christmas? Does it feel like Christmas?”
Three knitted stockings lay on a footstool, waiting for Santa to fill them and hang them on the pretend mantel. Paper snowflakes hung in every windowpane, and beyond them was a straggling garden of red and mostly mud. Three packing crates of varying sizes and states of dilapidation were placed about the room, one set low as a table for Carol, and one on each side of a second hand rattan chair they’d collected from a storeroom on campus. It was the only furniture in the room.
Fred clucked his tongue. “Oh my, I see what you mean. We only have stockings, and snowflakes, and wonder of wonders a whole field of poinsettias out front and your hands are full of Christmas ornaments. I mean, no, of course not, why would I think it looked like Christmas in here?”
“Poinsettias don’t count. They grow here year ‘round. You can’t count them,” she pouted.
Fred stepped close again and encircled Dorothy and her nearly-eight-month middle. “So what’s missing? What would make it seem more like Christmas in here?”
Dorothy looked into his face. A tree would be nice, she thought. But he’d scoured the town for a tree that was even remotely affordable and come up empty-handed. She wouldn’t throw that back in his face. But oh, how she did want a tree. She needed a tree.
“I think...I think if we hadn’t had such a beautiful Christmas last year...at home...or even if it was like Christmas in Assam, it wouldn’t feel so...empty. But we don’t have our furniture, we don’t have our usual decorations, and we don’t even have a—”
She stopped herself before she uttered the word that was on the tip of her tongue.
Fred raised one eyebrow. “A what, a......” He dragged out the word as he stepped into the hall and reached for something in his study.
“A....tree perhaps?” He pulled a 4-foot tree complete with tree stand from around the corner and held it like a trophy. It wasn’t as tall as the trees at home, but it was lush and full and green.
And it was already strung with lights. Bits of tinsel still clung to its needles. It had been decorated once before.
Fred crossed the room and placed it near the fake fireplace, then bent to plug it in just as Carol came bounding down the hall.
“Daddy-boy! Daddy-boy! Mommy look! Daddy-boy getta Crissen tree! Wif yites! Pitty! So pitty!”
Dorothy set aside the basket of ornaments she held, scooped up Carol and walked into Fred’s arms. “Yes it is, Carol Joy. Yes it is. Pretty. So pretty.” She choked out the words that seemed hopelessly bound up in her throat.
“How on earth did you...”
“Girl’s dorm,” he whispered, and followed it up with a kiss. “They’ve gone home. Don’t need it now. Soooo...”
Fred cuddled her as close as he could with Carol and the baby bulge between them.
Her tears were laced with joy as they rolled down her cheeks, past her quivering smile. She’d been so homesick, felt so lost, so depleted by sickness and worn to a frazzle with late-term motherhood. So big and lumbering. And desperate that she’d failed to make Christmas.
But one perfect gift from her husband made her feel new, whole, ready to celebrate her savior’s birth.
December 24, 1939
She [Carol] had to help decorate it and we had a good time. The “pitty balls” were all put on, and the “sojer bicycles” (silver icicles). The lights are attached, and “Daddy Boy” got a silver star for the top.
Everything in the room suddenly felt refreshed and right. Fred brought the family Bible from its place in his study into the Christmas room and placed it on an upended crate.
“Here now, Carol Joy, you help Daddy open the Bible.” He took her small hand in his and together they turned the pages, carefully, reverently, until the Book lay open to Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus.
“We open it here, kitty-kin, because it tells us how Jesus was born that Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. And when we see the words, when we read the words, it helps us carry the words in our heart.”
Her swee
t cherub lips took in a long breath, and then, with the grace of someone far beyond her years, Carol laid a reverent hand on the place her father had shown her. The place on the page that told the story of a Jesus whom she already knew and loved. And then, with slow deliberation, she cupped her fingers and drew her hand elegantly to her heart.
“Caro wan words, too, Daddy-boy.”
Fred smiled up at Dorothy, and drew both of them down beside him where he sat on the floor. “All you have to do is learn a little song, puddin’.”
Carol clapped, Dorothy smiled, and Fred began to teach his daughter her first Christmas song.
Away in a manger no crib for a bed...
Dorothy’s Christmas doldrums fled and the three-soon-to-be-four cuddled one another by the “Chrissen” tree. She had always made Christmas happen in their home. But this year, no matter what she did, it hadn’t worked. Nothing had fallen into place.
And then, in one magnificent gesture, Fred had turned their little home into Christmas Eve. This year it was Daddy-boy who made Christmas happen.
And Carol who sang it home.
Carol jumped up and took both their hands, tugging until they rose, as well.
“Moosic, Daddy! Caro wan moosic!”
Fred grabbed her up and set to tickling her. “Moosic? You want moosic? Well, why didn’t you just say so?”
“Oh Fred. I do wish we had your saxophone!”
“But why need a sax, when we could just unwrap this?”
Fred moved the rattan chair and pushed a large box forward. Before either of them could stop her, Carol ripped the brown wrapping paper away to reveal the dearest gift Dorothy could have imagined. There in the waning light of Christmas Eve sat a lovingly worn, slightly scratched, second-hand cabinet Victor.
A phonograph.
With a smile that lit up the room all by itself, Fred set Carol’s stockinged feet atop his own. She clamped her little arms around his leg and held fast as somehow he managed to plug the thing in, drop a 78 rpm record onto the turntable, extend his hand to his beautifully pregnant wife, and speak the four most perfect words for that moment.
Courage in a White Coat Page 17