DIY History | Transcribe | Iowa Women’s Lives: Letters and Diaries | Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

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Eve Drewelowe's journals, volumes II-III, 1950s

Page 043

Finally, however, I became aware that she was putting on a show for her parents. The doctors were nice to her all the while. Moreover, she seemed to be howling for hypodermics most of the time, and howled after she got them.
On Sunday afternoon the climax came. My nerves definitely edged, could endure the strain no longer.  After her parents left I told her I should have to ask the doctors to be moved in the morning. I left my bed, went to the small lecture room but a few doors down the corridor and lay down on the davenport. The nurses meanwhile quieted the girl and put me back to bed. The following morning I was sent to the Clinic neither early for a whole series of stomach and digestive x-rays. The opportunity of my absence was taken by the physicians to have us both moved, without even a by our leave. The girl was transposed to a small dingy single down the hall; I found my personal effects in the comfortable big double next door - just freshly housecleaned it was and inviting. I had this room all to myself during the holidays and needless to say I was grateful for the peace and solitude.
Later when the crowd again began to gather - as they will in Rochester as quickly as the holidays are out of the way - Second-center Medical began to seethe. It didn't take long to fill up the old wing and I again found myself with a roommate sharing 242. This person - a sliver of an old maid - mouselike in manner and appearance was not at all disturbing. She talked little. it was she who sat up in bed to sleep most of the night - not upright as you or I sit, but rather more curled.

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Finally, however, I became aware that she was putting on a show for her parents. The doctors were nice to her all the while. Moreover, she seemed to be howling for hypodermics most of the time, and howled after she got them. On Sunday afternoon the climax came. My nerves definitely edged, could endure the strain no longer. After her parents left I told her I should have to ask the doctors to be moved in the morning. I left my bed, went to the small lecture room but a few doors down the corridor and lay down on the davenport. The nurses meanwhile quieted the girl and put me back to bed. The following morning I was sent to the Clinic neither early for a whole series of stomach and digestive x-rays. The opportunity of my absence was taken by the physicians to have us both moved, without even a by our leave. The girl was transposed to a small dingy single down the hall; I found my personal effects in the comfortable big double next door - just freshly housecleaned it was and inviting. I had this room all to myself during the holidays and needless to say I was grateful for the peace and solitude. Later when the crowd again began to gather - as they will in Rochester as quickly as the holidays are out of the way - Second-center Medical began to seethe. It didn't take long to fill up the old wing and I again found myself with a roommate sharing 242. This person - a sliver of an old maid - mouselike in manner and appearance was not at all disturbing. She talked little. it was she who sat up in bed to sleep most of the night - not upright as you or I sit, but rather more curled.