1st October 1924
Hotel Campbell, Rochester, Minn
[postmarked Oct 3 6.30am Rochester Minn - encl snap of Grand Canyon]
My dear Father,
We are unable to tell in this place when a mail goes out to Australia so am forced to take the risk and trust to luck.
Well we have been here a little over a week now and Bill is ever so much better after the doctors had finished their examinations of him They put him on a diet for a week and he finishes the course today. On Friday next Bill goes back to the Clinic and has his final instructions given him and we are hoping to leave this place about this day week to continue our trip.
You will be pleased to hear that I have received two letters from home so far. Mother's came to hand first and yours arrived a few days later and I was pleased to hear Mother's cold was much better. Also to hear you had received first letter posted in NZ.
We have not been doing much in this place as there is not much to do but we are both pleased about the rest we are having as we had been going hard since leaving Australia.
Our long suit in this place is to rent a Ford and Bill drives it all over the place yesterday were at a sale about 5 miles out and on the way home called into a stud farm of Holstein cattle owned by the State Hospital. It is a wonderful affair. The patients (all mad) milk 150 cows twice a day by hand and the milk is used in the hospitals around. The bails are enormous as they bail all the cows at the same time and they always go to the same bail and their milk is tested etc every time. Last night I went to a village dance in town with some girls from the hotel. They are nurses from the clinic. Bill went to bed.
We have just about seen all there is to see in this place as an old chap who devotes his life to wheeling patients about for the love of it, has taken a great fancy to us and has shown us all over the town. One day he took us to the basement of the colonial Hospital and from there through a subway to the Kahler Hotel. We went up to the top and saw all over the city from the 14th floor. The Kahler is a combination affair. The basement is set apart for nurses rest rooms etc. The first floor is lobby and offices the next six are hotel then to the roof is hospital. In a corner of the roof garden are four operating theatres and while we were up there one of the theatres was in full swing and was full of doctors watching the operation. From the roof we went back to the basement and then more subways to the Damon Hotel across the street. It is practically wholly devoted to hospital uses. More subways from there to the Clinic which is 3 blocks away from the Colonial Hospital where we entered so you can imagine how far we travelled underground.
In England all roads lead to London but in Rochester all subways lead to the Clinic. From the Clinic I went to St Mary's Hospital by jitney. This is the largest surgical hospital in the world under one roof. You can imagine the size of the place when there are fourteen operating theatres in it. They are all fitted with a gallery for onlookers and the largest of these theatres has a gallery built of marble leading up from the main floor and operating table, that will hold 240 people. One doctor alone in this hospital did 20 goitre operations in one day. I forgot to say this big operating theatre cost $60,000.
St Mary's is run by Catholic sisters and it is here the Mayos' do all their own operations. In fact they refuse to operate elsewhere. They are Protestants but when they first commenced practice in this place these Sisters helped him so much they stick to the sisters now.
Then there is Worrell Hospital where a lot of the X ray work is done and also the contagious diseases are kept. 9,000 cases in one month of one disease alone.
These are only a few of the hospitals that keep this place of 5,000 inhabitants alive. There are also the Curie, Samaritan, Zambro and many others.
In fact the town is full of hospitals drug stores (as they call chemists shops) and undertakers not forgetting hotels.
The country around here is the best and prettiest we have yet seen in the States and the weather is all one could wish for. We have worn our rain coats once since landing from the boat.
From here we go to Chicago for 2 days then to Detroit to Buffalo, Niagara and New York and then to England until about Xmas. Through France home. That is as far as we know at present. But you will hear as soon as we leave the States.
Well I think this is all the news for this time so I will close. Hope Mother's cold is now quite O.K. and that everyone at home is well. I know I am. Love to all from
Gordon.
