SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
April 7, 1937 
Dear Dr. Schmitt; 
There isn’t much news to tell you this time. Everybody is 
doing as well as can be expected I 
Miss Rathbun is still out, and I get more worried about her 
the longer she stays away. I wish her nephew would come down again. 
He came once last week and said she was getting along all right and 
expected to come back Monday. He said the doctors didn’t seem to 
know what her difficulty is. Mr. Shoemaker has been to see her several 
He says there is a very noticeable lump on the outside of her 
For the first few days she could scarcely eat at all and could 
talk only with difficulty. Mr. Rathbun said the doctors didn’t seem 
to recognize the trouble. Mrs. Van Winkle called on her for a minute 
late Saturday afternoon and found her eating dinner. Mr. Shoemaker is 
going to call again this evening. 
Mr. Maloney has a new set of teeth at last, around which he 
has considerable difficulty talking. I think they change the shape of 
his face a good deal. 
Mr. Shoemaker is on a diet and is slowly starving to death 
(though you wouldn’t notice it yeti). 
The only thing I can complain about is that I ate too many 
good things while Mrs. Van Winkle was here with the result that I got 
two cankers and now my mouth is too sore to enjoy anything to eat. 
That is unrelieved tragedy! 
As I wrote you in my last letter, Dr. Wetmore called me to 
come up to talk about Mrs. Cheney. That was a week ago said I have heard 
nothing further. I suppose that I shall never be told what his decision 
was. If she remains, I suppose that fact will be evidence that he chose 
to keep her out of the three. But why in 
can’t we be told? Since 
she is still here after a week, I gather that he did decide to keep her, 
but why can’t he call me and tell me so? It would relieve my mind to 
know that we can still count on her indefinitely, or, on the other hand, 
we could taper things off if we coxild know that she won’t be with us long. 
The way this place is run is certainly amazing. 
