At Sea, Motorship Gripsholm - October 22, 1945

Part of the continuing letter written to the girls while the Gripsholm was at sea.  

Dearest girls,
Daddy speaking this time.  I don't want the trip to slip by without a note to you even though Mother is writing to you. Certainly we can't complain of lack of time for the days are very long and we hardly know how to pass the hours away. But the ship is not always quiet enough to make writing an easy job for me. So far however we have had a quiet smooth trip of it so that Mother and I have been more or less able to enjoy every meal. Some folks it seems were made ill by some bad food but we escaped that.

With so many missionaries aboard we have been having some good meetings. Every morning at ten there is a prayer meeting. It was my turn to lead it this morning (Monday). There is another prayer meeting on Wednesday nights, and a preaching service on Sunday mornings. Last night we had a song and testimony service and an interesting feature of it was when the various groups told what fields they were going to. Most were going to various parts of Africa, some to Egypt and Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Irak[1], Iran, and India.

Among the passengers are Mr. and Mrs. Phillips[2] of SIM. Maybe you remember them  as they came to Congo with their little boy named Henry years ago. Henry is now at Stony Brook and I believe he is a roommate of the Stam boys. Miss McIntyre is also aboard. She is a missionary in the Sudan with the United Presbyterian Mission. She is a friend of Miss Quinche, and we met her also when she came to Congo on vacation years ago. And there are a Mr. and Mrs. Foster who are returning to S. Rhodesia under the S.A.C.M. Mrs. F is a sister of our Miss Frost, and they will probably be seeing her on their way south. Miss Pollock a close friend of Murray's family (Wheaton) is going to Ethiopia.

This morning at 7 we passed the Azores and some of the folks saw a couple of the islands. We didn't as we were still in bed. In a few days we will see Gibraltar and later Italy and Greece, but we will probably not be allowed to go ashore.

We miss you more than we can tell, but we are glad that we know you are in a good place and are having happy times together.  We pray for you daily and we're sure the Lord will continue to meet your every need, and we praise Him for the peace He has given us about it.

I'll stop for now and maybe later will find something else to write about.

Love,
Daddy

FOOTNOTES

1. Earlier variant spelling of Iraq. 
2. possibly Geraldine Julia Phillips?  Can't find a reference to her husband's first name.