Ruth Goodman Write from Australia - 1943

Ruth Goodman Writes from Australia

Bainbridge News & Republican, August 5, 1943

 

Mrs. H.H. Hutchinson received the following letter written July 18, from Ruth R. Goodman, who is with the Red Cross in Australia:

 

Many thanks for your very nice letter.  I was so glad to have heard from you.  I have missed all the Bainbridge news since I left the States in May, but I think I am caught up on it now.

 

We have been here for several weeks now, and I feel as if I really know this section of Australia very well.  I have had innumerable opportunities to see everything interesting, and the Australian people have been most kind.  Being here is so much like being in the States that it doesn't seem possible that I am several thousand miles from home.

 

I have been very fortunate in getting a job which would permit me to use my Home Economics training to very good advantage.  I am to be an Assistant Club Director, and my most important job will be to plan meals, do the buying and supervise the dining room in our Club, which is really a lot.  It will be opened within a few days as a club for officers on leave in this area.  We have been working on it for several weeks now, and it should be a really attractive place when it is finished.  The Red Cross Clubs here are very popular because they serve good food America Style, and the boys like that.  Of course steaks are the most popular; and we can get them any place.  I was amazed to find that food is very plentiful and a good deal cheaper here than in the States.  All my friends here know that my one weakness is food, as it was when I was in Bainbridge, and they tease me about it.  I don't mind a bit, however, although I have gained weight, I have been doing quite a bit of cooking at home too because we have a wonderful apartment with a very well equipped modern kitchen.  My apartment mate and I are both very fond of cooking, so that we do have a good time together.

 

We were extremely fortunate to have been able to get our apartment because the housing shortage is really serious here too.  We have a four room apartment with a huge living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen and bath.  We have a fire place in the living room, and we have a balcony room which we hope to use when it gets warmer.  It is Winter here now, and it is really cold.  I hadn't expected such weather, and consequently I came down with a mild case of the flu the first week I was here.  I'm all over that now; and I am gradually becoming accustomed to the weather.

 

It took almost two months for your letters to get here from Washington, but they did get here, and that's all that matters.