After we had lived in Washington two or more years during which time, in addition to the public buildings already enumerated, I had visited: the White Rouse, the Horticuitural Garden, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Pan American Building. I had also visited the Soldier’s Home grounds, comprising several hundred acres of ground, through which there are numerous hard surfaced driveways, and on which there is an extensive farm upon which are grown crops of grain and vegetables every season for the use of the inmates of the home, and for feed for the large herd of guernsey dairy stock kept on the home grounds. There are quite a number of large stone, brick and cement buildings in which are housed the numerous ex-soldiers and ex-sailors, who are cared for in the Home, and in some of which are the offices of the officials and managers of this extensive government institution. I have also visited several times the Walter Reed Hospital, also a government institution established several years ago and named in honor of Dr. Walter Reed, deceased, who attained fame in connection with the discovery of the cause and cure of yellow fever. The hospital is situated on Georgia Avenue and is only a few blocks north and two blocks west of our home. The hospital grounds comprise more than one hundred acres, I do not know the exact area, and in addition to the main hospital buildings there are a number of other large structures in which are the homes of the military officials who have charge of tne institution, the office buildings, the barracks in which are quartered the soldiers who are stationed and on duty as guards of hospital and grounds, and a number of extensive low buildings in which are housed the ex-soldiers, soldiers and sailors who are under treatment in the institution.

This being a government hospital, all soldiers, sailors, ex-soldiers, ex-sailors and their families receive treatment and operations free of charge. Also the President and his family, the President by reason of his high office, being Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, also receive free treatment in this institution. Since we have been living in Washington, Calvin Coolidge, Jr. the youngest son of the then President Calvin Coolidge and wife, was treated in the hospital for blood poisoning; but the treatment failed to save the young man’s life, and he died. In addition to the free treatment to the parties named and perhaps others, in fact, I know of one other, James Good, the then Secretary of War, who was operated on for appendicitis and who died soon after the operation; a number of civilian emergency patients are received constantly for treatment in Walter Reed Hospital. It is one of the largest and best government hospitals in the United States. Many new buildings have been erected on the hospital grounds and appropriations were recently made by Congress to erect more structures to replace frame structures erected during the World War, which have become unfit for further use, and also to accommodate the increased hospital patronage.

I have also visited two of the private hospitals, the Sibley, which is a Methodist institution, and the Providence, a Catholic hospital. In the first of which three of our daughters have been patients, and in the last, one of our sons-in-law was a patient. Further reference to their several cases will be made later in relating events with which our family has been connected since we have been residents. I have only visited one of the large church edifices in Washington, the immense Protestant Episcopal edifice under construction and partly finished at St. Albans in the northwest part of the city, but I have attended the Protestant Episcopal, the Presbyterian and the Adventist Churches in Takoma Park, D.C. Our daughters, however, have attended several ot the big churches in the city. I forgot to mention the Baptist Church in Takorna Park, a stone building erected since we lived here, only a few blocks from us and which I have attended several times and I have frequently attended the Emory Methodist Church already mentioned.

I have seen many attractive private buildings and large mercantile establishments, fine steel bridges across the Potomac River and many beautiful parks, to wit: the Lafayette, Lincoln and others in various parts of Washington, which is said to be one of the most beautiful in the United States. Since we have lived here a great deal of improvement has been made, not only in the business part, but in the residential sections and especially in and near the section in which we reside. Many blocks entirely vacant in 1920, have been built, and the Wardmart Construction had erected hundreds of semi-detached two story brick dwelling houses on a large tract of land known as the Fort Stevens section, which in 1920 was entirely vacant, and was overgrown with large patches of blackberry bushes. For two, three, or more years, I gathered an abundance of blackberries every summer for our use.

Soon after we settled in Washington our daughter, Nelle, resumed work for the Natalie Company, manufacturers of hand made clothing for children. The proprietors of this company were Mr. and Mrs. Hancock (Natalie) and they did quite an extensive business and employed a number of persons, principally girls and a few older women. Nelle had been a seamstress like her mother since she was a half grown girl and she was well qualified to do the kind of work done in the Natalie establishment and it was no trouble for her to be reinstated in her old position again.

In October, 1920, Irene passed a civil service examination of applicants for positions as comptometer or rapid calculator operators. She was a graduate of the Burroughs Rapid Calculator School and was thoroughiy prepared to use a Burroughs calcutator machine, but when she appeared before the examiners’, she found they had the Comptometer calculator machine, different in some respects to the Burroughs machine, but after a little practice she could operate it alright. After passing the examination she was awarded a position in the Treasury Department, where she had been working temporarily before her examination, and she found that the Comptometer machine was used exclusively by the government or at least in the department where she worked.

Not long after we located in Washington, my niece, Miss Wylma Slavens, one of Brother Bailey's daughters, who had been a government employee and worked in the War Risk Insurance Bureau, for some time visited us, and we were all pleased to see her. When our daughter Bernice came to Washington to accept a position with the government, she knew that her cousin Wylma was in this city and had been here in the civil service of the government since the preceding April and Bernice stayed with Wylma a short time at her boarding place until she obtained a room at the Frydell home. Although Bernice was assigned to the same bureau in which Wyrna was employed, they worked in different buildings, their boarding places were in widely separated parts of the city and they did not see each other very often. Subsequently the name of the bureau was changed to Veterans Bureau and all the employees have since been housed in a large government building on Vermont and H Street and although they have not worked in the same room in their new quarters they have seen each other more frequently than formerly. Before coming to Washington Wylma had resided in Springfield for a few years with her mother, but after the death of her mother in 1914, I think, she lived with one of her brothers. She was educated at Morrisville, Missouri, where her mother formerly lived.

In the spring of 1922 the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, known as the Baltimore Conference of that church and is composed of the pastors of the churches and presiding elders of the various districts of that religious denomination, in the state of Maryland, the District of Columbia and parts of the states of Virginia and West Virginia, was held in Washington, D. C., and convened in the Mount Vernon Methodist Church, South. The Rev. Dewitt A. Beery, husband of Gona Slavens Beery, a minister of that church and member of the said conference, being pastor of one of the Methodist, South, churches in Roanoke, Virginia at that time, was in attendance at the conference. While here he and his oldest daughter who had come with him to attend the conference, visited. We were truly glad to see our ministerial kinsman and his pretty daughter. He was here twice, the last time being accompanied by the daughter, Bethel, when they stayed several hours, took dinner with us and Bethel rendered several selections of vocal music. She had a sweet, soprano voice and we all enjoyed her singing very much. DeWitt, I suppose is probably more than fifty years old and is a very intelligent and well-informed man. None of us have ever heard him preach, but I am confident, considering the many important churches of which he has been pastor during the score or more years he had been a member of the Baltimore Conference, that he is a minister of good ability. He is a fine conversationalist and a very friendly genial man. We were exceedingly pleased to have these relatives visit us.

I think it was in the year 1922 or 1923, during the winter, while I was looking after the coal furnace in the basement which was my constant job every fall and winter and generally until the first of May for several years. I was shaking down the ashes in the furnace and I hurt the second finger of my left hand, against the rough side of the furnace tearing the skin from the first joint of my finger and making a very painful wound. But the injury slowly healed and seemed to be all right, but a month or so after the finger was injured I noticed there was a small lump undernearth the skin and over the joint. It was not painful and I paid but little attention to it for some time. But in the course of three or four months I observed that the growth had become much larger and was gradually growing. Still, as it was not painful, I did not do anything toward its removal. Finally, after it had been growing about a year I consulted a physician and he attempted to remove it with a plaster of some kind of ointment but without success. The doctor said it was a cyst caused probably by some foreign particle penetrating the bone when I hurt the finger against the furnace, and he said it would have to be removed by a surgical operation. By that time the growth was as large as a grain of corn. Taking the doctors advice I went to the Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland, and one of the surgeons made an incision in the finger just over the growth, applied an anesthetic and cut the growth, a painless operation. The cut in the finger was quite painful for some time, but after two more visits to the hospital and receiving treatment for the finger by the surgeon, it soon became well and the growth has never returned.

A year or two after Rev. DeWitt Beery and daughter visited us, he and his wife, Gona, and their daughter, Bethel, who had married since she was first here, and her husband, Mr. Jeb Stewart, a young lawyer who is related to Gen. J. B. Stewart, one of the Confederate Generals, was a soldier during the world war and was overseas, and during his service in Europe, he said his commander was Col. Thomas Slavens. At that time he said he was not acquainted with his future wife neither as it turned out, did he know that his commander was to be his second cousin by marriage.

The first visit of Bethel and her husband in company with her father and mother, was soon after their marriage, and soon after that her husband got employment in the Law Department of the District of Columbia Government and they made their home in Washington. I think it was about two years after they became residents of Washington, they and her father and mother visited us again, and Bethel and Jeb had with them their little daughter, Bettie Ruth, then about a year old. We certainly enjoyed the visits of these relatives, and were glad that Bethel and her husband were residents of our city and in consequence hoped to see them and her parents more often. DeWitt in the meantime was stationed at Lewisburg, Greenbriar County, West Virginia, in which county my grandfather Slavens was born.

In the year 1923 we had a call from Thomas Albert Slavens, brother Bailey’s youngest son. He was accompanied by his sister, Wylma. Albert is a machinist in the employment of the federal government at Newport, Rhode Island. The department in which he is an employee manufactures torpedoes. Albert is married and they have two children and he and his family have a home in Newport. He is a good sized young man and considerably taller than his brothers, James and Zenas. He has been living at Newport several years and seems to have a good permanent position. At the time he was in Washington, he was looking after some business for the government as a representative of the government manufacturing establishment in Newport where he is employed. We enjoyed his and Wylma’s visit very much and to know he is so well situated.

Copyright ©2005 Larry Slavens. All rights reserved.