Dear Father:

We are still on the sea and are beginning to realize the size of it—We average 380 miles a day, having sailed continuously ever since we left San Francisco excepting the one day and night we dropped anchor at Honolulu.¹ We have not seen a speck of land excepting the Hawaiian Islands nor a passing vessel nor anything but the wide wide sea—Last Friday we passed the 180th meridian and dropped out of our calendar, Saturday. It seemed very strange to have only six days in the week and have Sunday follow Friday. If you have not thought of it before you will readily understand when you remember that we are going west to 180° and gain one half hour per day all the time. If we went around East to 180° (we only go part of the way) we would have to add a day upon reaching it. I find it very different on sea than on the land in a great many ways. Still I think we have a little world to ourselves out here. There are about 200 Japanese steerage passengers who got in at Honolulu and as many if not more Chinamen on the other end of the boat. There are some 75 or 100 (including children) who are going first class. These Japanese are a very interesting people. They came to Honolulu under four years’ contract of labor. They were paid poorly and now the time is up are only too glad to get back to their own country. They cannot speak English. I went down to one of these meetings conducted by 2 or three Japanese students who are going back to teach & preach. They asked me to speak to them the next day. I did not dare refuse yet I promised with some fear and trembling. One of the young men interpreted for me and so I preached my first sermon (?) to a heathen audience. They evidently thought it a good thing to do for they asked Miss Harris² yesterday. It seems a queer way to talk to people but the young men seem to think more can be accomplished through the foreigner’s speaking than through their own words.

Last evening Mr. Hulbert³ who is on his way to Corea, gave us a lecture in Social Hall on the country. He made a very pleasant picture of it. He was until Page 44 →recently a Congregationalist and was a government teacher in Seoul. He goes out under our board for the press work. He will preach too. He & his wife are both young and have one little child and are very pleasant company. Yukiye⁴ is their servant but we will leave her at Nagasaki Japan. We will have two more weeks travel by water after leaving Yokohama. It is getting a little monotonous. But we have had such beautiful weather all the way. Today it is dark and rainy but not rough which we are all devoutly thankful for, in remembrance of our first two days on board. I am reminded of what Amanda Smith⁵ said about the palace on the sea. As I write in the dining room, which is beautiful, the music comes floating down from the Social Hall through the opening overhead. Our staterooms are very comfortable and the bath room is quite complete. The upper deck is delightful especially these beautiful nights of moon-light. Eleven times around the deck is a mile so we walk it for exercise. It was so windy last evening to walk, but heretofore a ship would have had difficulty in making any head-way.

There was a woman among the Japanese who died Sunday night. She would have been buried at sea, but her husband wanted to take her to Japan so a collection was taken to embalm her and she will be taken to her home. Her husband, & she too I think, was a Buddahist (sic). One of the Christian boys read and prayed with her before she died but she could not talk, so we don’t know if she grasped the truth or not. Yukiye was quite put out that any Christians should give to the man because she thinks his being able to take the body home and give it a Buddahist funeral helps Buddahism and hinders Christianity. She is a great reasoner, and has very positive opinions of her own.

We have only two more days until we reach Yokohama and I shall not be sorry for it is so warm and all those warm clothes which everyone advised me to take are still in my trunk and my limited supply of thin ones about exhausted. Advise everyone who crosses the ocean on this line to have a supply of thin clothes. I’m not the only one who is not prepared for 3 weeks of hot weather.

While the punkahs⁶ are going I’ll write to you another page. At 4 o’clock they serve tea & cake and there the Chinamen pull the punkahs which are fans over the tables going the whole length of each one. So I find it quite comfortable being fanned. When you look on the map and see that we have been farther south than Cuba, you will appreciate how warm we find it.

We have on board with us the Chinese Ex-minister, his two wives, a son about 17 years old and a little baby girl, 2 years old. The wives have both bound Page 45 →feet, the first ones I ever saw. The baby is “May Washington.” Her feet are not bound and I suppose will not be now she is so old. There is an old Japanese Buddahist priest also. Such a queer looking creature with a shaven head and a long black robe. We have another lecture tonight on “India” by Mr. Lucas.⁷ Well the punkahs have stopped and I must go up on deck for some air.

September 28

We expect to land tomorrow. The sea is like glass today not a ripple, scarcely. We have made excellent time because of the weather. Mr. & Mrs. Hulbert will go on to Kobe to shop. I think we will go to Nagasaki & wait there until they come. I had another opportunity to speak to the Japanese. I had no thought of it before I was asked. It’s very queer to talk to so many odd-looking people all sitting on the floor looking up into your face. I hope I shall become as interested in the Korean people as I am in these Japanese—These associations are very pleasant and in one way I’m loathe to leave the boat but yet I’m anxious to get at my journey’s end—There will be a scattering when we reach Yokohama.

Lovingly,

Lulu

Dear Friends at home:

This letter is my first one from Seoul, so I’ll make it general. Word came this afternoon that the mail would go out Sunday so I must get some letters ready. I am studying five and six hours a day, so I am jealous of all my spare moments. I wrote you of my trip as far as Chemulpo.⁸ We left Mrs. Jones⁹ at 10 o’clock of the night I wrote and went on board the little Japanese steamer. There were six in our party counting Mrs. Hulbert’s little girl. We four women slept in the cabin on the floor and you can appreciate the size of the cabin when I tell you that it was barely six foot square & not high enough for me to stand up. About 3 o’clock the little steamer began to puff and we started from Chemulpo for Seoul. We puffed along slowly until about 10 o’clock that morning when we suddenly came to a stand-still. The tide was going out and we were obliged to stop in the mud until the tide was out and came in again which was nearly eight hours. Mrs. J. had given us enough lunch for one meal expecting to reach Seoul in time for tiffin.¹⁰ You can imagine the state of our appetites when we did reach there. Page 46 →At about six o’clock we moved again and finally we reached Young San 4 miles from Seoul. It was 10 o’clock P.M. and the sedan chairs, which had been there for us all day had been taken back again. We girls Miss Payne,¹¹ Miss Harris and I found our way to a Japanese tavern and asked for lodging. We soon doubled ourselves up in the Japanese beds Belle Allen¹² told you of and were soon fast asleep not withstanding we were supperless and dinnerless too. In the morning we found that a man had been left there to go home and order the chairs as soon as we arrived but he had fallen asleep and at six o’clock was just starting to take the word. We decided rather than wait so long we would walk to Seoul so at 8 o’clock we walked up the steps of our house and were welcomed by Mrs. Scranton,¹³ Miss Lewis,¹⁴ Miss Dr. Cutler¹⁵ who came out in the Spring. There are six in our family and we are a very happy house-hold. Miss Paine took me right into her heart as well as her rooms and we are very congenial. She has been alone a year and made up her mind that if she liked me and I did her we would room together. We have a very large study very prettily furnished and a bedroom off of it with a closet with plenty of shelves and books and an abundance of trunk room. We have our own bath-room conveniences off our bed-room. Miss Harris has a little two roomed house close by, but I think I am most pleasantly situated. Miss Paine is a Boston girl who came out last year—by the way she told me to give my mother her love and say that she would take good care of me.

I was telling you about our home. We have a very beautiful parlor—a great many of the things are Mrs. Scranton’s, and a very pleasant dining room. We have a good cook and good servants generally, considering. Our meals are excellent and served so nicely. I feel as if I was at a dinner party most of the time. Mrs. Scranton is an Easterner and must have everything done right. We can get most everything that is necessary for food. I find everything much nicer than I anticipated. Our pleasant home and the society of the other foreigners is all we have however. Out house is quite large, including the school, and stands on a hill overlooking the city. The tops of the houses are the prettiest part of them so we really look down on a pretty sight—but go down into the city and the scene is very different. The houses are about six ft. high with thatched or tiled roofs and remind one with their dirt floors more of pig pens than anything else. They are in an unbroken line along either side of the street which is no more than six ft. wide. Now our dirtiest alley at home is a Michigan Ave or a Broadway in comparison. You cannot appreciate the filthiness of these so-called streets. There is no sewage and all the filth of any description is in the way. All that is pretty down town is the blue sky over head and you cannot Page 47 →look at that for fear of stepping into something dreadful under foot. I am not exaggerating for I could not make it worse than it is.

Sunday we went to Union Services held by the Presbyterian & Methodist missionaries. Mrs. Fisher Swallen¹⁶ was there and we were so glad to see each other. I went home with her for supper and we had a nice chat together. I was very much surprised to see in Miss Paine’s letter I received in Yokohoma that Mrs. Swallen had a little baby. She is a very pretty little girl and they are quite proud of her. She wanted me to stay all night but I felt I must go home so she loaned me her sedan chair & Mr. Swallen ordered the coolies. I was afraid the coolies might not know the way and I would be unable to talk with them, but John Wanamaker¹⁷ just then came to my assistance and I was so glad to see him, so I got back very safely. I’ll tell you again of John. He is Miss Paine’s private servant and is quite an important appendage to our household.

We went over to the prayer meeting held in one of the mission homes nearby tonight. The people are all very sociable and meet together quite often both for prayer meetings and social meetings. The literary meets at our house Friday evening of this week. The foreigners of the place have a library & a tennis court. It is the only place among the eastern countries, they say, where the political people mingle with the missionaries. The Union who own the library building and grounds are composed of missionaries, the ministers from the different countries, and their wives and other foreigners of good standing. I think the workers here look so much more healthy than in Japan & I think it is due to these social privileges. Miss Paine is invited to Tiffin at the Russian Legation Saturday. The dinner parties are quite frequent they say. Winter is coming on so I suppose there will not be so much to go to.

One of our girls is to be married next week, I’ll tell you about the wedding in my next letter. I am glad it did not come off before I reached here. This wedding and one of the teacher’s eyes failing just now and kimchie time near at hand gives us a couple of weeks to study without having to do any work. Kimchie is something like sauerkraut and the girls go home to help make it. I have begun the language. It is very hard, they say much harder than Chinese or Japanese. My teacher knows nothing of English and I know nothing of Korean and it is quite amusing that we get along. It is best to have a teacher who knows no English for then we are forced to talk Korean. It seems at times as if I was making little head-way, but it is very interesting. To my great surprise, my French is going to help me. Not that I know very much or that the Korean is anything like it, but there is a fine French-Korean dictionary gotten up by the French Catholics¹⁸ who have been in the country a number of years, and Page 48 →we have no English-Korean except a very small one with a limited number of words.¹⁹ Miss Paine bought one today and paid $14²⁰ for it. Of course we have to use a French-English dictionary in connection. My teacher comes at half past eight & stays until eleven & from one until four. So I am in school as much as ever, except that I can send him away if I don’t feel like studying.

Well, it is getting very late and my room-mate wants to go to bed, so I will bid you good night. I am in hopes a letter will come in a few days from home. It seems a very long time since I heard from you.

Very lovingly Yours—

Lulu E. Frey.

[From top of first page of letter, written as postscript]

I expect I’ve told you a great deal I said in the last letter but it seems so long ago that I’ve forgotten what I did tell you. Be sure to have mother send me her picture so I won’t get it later than Christmas. I have an idea that you will get the letter I mailed at Honolulu a week from today.

Private

[marked as Received 1893.11.24]

Dear Mother:

I’m going to write you a little note all for yourself. I do hope you are real well and as happy as I am. I want you to tell me about aunt Ann if there is any change in her condition.

It is very late and I’ve just taken a bath so I must not sit up long, but I wanted to add a few words and the mail goes out tomorrow. I think of you very very often. and I’d like to see you, yet I’m not home-sick. I love you just as much altho’ there is 8000 miles between us. I’m real fortunate in getting such a loving room-mate.

When you send me papers you can enclose a handkerchief now and then. I lost 4 on the way, fortunately they were not good ones. I wish too you would have the dress colored & have Jessie²¹ make it up prettily. I can’t get any black China silk here or Japan and I’ll need it badly next summer. Miss Rothweiler²² expects to come in Jan’y or Feb. and you can send it by her. Of course if it does not color nicely keep it for linings or something for yourself. You count the cost and when the amount has reached a high enough figure I’ll send you the money. I’ll not be able to have much now for the winter expenses are very high and I’m only on half pay the first year. I hope you won’t trouble about it. After it is colored, let Jessie use her own taste as to making it. I think I should like some lace on it for summer wear.

Page 49 →Well Goodnight—

With love and kisses for you

I am your daughter—

Lulu E. Frey

Dear Sister Georgia:

You tell mamma that she will have to do without her letter this time for I am going to write to you. I thought when I read mamma’s letter that you were not in school but when I reread it I found it said you were. I wonder what you would think if you could see our girls in school. I think you would find them just as bright as you are, and I think they look quite as well with their pretty red and white calico dresses on. Just outside the door in the hall is a place for their shoes. You know they don’t wear any hats so when you would take off your hat, they take off their shoes. I suspect you could not get much of an idea what we are talking about for the girls know only a little English and I know only a very little Korean, so we talk a little of both. I tell them it is “very good”—don’t forget” and a few phrases I have learned. I think after a little I will know enough to get along nicely. I like to teach them very much. I wish you could hear these Koreans study. Our girls do not do so badly as those who have Korean teachers. They are not taught to study with their lips closed. When I was in Chemulpo, I stopped into a boys’ school.²³ The little youngsters were sitting on their feet, six in a row and two rows of them, swinging their bodies back and forth to the tune they were studying with. They study at the top of their voices, each one paying special attention to his own book. It is a comical sight but they are not into mischief as some of you are when the teacher thinks you are studying very hard. Our girls have desks, slates and pencils just as you do, but when they go to church they all sit on mats on the floor and when they pray they don’t talk as you girls do in Sunday school, for they bow clear to the floor, face down and never peep around to see what other people are doing. I believe American children might learn a few lessons from these little heathen children, don’t you? We have 35 in our school and the Presbyterians have 10.²⁴ I always feel so badly for the little ones I see on the streets, who have not the privileges these in the schools have. Parents don’t like the children to come because they learn the new doctrine. We do not take any little girls in unless Page 50 →the parents will let them stay a good many years. When they grow up, we see that they marry some worthy man who is a Christian.

I study in the mornings and teach in the afternoons and three evenings of the week I study with my teacher. So you see my time is pretty well filled, but it is all what I like to do so I am very happy. The little time I have before dinner and supper and before bed time I write my letters so you know pretty much what I do. I have to take care of the girls’ clothes too. They wear out lots of things and I have to keep account of how much each one has and supply them when new ones are needed, overseeing the cutting and making of their garments. I do not do any of the sewing myself, but I keep the goods and the ready-made things. Their clothes are just the same for summer and winter except in the winter they are made double and there is a layer of cotton put between. When they are washed, they are ripped then put back together again. Wouldn’t that be funny, to have to make your clothes up every week?

I wish you could see our babies in the hospital. We have three now. We keep them there until they are old enough for school. We have to turn a great many away who would give us their children and we could train them as Christians, but we have not the money. We teachers are each going to take a little baby as our own, and have a woman to take care of them. It will cost a very little bit, and in time will be a great help to these people for when these girls grow up, they can teach about Jesus to others. You ought to be very glad to be a “Mekuk Ayhe”— (American girl). How is Florence & Lena²⁵ now? What a nice time you & Lena will have together this winter.

Well there is the dinner bell—I suspect by the time this letter reaches you there will be snow on the ground and you will be thinking of Christmas. We are going to have a great time for the girls. There have been several boxes of dolls sent, I think there must be 75 dolls in all and some of them are beautiful and so nicely dressed. There will be enough for our girls and to spare, so we are going to sell some to the mothers of the little American girls here and then use the money for other things. I think there are some very pretty little American girls here. I wish you knew them. There is Augusta, Marian and Katharine Scranton—Dr. Scranton’s²⁶ little girls. Mr. Appenzeller had a very nice little girl²⁷ your age. Just before I came there was a little girl and a little boy—brother and sister—both died in one week and they are buried down by the river.²⁸ Their mamma and papa have gone back to America and they say the mother is nearly crazy because she lost her little children. Isn’t it sad?

My room-mate, Miss Paine, is having a new dress made by a Chinese tailor. Page 51 →Wouldn’t you think it queer if you had a man come and make your clothes? He does nice work. Can make anything like anything else he has to look at or like a picture. He looks very queer sitting here in his funny dress and cap with his pig tail hanging down to the floor. There are so many funny things over here, that one should see to fully appreciate. I noticed the fire tonight blazing under the house so I thought perhaps you would like to know how the girls’ rooms are heated. The floors are made of stone with a layer of mud on top and then a hard shining surface made of oiled paper. Underneath is the wood fire and the floors get hot and that heats the room They do not like our foreign fires. They bring out their Yoe and Ebal to sleep at night. The Yoe is the first comfort the Ebal is the one they put over them. They don’t use chairs so about the only thing they have to have in their rooms is the box they keep their clothes in. These boxes are very pretty—they are usually black and gilt about the size of a small trunk. I wonder how much you would eat if you sat down with our girls. I am afraid I could not stand it myself—some of their things to eat smell so badly that I could not have courage enough to try to eat.

Did you get the letter I wrote you on the way?

November 11

Dear Georgia, I must finish this tonight for the mail leaves tomorrow. I was so disappointed not to get a letter from home. I’ve only had three mails since I came and three out of the 3 times nothing has come for me from home. I got four letters but all from others. Today has been a big day for the Koreans and for us, for we have viewed the “Kerdong”²⁹—that is what they call the King’s procession. I wish you could have seen it for it is so different from anything you or I ever saw that it is difficult to describe. The king comes out only once a month or so and then with great pomp. Hundreds & hundreds of soldiers and a great many high men & their servants. The king in his beautiful canopied chair carried by 50 men and followed by a retinue of servants. The queen in a closed chair for the high women never show their faces except to their husbands or to women who may have gained an entrance into their homes. Her maids and dancing girls and their servants. The King’s son & wife and all their retinue of servants and oh! I don’t know what else. They are fond of gorgeous colors so it was very pretty. We had an excellent view and the King deigned to look upon us and to read the sign of our girls’ school.³⁰ Give my love to all and don’t forget your far away sister—

Lulu E. Frey

[From Josephine Paine’s mother, Mrs. Paine, to Frey’s mother.]

Dear Mrs Frey,

I know you will be somewhat surprised to hear from me, a perfect stranger. I am very much interested in your daughter. The one in that “far away land.” She is with my daughter Josie Paine. I had a letter from her a few days ago, and she wrote me, “Miss Frey nor Miss Harris did not have a letter from home in the last mail.” I do not know how I could get along without the time table of the sailing of all steamers from San Francisco. I know just when to mail my letters, I have to allow six days to go across. You can find out just how much time you will have to allow. I think it will be quite a help to you as mine is a great comfort to me.

My heart just ached for you when I knew she was to leave you to go so far away—I have her photo—and I am delighted to have her with Josie.

Yours truly

S. P. Paine.

Jamaica Plain is our office address.