UNTIL DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 134, 8 June 1936, Page 5

UNTIL DEATH.

BRAVE U.S.A. NURSE-

"WE SHALL CARRY ON." j WAR HORRORS IN ABYSSINIA, i (From Our own Correspondent.) SAX FRANCISCO, May 10. Like a benediction, the last words to friends of Mrs. Elfreda Stadin, who was killed in the Addis Ababa rioting after the flight of Emperor Haile Silassic, echoed throughout the little community of Lorna Linda, in Southern California. "We shall continue to carry on if God sees fit to spare our lives," the plucky nurse wrote to friends from her mission in Ethiopia. The letter was postmarked Addis Ababa, April 2, and Mrs. Stadin was killed on Sunday, May 3, when a stray bullet struck her as she slept. She and her husband, Dr. A. R. Stadin, former residents and 6tudents at Loma Linda-, remained in the thick of the Ethiopian war despite advices from the American State Department that they leave. Dr. Stadin was uninjured in the Addis Ababa rioting. The letter was received on May 7 in; Loma Linda by Mrs. Daisy Shvrock, 111, West Prospect Street, wife of Dr. E. Harold Shyrock, professor at the Seventh Day Adventist College. Mrs. Stadin wrote the letter shortly after she and Dr. Stadin left their hospital at Dessye and travelled the 250 miles to Addis Ababa. She described the hardships of that trip over a road already destroyed by the Ethiopians in a futile attempt to block the advancing Italian army. Portions of her letter follow: "We came down to Addis Ababa on a combined business and pleasure trip. Dr. Stadin has worked hard and is tired. His clothes hang on him—and they were so tight when we came here' a year ago. You cannot imagine the strain under which we are working daily. The wounded come in flocks to Dessye from the front to get help. v They are gas burned, stabbed and shot. They come here unaided, dragging themselves along I the road for four or six weeks.

"They cover their wounds with leaves and splint the shot-off limbs with sticks of wood. You have to let your imagination run wild in order to grasp a little of the conditions these people are in, and what we have to see daily. Last week, two of those that came threw themselves 011 the floor, and, after being carried to bed, died in a few hours. They had to use their last bit of strength to reach Dessye and the hospital, but too late. "It is awful to think about what happens to those who are absolutely helpless. Nobody kno\vs how many die by the roadside. We know that many do, and that wild animals and hyenas feast on the half-dead bodies. War is the devil's worst play, and it is sad that it will get worse until the end of time. I am longing for the time when the last moan and groan of suffering humanity is quieted down."

The Stadins left Loma Linda a year ago last January for the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital school at Dessye.