December 29, 1938
“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary.
December 30—Friday—arrived in Tunis, North Africa at 7:30 a.m. after a rising and falling night. The ways were lined with ragged Arabs and Negroes, all of whom wore red skullcaps with long black silk tassels. I shall get one. Mr. Kelly, an old friend of the Wagner’s met us at the boat and helped us to get through the customs and find a good hotel. The Arab men were sitting on the sidewalks sunning themselves and gossiping (all ragged and dirty) and a tea or coffee vendor was passing one cup around and refilling it for each person. Mohammedan women dressed in white flowing robes, but with heavy black veils, passed swiftly and silently. We found good rooms at the Claridge Hotel. It was freezing outside, tile floors inside didn’t help warm the rooms any. After lunch Aunt Inez and I went to bed with a hot water bottle and slept, took baths then dressed for dinner, to which Mr. and Mrs. Kelly came. Mrs. Kelly is beautiful and good as she is lovely, I am sure. Mr. Kelly is very humorous. They used to be missionaries and now are doing YMC a work. Mr. Kelly says the Mohammedan women are likely to where the veils and that the little girls can hardly wait until they are old enough to start. The men’s foil their women. Their fortune is in their jewelry. It is the young men that are getting the women to unveil. They can’t afford to have more than one wife. We sat around talking until after 11, and I was frozen from my feet up. They left and I popped into a hot bath and then to bed.