| Title: | Stewart, Frances to Atwood, Annie, 1868 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4782 |
| Collection | Revisiting Our Forest Home, The immigrant letters of Frances Stewart [J. L. Aoki] |
| File | stewart/64 |
| Year | 1868 |
| Sender | Stewart, Frances |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | housewife |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Douro Township, Newcsatle District, Upper Canada |
| Destination | Gore's Landing, Ontario, Canada |
| Recipient | Atwood, Annie |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | friends |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 777 |
| Genre | family, financial troubles |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 1868: January 2 To Annie Atwood, Gore's Landing, Ontario Douro, 2d Jan'y 1868 My dearest Annie My first letter dated in the New Year to you! I hope it may find you better & more comfortable than you have been for a long time as I heard you had got into a part of your house. A part of a good house is better than the whole of an uncomfortably small one. I have often thought of you my dear friends and only regretted I had not in my power to send you some useful little present as a help towards the new furniture & a proof of love and remembrance at this season. But alas dearest Annie, I believe I must deny myself much pleasure in that way. I need not [enter] into particulars for I am sure you know how many members of my family are so reduced by adversity & loss of property from different causes, so that any money I have seems to melt like the snow in sunshine & slides away in small divisions. You may always be sure I regret it has been out of my power to prove my sympathy & sincere affection both for you & my dear Mary under such trying circumstances in any way more substantial & effective than mere words & professions. But I still hope if I am spared a little longer that times may mend & no more fires or storms come to destroy property to the degree we have felt during the last year or two. But I feel how very wrong it is to allow my complaints to rise when I can see so much mercy & so many great blessings as we possess still. But I am making this letter too gloomy & serious & forgetting what 1 should have said first of all, my hopes & wishes that you have had a pleasant & cheerful Christmas & a happy New Year, making a better beginning of 1868 than on former seasons & that it may be the beginning of many years of health, prosperity, comfort & domestic happiness to you & your dear husband & children. I long to hear how dear Kate got down. I was sorry I did not see her before she left Peterboro but she had been gone two days before I heard she had been there. Since that, your Mamma & Mary were at Annas for a part of a day. Ellen Dunlop met them & said your Mother looked very well & seemed in tolerable spirits which I was very happy to hear. I am sure you are enjoying having your own Kate with you. She is such a pleasant companion & a kind & considerate assistant. I am also very much rejoiced to find you will have your Mother with you in Spring when you will have such great comfort in her tender care & experience. Your dear kind letter gave me great pleasure & tho' so long delayed I hope you will accept my sincere thanks for it. Indeed dear Annie I always do enjoy hearing from you. I feel a warm interest in all your home pursuits & arrangements & all the little domestic details of your household &children.... I wish I was near enough to you to help you with your sewing and knitting but I know dear Kate is excellent in that way & quicker than I am now for I have become very slow in performing every way. I am often in want of work as I have little or nothing to do for myself, & Kate & Bee use the sewing machine so much that they have nothing that I can do. I often grow tired reading & writing, my sight not being very good now. I have a constant [inundation] of books coming to me as some of my good friends at home often send me books by post & our little Reading Society goes on prosperously by which we have a regular course of books coming round monthly. And the newspapers are interesting, not from the [ ] which I never read, but the state of affairs all over the world. I suppose you know the Lakefield news better than I do, & of Peterboro I know very little. The last news I heard was the death of Caisse, the Hotel keeper. I must write a few lines to dear Kate. Bee joins me in kind love to you & kisses to the children, & with every kind wish of the season to you & Mr. Atwood. Ever dear Annie, your own old Mamma Stewart.... |
