| Title: | Stewart, Frances to Wilson, Mary, 1851 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4755 |
| Collection | Revisiting Our Forest Home, The immigrant letters of Frances Stewart [J. L. Aoki] |
| File | stewart/37 |
| Year | 1851 |
| Sender | Stewart, Frances |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | housewife |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Douro Township, Newcsatle District, Upper Canada |
| Destination | Ireland |
| Recipient | Wilson, Mary |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | cousins |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 831 |
| Genre | news, family |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 1851: July 18 To Mary Wilson, Ireland Another marriage is likely soon to take place more immediately in my own family. My eldest son William has been fortunate enough to succeed in making himself agreeable to Louisa McNabb. She is stepdaughter to Eliza Reid who married a physician Dr. McNabb about 2 ¥t years ago. Louisa is a very amiable affectionate girl & I hope will make a good & prudent wife for dear William. They are to be married in about a fortnight and when she is established here I intend to leave the new married pair to themselves for a little while & pay visits to my daughters. Bessie is to be confined next month & I must be with her at that time. My family is now much scattered & by that means very much reduced. Frank & John, the two next to William, are still in the States but hope to return home in October. George is studying engineering in Toronto. Charles is boarding with Mr. Taylor our clergyman & preparing for college so that I have at present only Henry & Kate with me and of course William who always lives here. Henry is learning farming and is to go to work with Edward & Robert Brown next winter as I think he will learn a better method from them than he would by remaining here with Wm. & I will keep Kate with me or with one of her sisters. This marriage will make a change in my situation tho' not very materially at first. This house is my own for my life but it is on a very large & expensive scale & the whole establishment is too large for a single female so that I am rejoiced to give up the management & profits of the whole place to William & let him & Louisa have the use of the house & I will give up the housekeeping to her, reserving my own rooms for my own use & the liberty of coming & going as I feel agreeable or convenient, at least till I see how all goes on. I have taken up too much of your precious time dearest Mary but I hope you will forgive me & write to me very soon. See how my letter has been blotted here and in another place on the first sheet. I have a pet kitten & whenever I am writing it makes a practise of coining up & lying down on ray paper & sometimes I am obliged to take another piece of paper. When you write pray dear like a good kind friend tell me all you know of that precious & beautiful Saint, Mrs. Morrison, if still living. It is a long time since her nephews have heard from her. The letters of even those dear old Aunts are prized above gold & looked for as treasures. They are beautiful specimens indeed of Christian piety & humble submission. It is quite a high privilege to have such relations & correspondents. The Browns only regret deeply that their own circumstances do not allow them to send more assistance to these dear afflicted relations. By steady and most unflinching industry these dear young men are becoming independent. They keep themselves above want and out of debt. James is working hard & living very steadily & has a most valuable wife. He has a farm about half a mile from Edward. Edward works as hard as any man can for you know none of them have anything but their own industry to depend on. They both have good farms. Edwards is his own. James rents his but wishes to purchase it if he can. Templeton has a farm just between Edward's & James's but he lives at present in Peterboro as his farm is not yet under cultivation nor is his house built yet. He & Eliza are longing to get out there but must wait patiently a year or two longer. Robert has a good piece of land, 157 acres, joining Edward's on the other side but there is no house there yet & he is not quite ready to begin for himself as he wants to assist Templeton first. They are all so united & attached to each other. They set a good example to all brothers. This has been a wonderfully wet season. The crops did look beautiful but fears are now arising about so much wet & there is great difficulty in saving the hay. I have been writing in the greatest haste as this letter must be in the post office tonight. So my own dear Mary pray give ray best & kindest love to your home circle first & then to the outside circles all round. I mean those who care for me, of course.... Dear Mary write to me soon & fully. & Believe me to be as ever your attached & affect'e cousin, F. Stewart |
