| Title: | O'Connor, Charles to O'Connor, Frances, 1926 |
|---|---|
| ID | 6414 |
| Collection | New Brunswick Letters |
| File | newbrunswick/49 |
| Year | 1926 |
| Sender | O'Connor, Charles |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | lawyer |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Manchester, N. Hampshire, USA |
| Destination | Fredericton, N.Brunswick, Canada |
| Recipient | O'Connor, Frances |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | siblings |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 879 |
| Genre | lack of work, finding a teaching position, moving south |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 14 Off. BLK, Thursday 30-9-26 My Darling! – the last star in the group of my life! [Combining] in you all the beloved recollections of our kind father our beloved mother and our [Timothy] – Do you think I have changed a particle in my estimate of you? I dared to Canonize you! That Sister looked strange when I declared you my “St Frances of Fredericton!” You mistake me altogether My Frank! Don’t you understand that I only stress the “Degrees” you speak of to commercialize them! To turn them into bread & butter! not to glorify myself to you! O my dear how I bless and thank our good God for bringing you [thru] that terrible acute indigestion so fatal to most! Do I not know how saving and careful you are! and my love, I am doing the very same thing you are as far as I can! I sleep in my office, and get my own meals except a cheap dinner of potato & meat (pork) & not always that. I say my “office” Dear! There is no law business for any body now here – horribly dull times! Especially for an 83 yr older! I can’t expect it! Do my best to appear youthful, which my spare form and my activety, prolonged, D.G., by the care I have taken to avoid harmful luxuries & live plainly & simply have favored a lot so far; but “Tempus edax rerum” “Time the devourer of all things” will have his prey! I got the idea of selling my degrees or using them to dignify for gain. I called on the Convent here & Saw the big tall important and not very polite or genial, She did not ask me to sit down! Superior yesterday! She referred me to the teachers in charge of [their] Academy a very able Sister I assure you I told her a telling story – “My Going away as a Rep of U.S. – (Consul) had of course killed my law practice & when I got back, a new crop of lawyers had sprung up & a lot of my old clients had “passed on” and that I could not endure to be idle & I told her very nicely of my “ Record” including my hard won degrees which every one has a right to – the declarations of Un Bapt. Semry. making me – a Cath. – the leading student in their history, and of my 1st standing in the U.N.B. & they wanting me to go to England as their [repve] for the East India Civil Service – (which [I’ve vetoed]) and then showed her how completely my scholarship had been acknowledged here in my reforming their whole educational systemin the 9 or 10 years I served on the Board here – all this very carefully. My off I told her I had determined to offer my services to the noted Wellesley College for ladies in Massts but And to give a set of special “lectures” in Latin Greek French [or] Mathematics, and Showed her how any academic standing (Degrees) would be a drawing attraction not only in N.H. but in Mass, (Harvard being its trump card”!) She is very bright and was intensely interested, but told me regretfully she had not the pupils for it – Young girls only striving to get to be type writers and stenographic clerks [x] for the business folk here, and O she wished the time would soon come she could avail of my offer – She was discouraged at the low standard her young girls aimed at I, however, encouraged & cheered her & told her what she could do. She was deeply interested and most grateful for the appreciation I showed of her efforts and how I showed her very clearly the high point she could reach. So there! I am sure I’m in the Right track, and may hit Wellesley She was expressed herself as highly obliged that I brought the matter to her attention, (as I told her thought I ought to, to promote home institutions first), and she has hopes we may yet deal! ---- But! I told I told her of Wellesley, but told her I did not know whether the O in my name and its “belongings” straight out prejudices me there – But she said she thought not so. You see it’s a [dashing] proposition and I claimed it would be an attractive advertisement – even to getting pupils from Massachts – Harvard being its Star! We’ll see! If it don’t take there I feel very sure it would take well further south and there is the further advantage there of a mild climate as in Tennessee* or Kentucky, where I have friends – Such as Rhodes who would I’m sure be well disposed – There Taken too much time God bless & keep you & pray for me Love Chal *And there’s a gal “Way down in Tennesse” would like very much to see me, I know! Where to go I don’t know – No room yet – but I try to comply with the psalm I like Qui habitat “He who dwells in the help of the Most High” [ps] It’s unpleasant – and hard to [root] up an old tree! Quite cool here now & my little “perfection” heater is a great comfort, C. |
