Lyons April 17 1864

 

            Dear friends at home

well I have come to the conclusion that you will not right to us till you hear from us so here is for it the children have all got the hooping cough but not verry bad as yet Wm and me are well we have moved and are living close by where we were when you came from Chicago to see us do you remember a shanty by the side of the woods at the end of the lain to your right hand. well there is where we live and it is quite comfortable for summer there is two roomes in it and an out side shanty to put the stove in in the summer we give him 20 dollars for it and an acre and a half of ground for the year it was the best we could do 

 

you will perhaps wonder when Louisa tells you I was to Lockport so soon I was pretty smart and when the word came that Wesley was dead we knew Mother would be almost crazy and Wm wanted me to go down and stay a week so I coaxed Maggie Uncle Hulses girl to go with me and she staid two weeks the 37 come back while I was down there a part of the crick boys has reinlisted and a part has not Edmund wells has and has now gone to Iowa to see the folks at home Wesleys funeral sermond was preached too weeks ago to day at Lockport and he staid till it was over he died the 13^th of Feb at Brownsville Texas he told the Colonel soon after he was taken that it was a hard thing for a man to dy so far from home that had served his country as well as he had he never had been sick a day before 

 

Edmund Lizer has enlisted and is now in Decature Alabama we got a letter from him last night he is well and in pretty good spirits it will be among the wonders if he lives to come home.

 

it is raining and has been for the last I do not know how long Wm has not plowed a furrow except the garden as yet he intends to put in 12 acres of oats and eleven of corn and team it the rest of the time I shal not have to drive cattle this summer like I did last we will milk & cows and I expect they will be drove up for me.

 

I have got a good baby this time she does not look like either of the others she is a good deal better loocking than they were at hir age she grows like a weed I waid hir when she was five weeks old and she waid 17 pounds. I think I hear you say / just listen to hir brag. well she is worth braging about if Lou was any judg of a baby I would leave it to hir but I do not think she is. I wish I could come out this fall and show hir to you not that I cair for showing hir but I should like to see you all and the country

 

in Debys last letter she talked of coming home this fall and taking Lilly with hir Lilly wonders if Grand maw would know hir if she see hir a coming

 

we have not named the baby yet Wm rote to wesley to name hir and he was dead and gone and he does not seem to want to name hir his Mother wants to call hir Mary Brook or Brook Gore but he will not let hir name hir at all becaus she would not let him name Henry Wesley named Wilson and he wanted to name Harry.

 

this is the third letter we have riten that is not answered so I expect a good long one Father Lizers children have got the measles there was 5 of them to have it Wm has red this and says to tell you that the man on who the place we live will give him all the teaming work he can do at the highest prices and they are good now better than he ever new them before the mans name is Vial he is a member of the Congregational church and a verry nice man.

 

well I have writen enough our love to all good by                           

  M E Weeks

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