Sunday Eve Feb 20^th/64

 

Dear Sister

                        Well hear it is nearly two weeks since you went away and not one word have we heard from you yet. where are you. are you and the children sick so you cannot write or have you wrote to me and it has been delayed on the road. I know there is some cause for you said you would write as soon as you got there. you know we must feel anxious to hear how you got through—and where you are. It is getting to be quite sickly around here again. Elon Fink is quite sick and has been nearly a week they talked of sending up to the station for Doctor Coats last night so Mr Kemp said they think he has the lung-feavor. We have not heard from him to-day. Little Mary / Fergison (Persa's oldest) is very sick. she went up to her Grandfathers to stay a fiew days and got home sick and was determond to go home. the old man has no team so he wraped her up and carried her down to Mary Jobes on his back. You know he is lame and nearly blind and must have sliped and jerked her a good deal. besides she it was a very cold day and she was nearly froze when she got there the old man then went over and told Persa's and she came right over, and Mary and her robed her and gave her warm tea to drink. as she got warm she began to get sick. Henry Jobes took them home that night and she was very sick all night and the next morning she was so lame that she would scream every time they stird her and she has been dangerously sick ever since. John was over to Mr Tikes yesterday and there little boy was very sick with some kind of a feavor they did not know what. John says he would not be surprised / if he did not live. Mr Tike had gone to the station after the doctor so he did not see him

 

Sunday Eve, Feb 28—Well Mary here it is sunday again and I have not sent a letter to you yet. I should of finished it last sunday night but bessie worried so that I could not then and she was sick all the week I was afraid she was going to have a feavor to. she was so hot and feavorish hot I guess it is nothing but a bad cold and her teeth for she is a gooddeal better to day. John has been quite sick evry since last tuesday but is getting better he was not to Mr Tikes last week but thinks he will go in a fiew days. we have not heard any thing from there child since John was there Mary Fergison is a little better but cannot stand on her feet yet. Henry Fink was in here this evening and says Elon is getting quite smart. Old Mrs Hammond is very sick they do not think she will live, they say Harrietta's conduct is the cause of her sickness her neighbors calls her a very nice old lady Maloy Tyrell is no better they think he / has the consumption and will neavor get well Sarah Amanda Frind has been very sick for about two weeks Henry said to night that she was getting worse and they had sent for the doctor again Henry said he did not know what ailed her Old Eligah Fergison died last Wednesday morning he was burried over in the root buring ground and on thursday a German shoemaker up to the station died with the heart disease he had no friends relatives this side of Germany the day before he dide he told Mr Flanigan he wished he would tend to his buisness for him. he gave him two hundred dollars to pay his funeral expences and his other little expences, and wanted him to send 300 dollars back to Germany to his mother being all he had. There was a grave stone man around here a week agow to morrow from Dewitt Mary Carpenter is gowing to have a monument for Dons grave over 8 feet high price 80 dollars and we are going to have one something like that of Cs Parks little girls only nicer. you kno theres has a round place with her name in the senter. well little Nellies is gowing to be a wreath of roses and a little hand holding a boquet of flowers in the senter and in a sircle above is to be Eve Little, and blow Nellie, and then you know our names her age and her death and blow that is to be one of those verses that was on that [?] you know that you red us a fiew days before you went away John thought the first one was the prettiest so we took that. hers cost 30 dollars. it is some thing that I have all ways wanted since she dide but did not expect to have. Dons is just like Nellie's only larger and insted of a boquet of flowers is a flag and a vers aluding to a majors death under it they are to be done the first of May. Mary Carp had a sail yesterday her old oxen went at 80 dollars the soril colt at 85 Old Mr Titus got him to gow with his other colt of dols and he went off feeling very proud to. every thing was sold at a good price except the buggie and that was only run up to 50 dollars and henry Fink bid fifty five for the widdow. 

 

Monday morning well Mollie as I am rocking Bessie to sleep I will write a little more. I wish you could see her now she has got so she can make her whistle ring like everything. it pleases her very much. she thinks more of her rattle-box than ever and has gone to sleep with it in her arms I must tell you what I done last week John bucherd that black hog and three of them largest pigs last tuesday. I tride out the grease and got about 18 quarts of and then I made a great big bach of fride cakes and I took the back bones and ribs and heads and made about 4 gallons of head cheese and it is first rate to I wish I could send you a good big chunk of it I will send you a letter from Oliver which we got last thursday I opened it and read it for I wanted to hear how Oliver was & I knew you would not care. henry Fink got a letter from Josh McLeod a fiew days agoo he was at Vixburg he says they were fired into / several times gowing down and once a shell burst in the cabbin and killed 3 men. Mary Ozia Root saw John the other day and wanted to know what you asked for that farm of yours John said he would write and find out so write and let us know and perhaps he can sell it if you want he should. Now Mary I have rote all the news I can think of and I hope you will do the same. poor Maria she should not made such a pig of her self eating dride aples where do they live and Mrs shelby where is Mary Chancy James and Ann write all about them. how sorry I feel for Rhoann what will become of her. is Emma B. gowing to stay there this fall give my love to her how I would like to see her. what did Mother say to her preasants is she comfortable or not. give my love to her and tell her I would like to have her write to me. Tell Lillie and Clarence I have got each of them and bessie a real pretty little plate much nicer than hers that got broke and when I come out there I will bring them. Mary what did mother and all the rest say to our likness. I calculated to of had bessies taken up to the station but that artist is

 

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not worth a snap so I shall have to gow to Tipton as soon as we can. No more only write soon to your affectionate sister and Brother, Josa and John and little Bessie

 

[margins]

 

Lillie came up here this morning and staid all day She says tell you that she has not had a letter from you yet but would like to get one. they are all well

 

We have been haveing some very cold weather here since you left colder than it was before though not so tegious for there was no snow to blow

 

most all of those potatoes that we carried in the seller froze and it is so all around John laughs at me and wants to know when I am gow to carrie them potatoes over to old Drake

 

I wish you could see our stove it shines like a niggars heel I got a cake of pot blacking that night you went away I like it very much the stove looks like a new one and I got me 3 plates & ovil dish and a picher

 

Old Mother Dillon came over to Marys early in the morning and staid all day. she said she wanted to get that little spotted heighfer and give Mernerva for security some of the men laffed and said that they are gowing to try and make [?] take it back at 75 dollars if they would for she would soon have one and that would be two

 

I do not blive you can red what I wrote about Menerva you know to those sales they have to have two security and the men thought she would soon have a baby and that would be two but Mary told her that she was going to keep three for her own use. the most the old thing wanted was to get where there was a lot of men I have got my net done and am gowing to finish my calico dress to morrow.

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