Letter from Julia Wall Bartlett 1906

Lake Swan, Swanville, Maine

Letter From Julia A. Wall Bartlett to Frances Maude Greeley Crabb
Photcopy of letter owned by my mother-in-law

Swanville Apr 1906

My dearest granddaughter,

I will write a little and you how pleased I am to hear from you and your Husband and little ones and that you are all well we are all well as usual.   O how I do want to see you but I can never expect to as I am to old to ever thinking of going west but if I was younger I should go to see you very soon.  But you know I am almost 85 years old I go out very little in cold weather but our very thankful that I am able to take care of myself.  Most off Charlie uncle Rufus’s oldest boy is not at home he had been studying music for the past 1 year.  He plays cornet and has learned [unknown words] and other musical instruments and he is at work in a telephone office and collector for the company.  Do you not think he has business enough to keep him busy be belongs to the Belfast band.  He say he likes well he tend the telephone at night so he has lots of time daytime to practice music but cannot come home very often so I do not see him very often.  I miss him very much at home.  He is a dear good boy to me and has the manner of being very good young man and I pray to God he may always be good and do right.  He was 21 last fall he does not like farming.  People call him a fine player on the cornet.  John’s at home with us working on the farm with his father but he is full of music.  He is taking music lessons.  They take the music talent from their mother.  She was and her family were followers of music.  Johnie is a good and a very sweet boy his father thinks so much of both boys.  There step mother never had any children she thinks a great deal of the boys, and has always been good to them and they are good to her.  The boys mother loved you very dearly.  She helped me take care of you the last year you were with me.  You were a very good child we all loved you.  So well it was.  O so very hard to have you taken so far from us.  You were so much like your dear mother it almost seem sometimes that time had turned back again years when she was a child again in my arms.  I often think about you and your little children and have they [unknown] will be spared to your end that you will live to see them grow up and that you husband will live.  I am very lonely sometimes.  I think of all my brothers and sisters.  They are all gone.  One brother only left there were 10 of us.  5 girls and 5 boys.  9 of us lived to have families of our own.  Do you wonder that I get lonely sometimes.  I have seen many sorrows and many joys I think God is very good to me.  I have many dear friends and a home Rufus and his family are very good to me.  I often think if grandpa Bartlett could have lived and been well he and I would have come west to live.  I do not know as you can read half of this letter.  Please excuse all blunders and write often as you can for I am so pleased to hear from you.  Uncle Rufus sends love to you so do John and his step mother.  Charlie’s not home.  My love and best wishes to you and your husband and children.

From Grandma Bartlett

Swanville Box 22

*Image: http://www.bobfenton.com/swan.lake.fall.maine.3.htm