Letter, March 11, 'My dear Tom,' from one of the compiler's grandmothers
Book 1, Page 33 ·1880s-1890s
Transcription
A two-page spread of a handwritten letter, written in blue ink in cursive on a folded sheet so that the right column (opening) and the left column (continuation) face each other. A pencilled annotation in a different (later) hand — the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker’s — runs diagonally across the top of both halves, crosshatched over the original ink.
[Pencilled compiler annotation, diagonal across top of both halves]: This letter written by my grand mother while staying with my mother & father. — A.F.W.
Right half — opening of letter
March 11[th]
My dear Tom,
You must have had a chilly time in the blizzard on the 9th — am glad you saw & enjoyed the ball & hope you have not suffered from the exposure. It must have been a most perfectly successful affair and from the accounts in the papers you sent nothing more beautiful & in good taste could have been designed and it would have been a pity
Left half — continuation
not to avail yourself of an opportunity so rarely to come into a life time — I enclose you some letters of Sister’s. Harriet Rose has reached Aspen Dr. Rose met her in Denver & they spent several days there in the grand Hotel before going back to Aspen. She seems to feel a great deal the break up in their home and for Katie’s loneliness. Tom uncle’s pet horse Charlie has been badly cut on the legs by a wire fence
AI Notes
A two-page spread of a handwritten letter in blue ink, opening ‘March 11th — My dear Tom’. The two halves of the page are the right column (opening) and the left column (continuation) of a single sheet. The pencilled annotation running diagonally across the top of the spread is in the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker’s hand: ‘This letter written by my grand mother while staying with my mother & father. A.F.W.’ The writer is one of Amy’s two grandmothers — either paternal Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons (d. 1900) or maternal (wife of B.F.D. Perry, who survived to 1907) — staying with Amy’s parents Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons Sr. and Mary Anne Perry ‘Minnie’ FitzSimons. The Aspen, Colorado mention dates the letter to the 1880s–1890s, after Aspen’s silver-boom settlement. The compiler’s grandmother attribution is left as ‘one of the compiler’s grandmothers’ rather than asserting a specific identity until further internal evidence resolves it.
Letter continues beyond this scan.
The diagonal pencilled annotation across the top is in the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker’s hand, identifying the unsigned letter as one of her grandmothers’ — either paternal Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons (d. 1900) or maternal Mrs. B.F.D. Perry (d. 1907). The Aspen, Colorado references place the letter after 1879, when Aspen’s silver-mining boom began drawing settlers.