Letter from Mulberry, Sunday April 18, 1880, to 'Dear Kate' (start), with continuation of an earlier letter
Book 1, Page 37 ·1880
Transcription
A two-page spread. The left side holds the end of one handwritten letter (continued from the preceding scan); the right side begins a new letter dated Sunday, April 18, 1880, from Mulberry. Both are in brown ink. Several pencilled annotations in the compiler’s hand run along the upper margins.
Top margin annotations (left page)
[Pencilled note across the top of the left page, in the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker’s hand]: Ellen Milliken Porcher & her sister Catherine Barker — my grand aunts. “Sis & Ellen” were my grand mother & “Ellie” — A.F.W.
Left page (continuation of earlier letter)
[…] two older children. Marion’s eyes & hair are lovely, & Annie is as like what her Mother was at her age as possible. I don’t think I told you that Bertie & Sallie Robertson are both to be married.
Mrs. Motte still comes very frequently in her basket buggy & is bright, & very nice in lending us books. She let us see Rosie’s drawings, & they are most interesting — her Talent is very unusual. Sis was delighted with them — Rosie sent to the Fair a card basket, on the sides of which she had made pencil drawings, & Tody was so much pleased at the skill they showed that he secured the basket, & hopes to send it to the Art Association in N. Y. Mrs. Motte has not been able to give Rosie […]
[Left-page letter continues on the next scan.]
Right page (new letter)
[Marginal annotation in original ink hand around the header — partly legible]: Yesterday. While I was reading just now this little [hymn?] slipped [out?] of my Bible & I thought I would send it. I [know?] you have seen it. [Something?] about its [simplicity?]
Mulberry
Sunday April 18th
1880
Dear Kate.
If I did not know that you understand just how quiet the life here is, I would be afraid you would get tired of the monotonous repetition in my letters; but I know as well that you will never be so tired hearing that we all love and think of you, even if my letters carry nothing else to you. Sis & Ellen went down on Friday. Sis liked her visit & it gave pleasure here, but she would not have cared to stay with the children so near & yet out of her reach. She laughs and says she has […]
AI Notes
A two-page spread showing two different handwritten letters in brown ink. The right page begins a new letter dated ‘Mulberry / Sunday April 18th / 1880’ to ‘Dear Kate.’ The left page is the continuation of an earlier letter (mid-thought) describing the children (Marion’s eyes and hair, Annie’s resemblance to her mother), the engagements of Bertie and Sallie Robertson, and visits from Mrs. Motte; Mrs. Motte has shown the writer Rosie’s drawings, and Rosie has sent a hand-decorated card basket to the Fair, which Tody intends to forward to the Art Association in New York. Pencilled annotations in the compiler’s hand (A.F.W. = Amy FitzSimons Walker) run along the top margin of the left page identifying Ellen Milliken Porcher and Catherine Barker as her grand aunts, and ‘Sis & Ellen’ (in the letter body) as her grandmother and ‘Ellie’ respectively.
Right-page letter continues on the next scan.
“Sis” is the compiler Amy’s grandmother Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons (1827–1900); “Ellen”/“Ellie” is Susan’s daughter Ellen Milliken FitzSimons (1862–1953), later directress of the Charleston Library Society. The writer is Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher (Susan’s sister, “Aunt Ellen Porcher” of p030); the Mulberry dateline is the Cooper River plantation that came down through the Broughton and Milliken families to Susan’s brother Major Theodore Gaillard Barker, who inherited it from his Milliken uncles and began rice-planting there in 1874.