Letter from Buck Hill P.O., Nov. 26, 1895, to Miss H.C. Barker (Kate) — page 1
Book 1, Page 128 ·1895
Transcription
A handwritten letter, page 1, in brown ink on lined paper. The recipient’s name is written across the top of the sheet, the place and date sit at upper right, and the salutation begins below. A faint rectangular stamp at upper left appears to read ADVANCE.
[At top of sheet]: Miss H. C. Barker.
Buck Hill P. O. Va.
Novr 26 / 95.
Dear Kate,
I am sorry to have to tell you that I have not been having a very restful time of it in the late past and though it does not matter in itself it is so provoking as it unfits me from the pleasure of writing to you — the kind of letter I want to write. But at the same time it worries me that I do not write to you when, sweet heart, you are sick and suffering and keeping
AI Notes
Page 1 of a handwritten letter in brown ink on lined paper, addressed at the top to ‘Miss H.C. Barker’ and opening ‘Dear Kate.’ Dated ‘Buck Hill P.O. Va. / Novr 26/95.’ A faint rectangular stamp at upper left appears to read ‘ADVANCE’. The writer apologizes for not having written more often, blaming recent ill health that has unfitted them from the kind of letter they want to write, and addresses Kate as ‘sweet heart’. The letter breaks off mid-sentence at the foot of the page and continues on the following scans.
Letter continues on next page.
The letter (pages 128–130) is from William Barker, a brother, writing from Buck Hill P.O. in Hanover County, Va., to his sister Henrietta Catherine (“Kate”) Barker — the granddaughter of Henrietta Catherine Gaillard Barker shown on page 127. The letter recalls a third sibling, “the late Phil,” and a childhood doll, “Miss Grundy,” that the writer and Phil once used as a weapon in mock battles. The tone of nostalgia and mourning under the surface of the doll anecdote dates this letter to the period after Phil’s death.