Handwritten letter (continuation) and second letter dated Saturday June 20, 1874
Book 1, Page 151 ·1874
Transcription
A handwritten letter occupies the left leaf, continuing from the previous page. A second handwritten letter begins on the right leaf, dated Saturday June 20. The figure 1874 is pencilled at the top right of the right leaf.
Left leaf (continuation)
she had so much pain in her side she would like a poultice — He instantly ran to Dr. Huger’s room & the Dr. slipped on his dressing gown & ran down, but she had died before Mr L & the Dr. got into the room — Mr. Keating Simons also died suddenly at the Barrows — Fannie came to see us today — She is well & looks so — her baby is thin & they have to give it the bottle part of the time — She says Susie came down to see the baby & asked for Ellen as soon as she came — I want to get your work done, but with Thomas, William, & Annette here, & our friends coming constantly, there seems no time — The Mazycks came to see you after you left, & begged me to tell you particularly they had come to see you — Kiss Ellen & the boys for us all. We think of you all the time —
Right leaf (new letter)
1874
Saturday June 20[th]
Dear Sis, I send a package of letters we have got, will you send back Tody’s as soon as convenient — The others you can keep & return at any time — We have not heard from you yet, it seems longer I know than it really is, because the past week has seemed like a life time, & Ellen & you are so much in our thoughts with Mother, that it is impossible to keep down our anxieties — Tody asks each day as he comes in, if we have heard from you through the Postman or some one else['s] letter — He sent you the Telegrams daily feeling they would make you feel nearer than waiting for letters & when
AI Notes
Two letters appear on this page; both are part of the 1874 Barker family death cluster. The left leaf continues the previous handwritten letter — describing a death in another household (likely a hotel or boarding situation), with Dr. Huger called too late, and the unrelated sudden death of Mr. Keating Simons at the Barrows; visits from Fannie and Susie; the Mazycks calling after the recipient’s departure; an instruction to ‘Kiss Ellen & the boys for us all.’ The right leaf opens a NEW letter dated ‘Saturday June 20’ with ‘1874’ pencilled at the top right — June 20, 1874 was indeed a Saturday, confirming the year. The writer (most likely Susan Milliken Barker) sends a package of letters to ‘Dear Sis’ (her sister Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher), asks that Tody’s be returned, and reports anxiety at the long silence and that Tody (Theodore Gaillard Barker) sent telegrams daily. ‘Mr. Keating Simons’ uses the M^r abbreviation marker, matching the ‘Mr L’ in the same paragraph. ‘The Barrows’ is also seen on p154. ‘Mazycks’ is a well-known Charleston surname. Tody sent the telegrams.
Both letters continue on next page.
Pages 151–159 form a single tightly-clustered group of June 1874 Barker family letters, written from Charleston in the immediate aftermath of the death of Ellen Milliken Barker (1807–1874), the matriarch of the line. The writer is her daughter Susan Milliken Barker (Mrs. Christopher FitzSimons, the compiler’s grandmother); the addressee “Sis” is Susan’s sister Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher, who had left Charleston with her children just before Mother’s final decline; “Tody” is their brother Theodore Gaillard Barker, the future Hampton’s Legion adjutant and 1876 Hampton-campaign organizer. The cluster captures, in real time, a 19th-century Lowcountry family’s mourning rituals — pall-bearer choices, hair brooches, hymn selection, the burial at Magnolia Cemetery — and Susan’s struggle to record everything for the absent sister.