Letter, Theodore G. Barker to his niece Ellen Barker, Charleston, June 10, 1904 — opening (right leaf) and close (left leaf, page 4 of the same bifolium)
Book 1, Page 179 ·1904
Transcription
An open-book scan showing two panels of a single folded bifolium of writing paper. Read in the letter’s natural order, this is page 1 (right leaf) and page 4 (left leaf, running sideways) of one four-page letter from Theodore Gaillard Barker to his niece Ellen Barker. Pages 2 and 3 appear on the facing scan, page 180.
Right leaf — page 1: dateline and opening
Charleston SC June 10
1904
My dear Ellen
Until your Mother’s letter to your Aunt Ellen mentioned it I did not know that your school had stopped — I had been looking forward to it and regretted that your Aunt Louisa & I will not be at Brookland until July — I would have liked to think that you and your Mother would be willing to come over and pay us a visit there — I think you both need a change, and altho’ there is not much change of climate from Asheville to Hendersonville I think that it would be something for you both to see different things — Even woods & hills and horses — than those you have been looking at for so many years without interruption, and then the going back will make the old home things look brighter. I still hope that you will be
[Letter continues on page 180.]
Left leaf — page 4: continuation from p180 (right), close, and address panel
This panel is rotated 90° from the right leaf — the writer, having reached page 4, turned the bifolium so that the close runs sideways up the outer fold of the sheet, with the mailing address (“Miss Ellen M. Barker / Asheville / N.C.”) tucked into the lower corner. Read sideways:
the Exhilirating & bracing sea-breeze which makes the 2nd Story piazza in Tradd Street so delightful — Ask Theodore (“Toto”) if he knows anywhere a finer climate.
While writing this letter I have driven off the first mosquito I have had to defend myself from ^(this season) and it is now the 10*[th]* of June! It is now beginning to rain after a long, long Spell of dry weather, and no doubt the mosquitoes will come after the rain — but they are never very bad in Tradd Street, and to your Mother & yourself it will bring back tender reminiscences of former battles & slappings & bitings & to have two or three of the devils sing around your Ears —
My Love to your Mother & Tom — [bracketed marginal note, in the same ink and hand, written to the left of the signature]: Your Aunt Louisa joins / in this, and in all / that I have written
Yours affectionately
Theodore G. Barker
Address panel, written at the lower-left of the same sideways panel (where it would have been visible on the outside of the folded letter):
Miss Ellen M. Barker
Asheville
N.C.
AI Notes
An open-book scan of the FRONT and BACK panels of a single folded bifolium — one four-page letter from Theodore Gaillard Barker (Charleston) to his niece Ellen Barker, retired Montford-School teacher (Asheville). The right leaf is the FIRST page of the letter (dateline ‘Charleston SC June 10 1904, My dear Ellen’); the left leaf is the FOURTH and LAST page (running up the page, ending ‘My Love to your Mother & Tom — Yours affectionately Theodore G. Barker’ with the address ‘Miss Ellen M. Barker / Asheville / N.C.’ written at lower left as the outer-fold address panel). The two middle pages (pp 2–3) appear on the facing scan, page 180. The mailing envelope, postmarked Charleston, S.C. JUN 11 1904, addressed to ‘Miss Ellen M. Barker / 15 Maple Avenue / Asheville / North Carolina’, is pasted earlier in the album on page 169 — confirming this is one of the ‘two letters’ the compiler noted there. The ‘Aunt Ellen’ named in the body is Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher (TGB’s sister, the addressee’s aunt); the ‘old Toto’ named on p180 is plausibly Theodore Stoney FitzSimons. Address ‘Miss Ellen M. Barker / Asheville / N.C.’ is on the outer fold panel.
The “Tom” of the closing is the addressee’s brother Thomas M. Barker (the same Tom for whom TGB urges, on page 180, that Ellen “board him out satisfactorily while you are away”). The addressee Ellen Barker, daughter of Capt. Thomas Barker, was at this date a fourth-grade teacher at the Montford School in Asheville (see p168 obituary and p183 newspaper clipping); the surviving envelope for this letter, postmarked Charleston JUN 11 1904, is pasted on p169.