Letter, Theodore G. Barker to his niece Ellen Barker, Charleston, June 10, 1904 — middle pages 2 and 3 (continuation)

Scanned page 180 of Book 1 — Scan of original. Open full size →

An open-book scan showing two facing panels of the same folded bifolium whose other face is on page 179. The text continues without interruption from p179 right (“I still hope that you will be”) to the left leaf below (“able to persuade…”). Both panels read in normal orientation.

Left leaf — page 2 (continuation from p179 right)

able to persuade your Mother to come over to Brookland in July, after your Aunt Louisa gets settled there with her servants — If your Mother wishes to be quiet, that is the place for her to be quiet in.

Your Aunt Louisa expects to leave here on Monday morning to spend her usual 2 or 3 weeks in June at Argyle with her family, before going to Brookland —

Do you not think you could induce your Mother to come with you (right off) to Charleston and spend the rest of the month of June here, while your Aunt Ellen ^(& Ellen FitzSimons) Porcher, & your Uncle William and his children John & Louisa FitzSimons and their father “old Toto” are here? The house will be kept up until the last of June, when the children’s School breaks up & your Aunt Ellen & they go to Brookland — Stopping perhaps at Spartanburg for a few days with

Right leaf — page 3

Gillie & Sue FitzSimons. Tell your Mother that I think Even so short a time as two weeks of salt air & sea breezes and of Charleston, will be so great a change for her & for you that it will be like going away to a watering place — After two weeks here She might try a visit to Billy Ford in Summerville and after that come over to Brookland.

Surely you can board Tom out satisfactorily ^(while you are away) — I am quite serious in urging this scheme upon you two — your Mother & yourself — and tomorrow I will Send you a check for $25 to be used for the carrying out of my plan of campaign.

Of course you will find the heat & perspiration and mosquitoes in Charleston quite oppressive, but the mosquitoes will furnish you a lot of old time healthy Exercise — the perspiration will be healthful & beneficial and the heat will be tempered by

AI Notes

An open-book scan showing the INNER face of the folded bifolium whose outer face is on page 179 — i.e., pages 2 (left leaf) and 3 (right leaf) of the four-page letter from Theodore Gaillard Barker to his niece Ellen Barker, dated ‘Charleston SC June 10 1904.’ The text flows: p179 right (page 1) → p180 left (page 2) → p180 right (page 3) → p179 left, rotated (page 4). On the left leaf TGB urges Ellen to bring her mother to Brookland in July after Aunt Louisa is settled, listing the houseguests already expected in Tradd Street — Aunt Ellen Porcher (with an interlinear addition ‘& Ellen FitzSimons’), Uncle William, and ‘his children John & Louisa FitzSimons and their father old Toto’. On the right leaf TGB proposes a Summerville stop with Billy Ford on the way to Brookland, urges Ellen to ‘board Tom out satisfactorily ^(while you are away)’, and promises a $25 check ‘for the carrying out of my plan of campaign.’ ‘Aunt Ellen’ is Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher (TGB’s sister); the interlinear caret ‘& Ellen FitzSimons’ adds the librarian Ellen Milliken FitzSimons above the line. ‘Old Toto’ — the father of John & Louisa FitzSimons — is plausibly Theodore Stoney FitzSimons (1858–1944), whose children John McCready and Louisa de Berniere were ~14 and ~13 in 1904. ‘Gillie’ is the family nickname for Gaillard S. FitzSimons (canonical form per p163 letter).

Letter continues on page 179 left leaf (rotated 90°): “the Exhilirating & bracing sea-breeze…”.

Brookland was the Asheville-area summer home of TGB and Aunt Louisa (Louisa Preston King Barker); Argyle was Louisa’s family home in Flat Rock, NC. “Gillie” is the family nickname for Gaillard S. FitzSimons (writer of the 1908 Spartanburg Oil Mill letter on pp 162–163). “Old Toto” is plausibly Theodore Stoney FitzSimons (1858–1944), nicknamed in other album captions as “Uncle Tote/Toto”; his children John McCready FitzSimons and Louisa de Berniere FitzSimons (the Atlanta welfare administrator on p443) match the John & Louisa named here.