Letter from Aunt Ellen, Charleston, June 8, 1872 (page 4)
Book 1, Page 209 ·1872
Transcription
A handwritten letter sheet in cursive ink. The page is numbered 4 at top center.
to have known and loved her and had her love. — I think Tom missed her a great deal, and I often thought how she would have met him when he came in, and made him laugh over things.
John & Louisa go to school and to dine out on Saturday and are getting big generaley. The piano that was got for you, has passed on to Amy who seems to have a decided capacity for learning. — She say she is not fond of it. — but the way she reads music & the readiness with which she gets hold of the mechanical part make me think she will soon get over the drudgery. What about Beatrice — and Miss Walton? — I wish I knew something about the people
AI Notes
Page 4 of a multi-page handwritten letter from Aunt Ellen. The sheet is numbered 4 at top center. The writer reflects on a deceased woman Tom missed and would have welcomed; reports that John and Louisa go to school and dine out on Saturdays and are growing up; notes that the piano originally got for the recipient has passed on to Amy, who shows a decided capacity for learning music despite saying she is not fond of it; and asks for news of Beatrice and Miss Walton. Letter continues onto the next scan.
Letter continues on next page.
The “Aunt Ellen” of this 1872 letter cannot be Ellen Milliken FitzSimons (b. 1862, only ten in 1872) — she is the elder Ellen of the family, Ellen Milliken Barker Porcher (1807–1874), sister-aunt of Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons. The “Amy” praised here for piano-reading is therefore an earlier Amy in the family, not the compiler Amy FitzSimons Walker, who was not born until 1888.