Manuscript letter — account of a sister's death at the Island, July 29
Book 1, Page 261 ·1850–1880
Transcription
[Page heavily cross-hatched; horizontal text overlaid with perpendicular writing. The transcription below covers the legible horizontal layer; the upper third remains largely obscured by the overlay.]
[Several lines at the top of the page are cross-written and largely illegible. The visible thread picks up:]
[…] my sister friend [I have?] to tell you of the sorrow that [has befallen?] all of us, & try to prepare you for the [blow?] — but it will come as heavily first as [it] [is?] [that] God only [can?] [help?] you & comfort you as it is He who has taken from you your dear Sister.
She died this morning July 29 at the Island. Mrs Walker & Auntie were with her during her illness, & ministered to the last. She had not been well for some weeks before, suffering from the same nervous headaches she was accustomed to have. I saw her several times before she left town, & she seemed to feel depressed, & even spoke doubt- fully of her visit to Aunt Kate. I tried to cheer her up, & did somewhat. She went to the Island & there over-exerted herself in fixing the house for the children while she should be absent. Last Saturday the 27[th] she felt badly but able to give Mrs Bone lunch and chat in her usual way, but not 10 minutes after [lunch?] […]
AI Notes
Densely cross-hatched handwritten letter in brown ink. Writing runs horizontally across the page, then a second layer is written perpendicularly over it (cross-hatching), making large portions of the upper third extremely difficult to decipher. The lower two-thirds of the horizontal layer is legible: the writer reports a sister’s death at the Island on the morning of July 29; Mrs. Walker and ‘Auntie’ nursed her during her illness; she had not been well for some weeks before, suffering from the nervous headaches she was accustomed to; she had spoken doubtfully of her visit to Aunt Kate before going; she over-exerted herself fixing up the house at the Island for the children; on the previous Saturday the 27th she felt badly but managed to give Mrs Bone lunch in her usual way, dying within ten minutes after. Likely continues the multi-page letter that begins on page 254.
Letter continues on the next scan.
This letter opens the deathbed-account cluster on pp. 261-263 narrating the death of “Mrs. Milliken” on the morning of 29 July at Sullivan’s Island. The compiler’s pencilled note “She died on 29th” in the upper right corner of p. 254 ties this death to the writer of the 5 July 1853 Sullivan’s Island letter (pp. 254-259) — fixing the year as 1853 and identifying that letter’s writer as the dying woman whose final hours are described here.