Typed letter (continuation) from White Hall, January 1861: the children at home
Book 1, Page 270 ·1861
Transcription
(Typed transcript, single column, on aged paper. Continuation of the letter begun on the previous scan, dated White Hall, January 20, 1861.)
her sight and I told him in a joke that he had given me up. He is just as obedient and affectionate as ever, and Thomas told me yesterday “thatthe more he saw of him the more of ear- nest in his character and he believed he was a finer boy than Sam,” which was saying a great deal for he and Sam are quite devoted and very often at night I see Thomas go and lean over Sam asleep to watch his sweet face. It is funny to see how fond they all are of each other and how smart they think each other. Christie and Sam are trying their best to give up cry- ing and a day or two ago Christie told me that this was the third day he had not cried at all only that little girl had knocked his head and he had to cry. I always tell them that it is no shame to cry when they get hurt, for I don’t think it natural to expect them never to cry. Christie is devoted to dancing and every evening after tea all of the negroes and the children collect in the play room and have the noisiest dancing and singing you ever heard. I offered to attend the Ball one night, but Christie said that would not do, as he knew I would be a restraint on “dem boy and gal” who form the orchestra. I believe the servants enjoy the children as much almost as we do. Sam and Theo patronize Thomas. Thee has learnt to say “Wha Un Tom” when he comes in the hall and does not find Thomas, just as Sam does. Christie does not care to sit in laps but Thomas says when they are out walking with him his tongue goes incessantly. I looked out of the window yesterday and saw quite a little picture for you. Thomas had the three boys on Kate, his horse, he holding Thee’s fat legs steady, and Annette with Sam beside them who was delighted at the “boy,” “horse” and Tom. Yesterday at dinner the children kept us
AI Notes
Typed transcript on aged paper continuing the ‘Dear Sis’ letter dated White Hall, January 20, 1861. The writer ‘Ellen’ describes the three boys’ affection, Thomas’s character, Christie’s devotion to dancing with the negroes in the play room, attending the Ball, and the boys riding the horse Kate. Ends mid-sentence: ‘Yesterday at dinner the children kept us’. ‘Wha Un Tom’ is ‘Where Un[cle] Tom’ in young Thee’s baby-talk (Thomas being the children’s host uncle). The pp 260, 264-270 White Hall letter sequence is likely Aunt Ellen (sister to ‘Sis’) writing to her sister Susan Milliken Barker FitzSimons (the recently-widowed wife of Dr. Christopher 3rd, who had died May 1860) about Susan’s three eldest sons — Sam (Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons Sr., b. Dec 1856), Christie (Christopher ‘Kit’ FitzSimons Jr., b. ~1855-56), and Theo/Thee (Theodore Stoney FitzSimons) — staying with Ellen and her husband Thomas at White Hall plantation during the secession winter. This is the most plausible reading but not yet independently confirmed; the typescript names no surname for the children, so identification rests on the matching child-names and the close family proximity (the boys are placed with relatives soon after their father’s death). It places the three Fitzsimons brothers at White Hall — possibly Lowcountry SC plantation — during the secession crisis of December 1860–January 1861.
Letter continues on the next scan.