Letter from a niece Ellen to Aunt Ellen, April 23, 1943 — opening page
Book 1, Page 525 ·1943
Transcription
April 23, 1943
Dearest aunt Ellen: —
I’m hoping this will reach you on Easter Sunday so you will know that I am thinking of you and hoping that you are having a happy day.
I have been wanting to write to you ever since the sad news of Theodore Barker’s death — but I never got it done — I mean to do things in the evening and then after my dinner I get sleepy — you know how that
AI Notes
First page of a handwritten letter in blue fountain-pen ink on a single fold of cream notepaper, dated April 23, 1943. Addressed ‘Dearest aunt Ellen’ — to Ellen Milliken FitzSimons, the Charleston Library Society librarian. The writer signs herself ‘Ellen’ on the closing leaf (page 526) and is the same niece who writes to ‘Aunt Ellen’ on pages 527 and 530–531 — a New-York-based niece who visits Charleston each August and then continues up to the mountains. The writer hopes the letter will reach Aunt Ellen on Easter Sunday and apologises for not having written sooner after the death of Theodore Barker — this is Aunt Ellen’s nephew Theodore Barker FitzSimons (1890–1943, AEF veteran, son of Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons Sr. and Mary Ann Perry FitzSimons), who died March 26, 1943 — less than a month before the letter is written (cf. p339 family page); the recent death fits the writer’s apology for delay.
Continues on page 526. ‘Theodore Barker’ here = Theodore Barker FitzSimons (1890–1943), Aunt Ellen’s nephew (son of her brother Samuel Gaillard FitzSimons Sr.), who died March 26, 1943.