This very fragile and faded letter was written to my Grandfather Hugh Stone by his mother, Jane, in 1888. It tells how much she missed him and offered help for his baby's painful teething. He had left New York state to homestead in Nebraska where, a few years later, he met and married Grandma Adla. It is exciting that this letter has survived the years and many family moves. I have no idea how long this letter might have taken to travel those miles but I hope by the time it arrived in Nebraska the baby's teething problems were resolved. She tells him that he should take a very sharp instrument and cut the baby's gum so the tooth can emerge!
It was a joy when I married into a large, close-knit family. As family members began to migrate across the country, it became evident that keeping in touch with everyone was more and more difficult.
We started a round-robin letter to share events in our lives. This "robin" traveled from California to New York and from Texas to Montana with many stops along the way. It was a delight when that fat letter arrived in the mail and it was immediately read. Sometimes we wondered if our seemingly bland life would be interesting to others but faithfully wrote our contribution, took out our last letter, and mailed it to the next person on the list. Many times pictures were included. It usually took about a month to six weeks to make the rounds and was always welcomed. The letter was lost a couple of times but always restarted. This way of "keeping in touch" lasted for 35 years!
What fun it would be now if all those letters had been saved. What a great family story that would tell!
