March 1913 letter

An intriguing letter has come into my hands this week. It was written 111 years ago by a woman in Danvers to a woman in Omaha, Nebraska. Both women were at that time (1913) in the process of learning about connections linking their families.  

Likewise, I and the man who recently discovered this letter are now communicating about our relations to these women and the common ancestry we share. He signed a recent email "Your Cousin, - Peter" and I am grateful to him for sharing the physical letter and his transcription of the handwriting.  

This letter is addressed to Peter's great aunt, Margaret Turner Holyoke in Omaha, Nebraska. (She was a young woman of 19 or 20 years old at the time, not yet an aunt). The letter-writer is Mary Nichols Ward, my grandfather's maiden aunt, age 71, who had moved from Salem to Danvers in 1880 to join her brother Andrew Nichols and his large family at "Pine Knoll" (98 Preston Street). 

Here's an image of the envelope and first page of the letter dated March 3, 1913:  

[Click on image to enlarge]

At first I struggled to read the handwriting, especially in places where the ink had smeared and/or bled through the paper.  The transcription (below) really helps.  Although the opening sentences are puzzling because we don't know the prior communications, the rest of the letter conveys interesting bits of family history.  I'm eager to share the letter here, to make it accessible to more members of the very extended Holyoke / Nichols family tree.

---   Transcription of letter from Miss Mary Ward Nichols to Miss Margaret Turner Holyoke   ---

Hathorne, March 3rd, 1913

My Dear Miss Margaret,

Your very interesting note reached me last week, when I was extremely busy, so have waited to answer it.  I will send the book I spoke of, today probably.  I knew your aunt, Mrs. Davis, as I met her occasionally at Unitarian meetings where she is such a worker, and it was from her that I learned your father's address.  Your name interests me, also your sister's, you all have the family names.  I knew your great-aunt Margaret Holyoke Turner, who was my mother's cousin, and who lived with my grandmother's (Mrs. Susan Ward's family), of which my mother and her two children formed a part the last eight years of her life.  I feel you will be interested in the "Holyoke Diaries", some of which got out of the family, by being loaned to a Mr. Stickney, who never returned them; but it's an "ill wind," etc., as they would never have been printed if the sale of them had not led up to the final printing of them.  Your Aunt Maria I remember so well as such a bright, wide-awake girl.   I never saw her after she went to Syracuse:  her daughter Mollie came to see us in Salem, with your Aunt Bessie, we all enjoyed that visit.  I have a photograph of your Aunt Bessie, taken at that time, and feel that you are the one to have it.  My mother and unmarried Aunt, Mehitable Ward, made their home together in Salem, (the latter died first, and my mother last, in 1880)  this home was the place where the out-of-town relatives stopped.  On the death of my mother, I came to live with my brother Andrew, in Danvers, and have been here 32 years; his family was large, seven living at home at the time; he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary a year ago last September.  His oldest living son is Supt. of the State Infirmary at Tewksbury, and his youngest son is a Unitarian minister settled at North Andover...he has a son named Edward Holyoke nearly six years of age.  (A married niece, also nephew, live in houses very near).  Two unmarried daughters and myself live with his wife and him; it is also the home of two granddaughters and a grandson (orphans), tho' two are away, one at college and one, Andrew the 3rd, who is in the Harvard Medical School, having graduated from Har. Coll. two yrs ago next June.  The oldest, Annie, is a music teacher (& soloist) living here and going out to most of her pupils.  My oldest niece is a public-school teacher, but lives at home.  Neither father or mother are living of the three grandchildren mentioned.  I was much interested in the account you gave me of your brother's family, and also of your own.  I would like to see the pictures you speak of and see if I could trace a resemblance to the family; I well remember your grandfather's last visit to Salem, it was about 1862, I think.  I went with him to the Salem Normal School where he talked with pupils in a classroom.  Your aunt, Mrs. Davis, is to speak this spring in Salem, I believe, and hope to hear her; if I do, I will speak to her about hearing from you.  The town I live in is Danvers, but the section where my home is has the local name of Hathorne; the railroad station & the post office have the same name and are very near us, also the street cars from Salem.  The Danvers State Hospital for the Insane, of which I am one of the trustees, is also near.  Please thank your mother for her kind regards & extend the same to her & yourself.

Cordially,

Mary Ward Nichols

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Here are two more images of the original letter (all on a single sheet of paper that folded to fit in the small envelope):

[Click on image to enlarge]

[Click on image to enlarge]

Stay tuned...  I will share a second letter, dated May 1913, after I have a chance to investigate a question or two.  I'm hopeful that Mary Nichols Ward's diaries -- which have been stored in my home for over a decade -- will provide some clues. This week I've confirmed that I do have her 1913 diary. I haven't yet read it.  To be continued...