Excerpt from 1888 letter

Mary Andrews Whittier Tarbox
(Perley's grandmother holding Luella Guillow)

The following is taken from a letter dated May 2nd, 1888 written by Mary Andrews Whittier Tarbox (Perley's grandmother) to her daughter in Kansas, Almina Whittier Guillow, Elsie Jane's (Perley's mother) sister.

Mary is telling Almina about her stay with Elsie Jane shortly after Perley was born, Feb. 6, 1888. Elsie Jane was confined to her bed and Mary was there to help.

"I was there fourteen weeks and eleven of them I never undressed, only to change my clothes. I laid on the old lounge and got up and changed the baby [Perley] but she [Elsie Jane] is stronger in her arms and can change him now by drawing up her feet and laying him acrost her. She can't lift up her feet yet. Her eyes are stronger and she had the east curtain put up a week before I came home and she looked upon the Woods hill and see a bare spot but wanted to set up long enough to have her bed made and to have her chair to the window so she could look out in the garden but I liked not to get her bed made. Dan [Elsie's husband] tipped her so far back and I hurried to make it and she did not faint away. It seems so hard to lay there and can't get up to save her life but she don't get so discouraged as I should. You know she is blessed with great fortitude and good constitution.

It was something new to see such a destitute house. He [Daniel, Elsie Jane's husband] missed it in keeping so many hens and not raising any grain to feed them. I asked the first years why he didn't raise some barley to feed his hens and fat the pigs. He said 'I couldn't thresh it' and so he tugged corn or meal on his back or on his handsled rather than break out the roads and so the horse and oxen have stood still all winter.

Elsie tried to have him get up a good wood pile the first of the winter but he said, "O, I have got some oxen now and I can get it up any time." I told her I didn't pity him much. I never was used to such shifflessness. Elsie says she won't stay there another winter and I can't ask her to unless he will try and raise something to eat.

We have had a hard winter for NH and not raising grain he got out of meat and we had to cut potatoes three times a day and fed the hens on them as well and now not a potatoe to eat. She wants her potatoes and something she can relish. We can give him beets and potatoes if he will only come after them.

Read the town news and see what a winter we have had. The oldest people never see such a time."

Mary A. Tarbox