A letter from Dora while in Vermont

I'm so excited about finding a new distant cousin that I'm running around in circles wondering what I should post next! As I have been very random recently, this is a good trend I believe.
In honor of finding (nearly) a descendent of Aunt Dora, I am posting a letter from Dora to her mother from 1904. To my new cousins perhaps surprise, Dora was engaged then to a cousin Albert Richardson at that time. Have never figured out what happened so that they didn't get married, but it all worked out years later when she met and married Guy Lindsey -- partly because of a hotel fire. But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)!

But back to Vermont (and to the fun of being able finally to share her letters with her great-grandchildren). All her earlier relatives were from Peacham, Topsham, Groton and other nearby Vermont towns. She had gone up there to teach school for awhile. . .here is one of her letters home:

Peacham, VT, Sept 27, 1904

Dear Mother,

I will write you a few lines to let you know that I survived my operation and am getting on nicely. I have just had six inches amputated from the length of my hair and did not take ether strange as it may seem.

Why don’t you write to me? Don’t you know that I have worried nearly crazy about you. Not a line from any one for three weeks. Or are you so sick you could not write? If you can’t write, have some of the rest write. Just a line, for you know how anxious I am over my dear mother. Did you think dear that I would not come to you if you needed me? No, indeed. Only that if you were not so sick that you really needed me that I had better stay here awhile. I have looked every night for a letter from you and have put off writing hoping to hear from you.

I have written to grandma all about Mrs. Ferguson and how sick she is and she will tell you about it. I keep pretty busy but also keep pretty well. My stomach has not troubled me for several weeks. Every one is very kind to me. Mrs. F asked me one day what young people I knew and when I began to innumerate she exclaimed, “Why you are in the cream of society.”

I will have to tell you about the “Thank You” social given by the C. E. last night. Perhaps you can use the idea there. Each girl was requested to bring two aprons, preferably kitchen aprons. After the ice was broken by a game or two, every lady and gentleman was requested to don an apron and the fun began. Every time any one speaks to you or you to the, you must precede the reply by Thank You. For example, if I ask, “How are you feeling this evening, Miss B.” she replies “Thank you, I have a bad cold.” And I say “Thank you, I am very sorry.” If any one fails to say thank you the party to whom they are speaking gives them their apron and goes without. Every ones object is to get rid of their apron and not get another one. At the end of an hour judge and police take their places and every person having one or more aprons on his person is fined two cents each for them. Of course some will have several and some none, but you may be sure there is no lull in the conversation.

The played the vacant chair. As many chairs as players are placed in a circle. There is one vacant chair and one person in the middle. Each person is responsible for keeping the chair at the right filled, hence when A slips into the vacant chair at his right, B slips into A’s and C into B’s before the person in the middle can get it. If B fails to get A’s chair when it is vacated before the person in the center takes it, B must take his place in the Center. As Sue Williams said, the boys like to play it because sometimes the girls inadvertently sit in their laps and possibly the girls like it for the same reason.

Albert and I have not been to St. Johnsbury yet but will go tomorrow if it is a fair day.

It is time for me to fire up and get supper. I wish you could taste the dandy cake I made this morning. “Self-praise.”

Do you all write to me now. You little people let me know how mother is won’t you? And mother, you may as well tell me just how you are for I shall know anyway.

Oh, how I should love to be with you all. And yet I am happy and contented as anyone could ask for haven’t I my boy? The boys are both very good to me. A lady whom I met not long ago herself the mother of two young men, said to me, “Your cousins seem always to think of you first in every thing and they always speak so loyally of you that I know you exert a refining influence over them." She could have said nothing to please me more.

You will pardon me if I am conceited in writing such things.

Oh, my Supper!!!!

Love to each more than I can tell of heart yearning.
Dora