Uncle Robert writes to Aunt Nellie with help of daughter Florence



Robert Fletcher Richardson II when he was in his 50's. 

Robert Fletcher II was named for his paternal grandfather, also Robert Fletcher Richardson.

His father was Robert A. Richardson -- no Fletcher, so the name skipped a generation.

I would love to know where the Fletcher name came from!  This is a transcription of a letter.

 

Waterbury, VT, Jan 5, 1921

My Dear Aunt:

            Father was much pleased to get your letter and I will write for him as his hand trembles so he can’t write lately.  Don’t know when you heard from him last.  He went out to Washington [VT] a few weeks last summer.  My girl kept house for him, then he decided to come back here and stay.  Can only walk a few steps with crutches.  Early in the Fall he had a very sick spell but is a good deal better now. He stays in bed most of the time for he naps.  His hip pains him less when he lays quiet than when he even sits up.     

            He says his eyes are not as good as a little while ago but I think they are wonderful for one of his age for he reads his daily paper and about two library books a week.  Just sits up in bed with pillows back of him.

            Tell Ella I received her card. Wish I might know her and the rest of my unknown relatives out your way. We haven’t heard from Aunt Julia for over a year.  Then she was very poorly and living with Fred’s wife.

            Father says tell you that he was 88 years old last September.  Think you must have forgotten his age by this time.  It has been very warm so far this winter for which I am very glad as it takes less wood and is better for me to be out.  I have so much barn work to see to every day.

                                                Your loving niece,
                                                            Florence Wallace

Florence Ida Richardson was the youngest of the five children born to Robert Fletcher Richardson II and Rosetta Dexter Richardson.  Florence was born on March 2, 1875 in Washington, Vermont.  Florence married James Moses Wallace and they lived in Waterbury, VT. At the time of this photo, taken on the occasion of her parents 50th wedding anniversary in 1907, they already had four of their seven children. Their eldest, their daughter Lelia, was sitting in front of her grandparents when the photo was taken and is not in this photo.  The ones in the photo are their first three boys, Robert, William and George.  Many thanks to my cousin Barb for this photo!  Florence was about 32 years old when this photo was taken and in her mid-40's when she penned this letter for her father.  Her husband had died in October of 1918 a little over two years before.  His death certificate notes that he died of Influenza and pneumonia. 

It appears he was one of the victims of the severe flu pandemic of 1918. 

This is Florence when she was a little girl.

The recipient of this missive was the youngest and the only remaining of Robert's siblings, his sister Eva Irene Richardson.  Eva married George Thompson and was always known as Nellie from that time on.  Nellie was also born in Topsham, Vermont and later lived in the Dakota Territory and later  yet in the Washington Territory in the Palouse.  When her husband died she returned to Wisconsin to live near her niece,  Ella Jane Stevens Sherwood. It took quite a while to figure out that Nellie and Eva were the same person as she was referred to as Eva almost exclusively when young and then as an older adult was  always Nellie.  At the time this was written, Robert and Nellie were the only two siblings left of the original eight.