For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
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While looking for some of his ancestors several years ago, my cousin Peter Olivier found a packet of letters online written by my grandmother Pearl Reed (Cleage) from 1903 to 1905. They were for sale by Michal Brown Rare Books who “specialize in Americana, especially manuscript materials. We offer manuscript letters and archives, diaries, journals, personal and business correspondence from the 17th century through the 20th.“
By the time I found out that the letters existed, they had been sold to the University of Georgia in Athens. I thought it was strange because neither my grandmother Pearl Reed nor Homer Jarrett, the young man she was exchanging letters with, were well known. Homer seems to have saved every piece of mail he ever received. Eventually all of those hundreds of pieces (which included my grandmother’s letters) ended up being sold after his death. In their entirety they give a unique picture of the era in which they were written.
I immediately got in touch with Special Collections Library at The University of Georgia in Athens. I was able to purchase scans of all 41 letters and envelopes very reasonably. I was very excited to have a look into my 19 year old grandmother’s life through her letters. It was lucky that the University purchased them. I could never have afforded to buy them.
Below is one of the letters in the package. It was written on April 7, 1904.
Homer Jarrett
#230 Bird St., City
2730 Kenwood Ave
City
April 7, 1904
Dear Homer;
Forgive me for not writing sooner, but don’t you know I did write but tore up the letter a few hours after. Mother is very ill now and has been since Easter eve. I am having a terrible time. I could not go to church Easter Morn and have just received an invitation to a friends at her birthday anniversary but had to send her my regrets. Pity me.
Your little friend
P.S. I am in an awful hurry, forgive this writing.
Your Pearl
P.S. Minnie’s address is #337 Colfax Ave. Benton Harbor Mich.
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Pearl Reed was my paternal grandmother. Homer was a friend of my grandmother. Minnie was my grandmother’s older sister who was married to Homer’s cousin and had moved from Indianapolis with her husband and family to Benton Harbor, Michigan.
At this time my grandmother was about 20 years old. She had graduated from high school and lived at home with her mother and her oldest brother, George. One other brother lived nearby with his family. Another brother lived in Chicago and all three of her living sisters lived in Benton Harbor, Michigan with their families. Her oldest sister died around 1900.
My grandmother would not meed my grandfather for several more years.
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Read more about my grandmother’s letters in these posts:
My Grandmother’s Letters
Finding The Letters
The Letters – The People
I love reading letters from the past. Great photo of Pearl.
Me too
As a teacher, I such much worst penmanship. Enjoying these posts
I have too, but this is pretty bad. LOL. Probably because she was stressed out.
Pearl sounds so stressed out in this frank letter.
She does. Her mother was often sick during this time, but I think this must have been one of the worst episodes.
I loved seeing the picture of the old letters. Miss those days 🙂
It’s really difficult to get back to writing real letters these days.
What an amazing find! I am so glad everything turned out as it did and you have such a unique glimpse into your Grandmother’s younger years! So amazing that he held on to *everything!
It was and I’m so glad I have copies. He was quite the saver.
Hi Kristin, hope all is well. It must’ve been a combination of gratifying and sad to learn the letters ended up with a rare manuscripts dealer and purchased by a university. Gratifying because they were saved and because the university saw the value in the history but a little bit sad that somewhere along the line they left the family’s possession.
And maybe I’m just reading into it because I’m not sure I, or my family, would’ve seen any value in finding correspondence of a family member. I vividly remember, after my grandmother died, watching my mom sort through her things. She was disgusted to find a crystal ball in the box because it annoyed her that her mother was interested in such things. She tossed it in the trash. Who knows what else went with it.
In any case, it’s wonderful you have them and shared them here. I very much enjoy your posts!
They actually did leave my family’s possession when my grandmother sent them to Homer! If he hadn’t shaved them and the university hadn’t bought them, and my cousin hadn’t found that information, I never would have even known about them, so I’m happy about that.
I do wonder what things were tossed out by accident. I know a whole box of my father’s letters home are missing.
That’s really great to have access to that material. The photo of your grandmother is precious, too.
It is. I wonder if there are other letters floating around out there that might turn up. I doubt it though.
How wonderful you were able to get copies of the letters – what a great find! My penmanship isn’t great at the best of times, but I have to say I’m inspired to try a bit harder now.
I’m glad my grandmother’s letter inspired you to improve your penmanship! It is so hard to read some writing and in the future, when they no longer even teach how to write cursive.
i loved the journey of this post & so glad you were able to get scans of the letter, i was worried for a moment!
i’m also really enjoying seeing which thing you’re highlighting in each post as a nod to the letter a day. i like “forgive this writing”!
I did enjoy doing that part too.
Some of the other letters are more interesting and I posted them all several years ago, but I had to use this one for April 7 to fit my extra challenge!
You realize she is your 2 X great grandmother?