Ella McKinnon to Annie Hall January 5, 1902

1

Mapleton, Minn

Jan 5^th 1902

Dear Cousin

I am going to write to you sooner this time and use a lead pencil at that. I hope you will excuse it as I can write so much better and faster with it.

I will say many thanks for your remembrance at Christmas time it is so long since I sent away any gifts that I had not thought of you in that way but if we are both alive next year I will try & remember you. I often send Elizabeth and her girl something but not always and I always depend on my turkeys for any presents and this year I had poor luck and only had 5 to sell

2

I sent your mother a package I sent them a week ago Friday so she would get them just before New Year and last Sunday I wrote her a letter.

My husband gave me cloth for a nice dress for Christmas and I got a book from a friend in S Dak. Besides several presents from the children I fared well this year. The children all gave each other some little token & I had to remember each one of them so when I get around any cash is nearly gone they all say it don’t seem as if they had any thing. Then we go to the Congregational church and they always get each a book on that so Santie always deals well by them

3

We have no relations around here on either side and no real intimate friends so we generally have to eat our dinner alone. I often wish we had some one of our own near so we could have a place to go once in a while like that it seems lonesome some times to think they are all so far away. I have been home once since I came here and that was 17 years ago last fall in Oct. Elizabeth was out here two years ago last summer she was here 6 weeks and it did not seem like 2 weeks. I wanted to go home this fall but Jake thot he could not spare me not because he could not afford it but he misses me too much

4

Well I guess I am writing too much I have told pretty much all I have to tell. I did not think I would write so much when I began but sometimes I can think faster than I can write so get along fast then if I don’t feel like writing I cannot write at all. I wrote a long letter to Elizabeth to day too.

Well I will have to close by hoping Santa Claus was as good to you as to me and that you had a merry Christmas and Happy New Year and will have many returns of them

I remain as ever

your loving Cousin

Ella

I wonder what Annie sent to Ella? If letters to other family members are any indication I bet it was a goodie from Annie's kitchen.

This is the second time that Ella talks of missing home and family. I'm sure she did miss them but I also think she just wanted a break.

For more see:
Carlisle - Wisner Letters
Family of William Wisner
Descendants of Maryetta Wisner
Descendants of Sarah Ann Wisner


McKinnon, Ella Hall (Mapleton, Minnesota) to “Dear Cousin” [Sarah Ann Camfield Carlisle]. Letter. 5 January 1902. Digital Images 1-4. Privately held by Apple, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Snowville, New York. 2008. [Carlisle Family, Box #1, Correspondence, Jan – Mar 1902, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. 2008.]