Ella McKinnon to Annie Carlisle Aug 11, 1907

Mapleton Minn
Aug 11th 1907

My dear Cousin
I have waited to write to you to see if I heard any more about Uncle Henry’s death. I wrote to Herman and he said that was the first they had heard of it but the 4th of July they saw George Wisner & his wife & they had a paper same as you did and then I wrote to Uncle Wirt and he won’t answer my letter or at least he don’t so I wrote 3 or 4 weeks ago and have not heard from him

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I think he might write but he never would write to me since I was married he got spunky at me just before I came out to Minn and never would write Auntie used to write once in a while when she was alive but he never wrote me of her death

We have had a funny summer one week it will be cold and nice and the next it will be hot and showery. the week before last it was almost cool enough for a frost then last week was

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two warm for comfort & now to night it is cool & nice well it has been all day. I hope it will stay so until the harvest is over for it is hard work any time

Well I will have to quit until the little ones get to bed for I cannot write while they are all talking so much & so fast

Small fruit was quite plentiful here this year and some say there is lots of apples a few of our trees are pretty well loaded but not all of them

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Oh dear it will soon be school time it hardly seem as if there has been any vacation because there was so much I had planned to do and I have not done a single thing that I had meant to do I wanted to do some visiting and I have not been to a place and now I have some dresses to make for the girls & my self one beside other work. I have a pile of calico pieces I meant to have got pieced up into quits and I have not touched them yet

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maybe I will get more time when I am all alone again.

We have begun to cut the grain some have quite a little cut but did not rush any the men cut a while Saturday afternoon but it will be ready all at once so they had to begin with it a little bit green. It will not take long to get it cut if it keeps cool.

Well I will have to stop and write a few words to my boy Ray. So Good Night.
Ever you Coz Ella

Ella and Annie's uncle, Henry S. Wisner, was born 21 June 1826 in Onondaga County, NY and died 26 May 1907 in Eau Claire, Eau Claire County, WI. His brother, Marshall Wirt Wisner lived in Eau Claire so I guess that is why Ella had sent a letter to him.

Rose Camfield's letter to Annie in October 1906 indicated that Henry was expected to visit family in Indiana and Michigan but none of the letters tell whether or not he actually made the trip. At that time he was living in Lake County, IL. I don't know why he was in Eau Claire, WI at the time of his death.

I assume that the "paper" that Ella refers to had something to do with Henry's estate as he never married. It was not included in the file with the letters.

I sympathize with Ella, the summer does go by too fast!

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 “My dear Cousin” [Sarah Ann Camfield Carlisle]. Letter. 11 August 1907. Digital Images 1-5. Privately held by Apple, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Snowville, New York. 2008. [Carlisle Family, Box #1, Correspondence, 1907, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. 2008.]