Ella McKinnon To Annie Carlisle Aug 17, 1929

Mapleton Minn Aug 12th 1929

Dear Cousin Anna

I know you were disappointed when you did not get the letter but Anna I know you will excuse me when I tell you I was sick last week I was taken with the stomach flu on Sunday morning and I did not feel like writing or any thing else all the week. I was os weak from it I got around enough to get our meals & do just what I just had to do my stomach felt so mean all the time so I know you will forgive me this time.

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My how I would have loved to have taken that trip with you mine was not or will not interest you so much as yours did me as you do not know the country as I did where you were. But you said you saw where Myrtle’s grave was Father’s & Mothers were in the same lot lying just to the north of hers side by side with her. Herman & Emmit were buried in Waukegan but I do not know if in the same cemetery or not but I think they were in the Methodist cemetery. Elizabeth was buried in the Spaulding cemetery about 4 miles out from Waukegan & Jen was in the cemetery at Antioch. But Anna it was at Hainesville not Libertyville that aunt Mary Hall White lived ever since I can remember. It will be 27 years this Sept since I was in Ill. last.
My bur we are getting old arent we. Eunice was 80 in June six years older than we are.

Well my trip took me about 300 mis. North in the woods only there is not much woods there now as it has been

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burned over & chopped over until it is mostly brush there. I like it to go for a trip that way but I am not so in love with it up there that I would care to live up there and I really cannot remember the places we went through so I could tell you just where we went so as to interest you for there were so many swamps & it would be several miles at a time that we would not pass a house or only one that was empty & falling down they could not make a living on it and it takes lots of money & hard work to

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clear up the land there than the soil is light & if the rains do not come pretty often they do not have much of a crop it is so long before they get much of a place and if they do not have hay they cannot feed the stock in the winter. hay was $24 a ton last winter up there they raise a good many Potatoes up there but if the rains don’t come in the right time they don’t have them last year they had lots of them but no sale for them as hey were plentiful every where he could not sell them at all

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some just carried them out to the dump yard and some got just what they could for theirs about 10c a bushel. but there are a lot of small lakes around there with fish and lots of folks go up there for an outing & fish there are a lot of cottages around the lakes some places just like a village only close on the shore only the drive between them & the lake the roads are all gravel & are just fine unless they have to repair some we drove thro in about 10 hours with stopping for dinner & a stop to rest and walk around some so as not to get too tired I did not get tired I can stand a long drive in an Auto but I would have been so sick if I had to go by train. That is one reason I have never been down home I could not stand the trip by train

Well I have written quite a long letter and have not said much either

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but it did seem good to get back home again & get to work I do not like to go visiting very well I get more tired doing nothing that when I am at work

I guess I will close now for I am sure you will get tired reading my scribble if you can make any thing out of it

With lots of love & best wishes
I am as ever your loving
Cousin Ella

Ella's recap of Annie's trip is helpful. I wonder who she traveled with? Annie's husband, Isaac Ashley Carlisle died 2 January 1929 at home, Buchanan, Berrien, MI. Perhaps there will be something more about the trip in letters from her children.

Now I have cemetery locations to check for Ella's siblings.

I'm guessing that Ella traveled north to visit with one or two of her sons. John Albion McKinnon lived in McGrath, Aitkin, MN, about 220 miles from Mapleton. Neil Hall McKinnon was in Smokey Hollow, Cass, MN in 1930, about 240 miles from Mapleton. Both places are dotted with lakes. I wonder who drove her?

For more see:
Carlisle - Wisner Letters
Family of William Wisner
Descendants of Maryetta Wisner
Descendants of Sarah Ann Wisner
Margie's Ancestors - McKinnon Pictures


McKinnon, Ella Hall (Mapleton, Minnesota) to “Dear Cousin Anna” [Sarah Ann Camfield Carlisle]. Letter. 12 August 1929. Digital Images 1-4. Privately held by Apple, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Snowville, New York. 2008. [Carlisle Family, Box #1, Correspondence, 1929 - 1939, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. 2008.]