Medford Okla.
Dec. 23 -08
Dear Anna:
Will try and write you a letter. don't know as I have much to write or much time to write it as I want to get this off on the next mail.
Am sending you and Tamerson little remembrance which I beg you do axcept with my love and good wishes of the season.
Am feeling better than when I last wrote the Reheumatism has left me but my sholders get tired with very little work.
page 2
I recd some presents from S. B. yesterday. Sarah sent me white goods for a waist, Amelia some collar pins and Mrs. Northam a sweeping cap, all very pretty.
My Christmas ahs commenced early. Have an invitation out to christmas dinner and am going to Woolseys to spend new years.
Expect you will have to cook your own dinner. Wish I could be there to help you get it and to eat with you. wouldent we have one good old time?
Well I shall have to close and get this to the office. will write at greater length after holidays.
With good wishes to all I am as ever your loveingly yours. Toley
page 3
Dear Tamerson,
If you do not like your puffs send them back + I will try to sell them for you. or if your hair is grown darker so they are not a good match, and you do like them send me some new combings and will make you another set. I left one of them done up so you could see how to cirl tham. the ought to hold the cirl for a few days I think. do each puff seperately. I did not get them devided very evenly maby you can do a better job next time they are done.
have not time to write more now as ever your loving friend
Toley
When and why did Toley move to Oklahoma? Is she nursing, sewing or doing something else.
Try as hard as I might, I can not form a mental image of the "puffs" that she sent Tamerson.
For more see:
Camfield Family Letters
Descendants of Sarah Ann Wisner
Michael Camfield
Robinson, Etola (Medford, OK) to “Dear Anna”
[Ann Camfield Carlisle]. Letter. 23 December 1908. Digital Images 1-3.
Privately held by Apple, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,]
Snowville, New York. 2009.
[Carlisle Family, Box #1, Correspondence, 1908,
Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. 2008.]
5 comments:
Apple, the puffs were little hairpieces that women used to make. They would save the hair from their combs and brushes in a little container and then use them either to fill out a flat bun by making it puffier (hence the name) or they would make ringlets and curl them to add to their hairstyles, which sounds like the case with Etola. Puffs were also called switches.
Funny, but the few times I've been able to tell you about something that you had a question about, it was because of things I recalled by reading the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, even though her books were set 20 to 30 years prior to these letters!
Thanks again Miriam! My mother has one of the little "hair receivers" that Toley mentions in tomorrow's letter. I always thought it's only function was to keep her dresser neat. Tomorrow she also mentions switches so now that makes more sense to me.
I don't know why, but I have never read the Wilder books. I'll have to pick them up and share them with my grandkids.
Apple, I love old names and Etola is such a wonderful name to roll from the tongue and then morph it into Toley. Also the visual of the name is pleasing. Thanks.
The Little House books are indispensible in understanding late 19th century America. The first book, Little House in the Big Woods, has a lot more details than the others in explaining things, although the second, Little House on the Prairie, also has quite a lot. The rest flow more like stories, with details of frontier living interspersed. I think you will enjoy them!
Joan - I like the name Etola to. We have several different names in my family and I'm actually happy that plans to name me Tamerson fell through!
Miriam - Now that Mom's done with PT, I need to do something to get her out of the house so I'm thinking a trip to the library fits the bill.
Post a Comment