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Letter # 5

 

 

Freshwater
August 25, 1935

My Dear Daughter Bertha,

I now set down once more to answer your letter which we received from you last Saturday and was more than glad to get it. It was a welcome guest and gift to me.

Well, Bertha girl, I haven't got much news to tell you as I and my wife have been sick all the spring and all the summer what is past so you see my child that I haven't got much pleasure now and, more than that, I haven't got no money now for what I did have, it's all gone now after fifteen years drawing on it and nothing coming in to help it. You wants quite a lot to stand when I was getting fifty dollars a year until this last three years and now we don't get the half of it. Well, Bertha girl, I tell you that George W. it is doing well for us. If Jack had done so much for us as George W, we would have got along all right. You said in your last letter that you sent me five and you don't know if we got it or not. We got it the fifteenth day of April and I answered it the 22nd of April and then myself and my wife was taken very sick. I was in bed for forty days then and we was both sick together and didn't know which one of us was going to die first. So I asked every one of my nephews to take us and every one turned me down. So my wifes son came out from Victoria. I wasn't able to stand and took us both and brought us both to his one home and his wife took care of us and brought us both back to life. Only for them I don't think that I be writing to you tonight for Bertha, my child, you could not do no more in the same means that I had for if you was his one Father he knows. She could not do no more than keep us clean and decent and warm. They are only poor people. They have got a nice little bungalow with five rooms in it all furnished and ……(can't read) raises his own vegetables such as cabbage, turnips & potatoes. He came out this spring and set out all the ground in potatoes, carrot and parsnips and he put up the fences and brought out all the seeds and he and his wife and a friend of his set it all in a day and they are growing O.K. So, after we got better in the month of July, we came out again for the summer to look after the garden but myself and the misses haven't been able to do any thing this summer for her feet and legs is all affected and got no appetite to eat any thing and can't afford to get anything to cook. It all that she can eat is a little Crisp so when the cold winter comes……(can't read) we are going in there again. They only got two children. A little boy of 7 years and a little girl of two years. The little boys name is William John and the little girls name is Jane Pearl and their fathers name is Fredrick (sp) Dye (or Pye) and his wife's name is Diannah. (writing is smudged at the very bottom of the page) Your uncle George Davis is past away. He died in April and Aunt Lilly Davis died in May about a month after. So you see, nothing can keep us in the world when our time comes to go, then we all gone. There's only myself and Uncle John in Harbour Grace and he is parilized this two years. Uncle George was paralized and Aunt Lilly had a cancer in her stomach. I wish that I had a few daughters like you and Jim (Can't read) we would be comfortable but I can't complain. We had a letter from Jane and sent me two dollars. That is all for now. Best regards to your Jim and all the family is the prayer of your loving father and Mrs. Davis. William to his daughter Bertha Parsons. Please answer this as soon as you can.

Editor's Note: Letter was written on very cheap tablet paper. Partially written with a pencil, which has smudges all over it. Rest written with a fountain pen that wanted to leak a lot. - James R. McKay

 

 

Page contributed by James R. McKay
Page revised: Sept 2002 (Terry Piercey)

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