1903-12-27: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1903-12-27: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1903-12-27: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
908 W. 8th St.
Canton, O. Dec. 27 ‘03

Dear Will,

Christmas is over now and I can get time to write and tell you about it.  We had a very nice Christmas.  We all got all the things we asked for, probably that is because we don’t ask for anything that we are not likely to get.  I got a work-box, a soap-box, a hat pin from Edwin, an apron, a pocketbook, two books “Alice in Wonderland” and “Walden” a pillow, a class pin, a tam-o-shanter and a new dress.  Lily and Mabel Watson sent the dress.  Lily got the dress and Mabel the trimmings.  Steenie sent me a string of beads.  Everybody here wears beads.

We got Mama a new table-clock a half dozen glasses, a pitcher (for buttermilk) and a sugar bowl and cream pitcher.  The table wear was Fred’s idea.  He objected to a pitcher with the spout nicked and a sugar bowl with the handle off.  We also got her a pair of scissors, an Oberlin calendar, a collar, a towel and a plate.  Lil sent her a black ribbon and a collar.

Eva got a lot of stuff a hand-mirror pocketbook, umbrella, fener [???] dish, spoon, a lot of fancy collars and various and sundry other articles.

She has been having a dreadful cold.  She has been hoarse and has not sung at all since I came home.  I do wish we could get out of the house before next winter.  It is an awful place for colds.  The gas stoves warm just one little spot and the rest is cold.  I did not have a cold all winter until I came home.

Don’t you think we can move to Oberlin by next year?  You will have to answer as soon as you get this so that we can tell what we can do.  I think if you could send us on an average $25 to $30 a month we could manage very well.  Perhaps June Brocken  will go with us and that would be a help.  It would take about $100 to move us I think.  We would want to move about August or September.  I suppose with Eva’s and my tuition it would take about $175 before the middle of September.  That seems like a lot and if it is too much just write and say so.  After we get moved our expenses won’t be so heavy again.  Eva’s and my tuition won’t come at the same time again.  The Conservatory has the term system and the College has the semester.

Everybody tells me that Eva has improved very much.  I wish she would get over her cold.

I can see a great improvement in Fred since last summer.  He is getting over that crazy fanaticism and acts like himself.  He is lots of fun now.  He takes an interest in everything now.  Eva is giving him piano lessons and he is talking of taking vocal lessons from Mr. Brown.  He is beginning to study again.  I asked Mama what made him so different and she said there was an Evangelist named Smith here who got at him and took some of his crazy notions out of him.  I am very glad of it.  It is so much more fun to come home.

Oliver Hicks, Aunt Mary’s oldest son, is visiting here.  I like him.  He’s very much like Uncle Jim in his ways but he looks more like Uncle Charlie.  He is very pleasant and full of fun.  He took me to the theater last night to see “Si Plunkard”, a rural comedy.  It was fairly good.

Miss Schargood is going to her home in Chambersburg on Monday to stay.  She is tired out from working in the factory.

I received a letter from Louise Eberle last week.  The Eberles are in Siassi.  They don’t like it as well as Jolo.

We have not had a letter from you since the middle of October that is about ten weeks.  It seems like ages.  Write often.  It’s so dull without letters.

Lil said that perhaps she would come out to Ohio at Easter and would go up to Oberlin to visit.  Eva intends to visit me next term, probably the last of March for the Glee Club concert.

Now do write at once.

With love,

Alma

P.S. I sent you an Oberlin Calendar about a month ago.
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1903-12-27​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
a hat pin from Edwin
I don't know who Edwin is.

2.
Lily and Mabel Watson sent the dress.
Lily/Lil is Lily Love, originally from Canton.  Lil and Mabel are in the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, and Orestes.

3.
Steenie sent me a string of beads.
Steenie is Abastenia St. Leger Eberle.  She too is in the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, an Orestes.

4.
We got Mama a new table-clock
I can't tell if this is table-clock or table-cloth.  I've never heard of a table clock before, but that doesn't mean a thing.

5.
I did not have a cold all winter until I came home.
Yup, different germ set encountered.

6.
Don’t you think we can move to Oberlin by next year?
This paragraph is interesting because it tells us that Eva was already planning to go to Oberlin Conservatory.​

7.
Perhaps June Brocken  will go with us and that would be a help.
I think that June did go to Oberlin with them, but I'm not really sure.  I've got her in the Non-family Ohio folks page.

8.
I can see a great improvement in Fred since last summer.  He is getting over that crazy fanaticism and acts like himself.
This is interesting because it fits with something that Fred wrote to his fiancée Sibyl a quarter of a century later in a letter in which he was talking about religion:I have a message for the world - it has been on my heart for 26 years and the time to deliver it may be near.  It has been getting clearer as the time goes on and may take the form of a book but I rather think it will be oral.  When the time for it comes I will have no doubt of it.  In that day it may lead us first into suffering and reproach but the end will be glorious.
Alma says in this letter:
I asked Mama what made him so different and she said there was an Evangelist named Smith here who got at him and took some of his crazy notions out of him.  I am very glad of it.  It is so much more fun to come home. 
It would be interesting to know what Mr. Smith the Evangelist said to Fred, and what Fred heard.  Given that Alma didn't like Laura's Puritanical religiousness, maybe Mr. Smith said something along the lines of, "Think what you want, but remember, Jesus said Judge not lest ye be judged."  Because it's clear that Fred retained some notions - crazy or otherwise - from this era.

9.
Oliver Hicks, Aunt Mary’s oldest son, is visiting here.  I like him.  He’s very much like Uncle Jim in his ways but he looks more like Uncle Charlie.  He is very pleasant and full of fun.  He took me to the theater last night to see “Si Plunkard”, a rural comedy.  It was fairly good.
These people are in the Provines and Gracey section.
Oliver Hicks - Mary’s son, 5/16/1864 to 9/26/1947, so he would have been 39 at this time.  He might have been encouraged to visit when he met Mama Margaret in Ionia, Michigan, the previous month:Uncle Jim is Margaret’s and Mary’s younger brother James K. Provines 6/26/1851 to 5/1/1924.
Uncle Charlie is probably be Margaret’s and Mary’s younger brother Charles Amos Provines 11/12/1859 to 6/12/1911.
"Si Plunkard": A rural farce comedy written by Robert G. Morris and produced by the J. C. Lewis Co.

10.
Miss Schargood is going to her home in Chambersburg on Monday to stay.  She is tired out from working in the factory.
I have no idea who this is, and of course Alma's handwriting doesn't help me to decipher her name.  I figure Chambersburg must be Chambersburg, Ohio, about 20 miles east of Canton.

11.
I received a letter from Louise Eberle last week.  The Eberles are in Siassi.  They don’t like it as well as Jolo.
Louise Eberle was Steenie Eberle's sister.  The Eberles lived in Canton for a while, and the father of the family spent some time in the Philippines, which was not at all good for his health.

Siassi: Wikipedia says:
Siasi, officially the Municipality of Siasi (Tausūg: Kawman sin Siasi; Tagalog: Bayan ng Siasi), is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Sulu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 81,689 people.

Jolo: Wikipedia says:
​Jolo (Tausug: Sūg) is a volcanic island in the southwest Philippines and the primary island of the province of Sulu, on which the capital of the same name is situated. It is located in the Sulu Archipelago, between Borneo and Mindanao, and has a population of approximately 500,000 people.
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