1909-12-22: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1909-12-22​: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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Envelope - front
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1909-12-22: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
4305 Broadway N.Y.
Dec. 22 1909

My Dear Will,

We came to New York Monday night and I am here at Eva’s and Alma at the studio.  She was here awhile yesterday.  We are all so sorry you are to go so far away, but I feel thankful that it is not to the Philippines.  I wish you could come up here before you go.  Don’t you think you can come this way?  Come if you possibly can if it should only be a few days.

Eva is keeping house very nicely.  She gets along so well with her cooking.  Just goes ahead as though she had always been used to managing a house.

She sang awhile for me this after noon, I think her singing has improved too.  Frank looks better than he did when they were married so her cooking seems to agree with him.

We went to a gas show at Madison Square Garden last night.  There was a great display of all kinds of gas stoves, lamps, and every way that gas could be used.  It was the first time I had been to that place and it was worth while to go just to see that place where they hold the horse shows.  It was crowded last night.

Lily and Mabel are coming up here for Christmas dinner.  We will have it at six o’clock to suit Mabel.  She likes late dinners.  I am going to make the pie.  We will have chicken instead of turkey.  Turkeys are scarce at thirty cents lb, and chickens only twenty.

It was very nice of you to remember us all so nicely.  The best boy ever.

I made two batches of peanut brittle and neither of them was good.  Instead of being brittle it granulated so that I could not stretch it at all.  I intended to send some to you and to Fred and Orestes but it was not good enough.  I brought it down here and Frank has been eating some of it.  I don’t know what was the reason it turned to sugar unless it was because I did not have enough glucous.  The second lot I used corn syrup and it was no better.  I will try to make some here after Christmas.  I expect to stay here a few weeks - don’t know just how long.  I think it will be better than South Hadley in the winter.

Uncle Robert Gracey died the 12th of this month.  He was in his 88th year.  He is the last one of the uncles to go.

Fred and Mabel return to Battle Creek tomorrow.  They have been studying in Chicago for several weeks.  Eva sent a check to Fred and Laura for $10 each, your present to them.  They will both appreciate it.

Laura went to Columbus on the 6th to take the State Board exam.  It commenced on Monday morning and lasted four days.  Two days taking the Osteopath and then two days on the other ____path.  She passed the first all right and then was allowed to take the other_ there were twenty-three taking the regular medical exam so she will not hear from that until the 6th of Jan.  She thought however that she had passed.  While in Columbus she staid at the home of my Cousin William Provines’ daughter, Jennie McCullough.  She says Mr. McCullough is one of the nicest men in his own home she has ever seen.  I have never met him.

Must now close by wishing you a pleasant Christmas and Happy New Year.  Much Love,

Mother
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1909-12-22​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
We came to New York Monday night and I am here at Eva’s and Alma at the studio.  She was here awhile yesterday.
So, Frank and Eva have a studio for their musical work maybe?  And Alma is staying there, in slightly more independent quarters than with her mother, her sister, and her brother-in-law, and, I imagine, is rushing around thoroughly enjoying being in New York.

2.
We are all so sorry you are to go so far away, but I feel thankful that it is not to the Philippines.  I wish you could come up here before you go.  Don’t you think you can come this way?  Come if you possibly can if it should only be a few days.
Will was being assigned to California, in San Francisco.  I don't know if he visited Mama Margaret before he went. Captain William P. Stokey, Engineer Corps, is ordered to report in this department for duty under Captain Thomas H. Jackson, Engineer Corps, on January 10th.

3.
Eva is keeping house very nicely.  She gets along so well with her cooking.  Just goes ahead as though she had always been used to managing a house.
Interesting.  I always keep an eye out for clues as to what the problems were with Eva's marriage, and AG had something from her father (I need to find it) that indicated that Eva's housekeeping was poor, but this seems to indicate otherwise.

4.
Lily and Mabel are coming up here for Christmas dinner.  We will have it at six o’clock to suit Mabel.  She likes late dinners.
Lily Love, originally from Canton, and Mabel Watson, from New Jersey.  Both are in the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, and Orestes.  So Mama Margaret liked to do Christmas dinner in the middle of the day?

5.
I intended to send some to you and to Fred and Orestes but it was not good enough.
Orestes is Mabel's ward Orestes Cleveland, about 11 years old at this time.  He lived with the Stokeys for a while in Oberlin.  He too is on the Non-Family page for Mabel, Lil, Steenie, and Orestes.

6.
Uncle Robert Gracey died the 12th of this month.  He was in his 88th year.  He is the last one of the uncles to go.
Uncle Robert was a younger brother of Mama Margaret's mother, Jane Gracey Provines.  From Barbara’s listing:
Robert G. Gracey b. 29 Aug 1822...Pennsylvania, United States, d. 12 Dec 1909, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Bur. 15 Dec. 1909, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, United States.

Uncle Robert is the reason that this letter is included in:
...even though I don't think I've ever seen anything more about him, before or after this letter.

7.
Laura went to Columbus on the 6th to take the State Board exam.  It commenced on Monday morning and lasted four days.  Two days taking the Osteopath and then two days on the other ____path.  She passed the first all right and then was allowed to take the other_ there were twenty-three taking the regular medical exam so she will not hear from that until the 6th of Jan.  She thought however that she had passed.
This update is why I've included this letter in:
8.
While in Columbus she staid at the home of my Cousin William Provines’ daughter, Jennie McCullough. 
William Provines seems to be a son of Samuel Provines, an elder brother of Mama Margaret's father, John Provines.  I don't think we hear anything more about him.​
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