Letter from Billy to Kathleen: 8/4/1927
Full size image is below.
A letter from Billy at Fernbank in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to his mother, Kathleen, who is in Boston, Massachusetts
1927-08-04: ~AUDIO~---images---comment---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
Sorry, I haven't yet recorded the document.
1927-08-04: audio---~IMAGES~---comment---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1927-08-04: audio---images---~COMMENT~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
I love this letter. I hope that when Kathleen read it she just wanted to drop everything and dash to Fernbank to hug Billy.
1927-08-04: audio---images---comment---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Thursday
Dear Mother:
I miss you very much. Mrs. Van Doorn went in swimming with us yesterday.
I hope you have a good time.
Aunt Eva said she didn’t think my letter would reach you. I hope it does.
We saw a bittern this morning and a green and gray heron this morning.
I have not much to say.
With love,
Billy.
P.S. Aunt Eva said it would reach you if it got on the 3:00 train.
P.S.S. Aunt Eva sends her love. We all miss you but don’t hurry home stay over Sunday if you wish.
Dear Mother:
I miss you very much. Mrs. Van Doorn went in swimming with us yesterday.
I hope you have a good time.
Aunt Eva said she didn’t think my letter would reach you. I hope it does.
We saw a bittern this morning and a green and gray heron this morning.
I have not much to say.
With love,
Billy.
P.S. Aunt Eva said it would reach you if it got on the 3:00 train.
P.S.S. Aunt Eva sends her love. We all miss you but don’t hurry home stay over Sunday if you wish.
1927-08-04: audio---images---comment---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
We have a little more information about this trip in a Fernbank News: Mrs. Stokey returned from a trip to Boston Monday, Aug. 8, after having raised our hopes for both Friday and Saturday. She saw both her sister and brother while there.
Since Kathleen saw both of her siblings - Cecil and Ruth - on her trip, and since the trip was to Boston, home of the Christian Science Mother Church, the trip must have been for Christian Science - as is also clear from the address on the envelope.
2.
About the address:
“℅ Wm R. Rathvon” - Wikipedia says:
William Roedel Rathvon, CSB, (December 31, 1854 – March 2, 1939), sometimes incorrectly referred to as William V. Rathvon or William V. Rathbone, is the only known eyewitness to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, of the over 10,000 witnesses, to have left an audio recording describing that experience. He made the recording in 1938, a year before his death. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a successful businessman, he became a Christian Science practitioner, served as a public lecturer, Church treasurer and director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. He was treasurer from 1911 until he was elected to the Church's Board of Directors, on which he served from 1918 until his death in 1939. From 1908 to 1910 he was correspondence secretary for Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. He also authored "The Devil's Auction" often republished without attribution as "The Devil's Garage Sale".
[and the following is where it gets interesting for me]
On November 19, 1863, four months after the historic Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, a crowd of more than 10,000 gathered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for the dedication of the National Cemetery to the soldiers who had fallen in what is widely acknowledged as the greatest battle of the Civil War (in terms of the total number of troops engaged and casualties on both sides, the intensity of the fighting, and the strategic and emotional significance of the outcome) as well as the point at which the war turned in favor of the Union and permanently against the Confederacy. Among those thousands was nine-year-old William Rathvon, who had traveled with his family from nearby Lancaster to hear President Lincoln speak.
In a 30-minute recording, Rathvon describes searching the battlefield for souvenirs with his friends and finding Confederate muskets thrown into the bottom of a creek. He also describes the experiences of his relatives during the battle, including his uncle’s farm being used as the headquarters for Confederate General Richard Ewell and his grandmother hiding Union soldiers from capture by Southern troops.
[and]
As a senior official of the Christian Science church, Rathvon had access to the best quality recording devices of his time. Mr. Rathvon's reminiscences were recorded at the Boston studios of radio station WRUL on February 12, 1938; hence the quality of the 78rpm record.
The Rathvon audio recollections were known by a small circle of individuals from the time of their recording in 1938. To Rathvon, they were incidental to what he felt were his more important church-work responsibilities. He presumably made the recordings for historical posterity, but never promoted or sold them, dying the following year in 1939.
As a teacher of Christian Science, Rathvon was required to organize an association of his students whose training and support was a lifelong commitment for him, and for whom he was required hold an annual reunion and an annual address. Typically, a Christian Science teacher's association survives them and continues to meet annually for many years. Rathvon's association of students continued to distribute copies of this recording, with some invariably ending up in the estates of deceased students whose families had no information on the recording's source.
[and heres the thing:]
I think that we had one of the copies of Rathvon’s recording. What we had was a flexible piece of plastic, possibly square rather than round. I listened to it once. What I don’t know is whether this is the Rathvon recording - but I don’t see how it could have been anybody else’s. I don't know we still have that recording. My brother might have it packed away somewhere; otherwise it probably is lost forever. (Found a cache of records recently. Need to look it over.) (Found the record. Round, not square, an ordinary-looking record. A gift from Aunt Kay, so I imagine that she gave it to my father in memory of a copy that they had growing up in Atlanta. I checked on YouTube. You can listen to it there.)
There's another mention of the Rathvons in: so I need to write this up properly and figure out where - if anyplace - to put it.
We have a little more information about this trip in a Fernbank News: Mrs. Stokey returned from a trip to Boston Monday, Aug. 8, after having raised our hopes for both Friday and Saturday. She saw both her sister and brother while there.
Since Kathleen saw both of her siblings - Cecil and Ruth - on her trip, and since the trip was to Boston, home of the Christian Science Mother Church, the trip must have been for Christian Science - as is also clear from the address on the envelope.
2.
About the address:
“℅ Wm R. Rathvon” - Wikipedia says:
William Roedel Rathvon, CSB, (December 31, 1854 – March 2, 1939), sometimes incorrectly referred to as William V. Rathvon or William V. Rathbone, is the only known eyewitness to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, of the over 10,000 witnesses, to have left an audio recording describing that experience. He made the recording in 1938, a year before his death. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a successful businessman, he became a Christian Science practitioner, served as a public lecturer, Church treasurer and director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. He was treasurer from 1911 until he was elected to the Church's Board of Directors, on which he served from 1918 until his death in 1939. From 1908 to 1910 he was correspondence secretary for Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. He also authored "The Devil's Auction" often republished without attribution as "The Devil's Garage Sale".
[and the following is where it gets interesting for me]
On November 19, 1863, four months after the historic Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, a crowd of more than 10,000 gathered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for the dedication of the National Cemetery to the soldiers who had fallen in what is widely acknowledged as the greatest battle of the Civil War (in terms of the total number of troops engaged and casualties on both sides, the intensity of the fighting, and the strategic and emotional significance of the outcome) as well as the point at which the war turned in favor of the Union and permanently against the Confederacy. Among those thousands was nine-year-old William Rathvon, who had traveled with his family from nearby Lancaster to hear President Lincoln speak.
In a 30-minute recording, Rathvon describes searching the battlefield for souvenirs with his friends and finding Confederate muskets thrown into the bottom of a creek. He also describes the experiences of his relatives during the battle, including his uncle’s farm being used as the headquarters for Confederate General Richard Ewell and his grandmother hiding Union soldiers from capture by Southern troops.
[and]
As a senior official of the Christian Science church, Rathvon had access to the best quality recording devices of his time. Mr. Rathvon's reminiscences were recorded at the Boston studios of radio station WRUL on February 12, 1938; hence the quality of the 78rpm record.
The Rathvon audio recollections were known by a small circle of individuals from the time of their recording in 1938. To Rathvon, they were incidental to what he felt were his more important church-work responsibilities. He presumably made the recordings for historical posterity, but never promoted or sold them, dying the following year in 1939.
As a teacher of Christian Science, Rathvon was required to organize an association of his students whose training and support was a lifelong commitment for him, and for whom he was required hold an annual reunion and an annual address. Typically, a Christian Science teacher's association survives them and continues to meet annually for many years. Rathvon's association of students continued to distribute copies of this recording, with some invariably ending up in the estates of deceased students whose families had no information on the recording's source.
[and heres the thing:]
I think that we had one of the copies of Rathvon’s recording. What we had was a flexible piece of plastic, possibly square rather than round. I listened to it once. What I don’t know is whether this is the Rathvon recording - but I don’t see how it could have been anybody else’s. I don't know we still have that recording. My brother might have it packed away somewhere; otherwise it probably is lost forever. (Found a cache of records recently. Need to look it over.) (Found the record. Round, not square, an ordinary-looking record. A gift from Aunt Kay, so I imagine that she gave it to my father in memory of a copy that they had growing up in Atlanta. I checked on YouTube. You can listen to it there.)
There's another mention of the Rathvons in: so I need to write this up properly and figure out where - if anyplace - to put it.
1927-08-04: audio---images---comment---transcript---notes---~LINKS~---site navigation
LINKS TO OTHER RELEVANT PAGES IN THIS WEBSITE
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- EVA: DOCUMENTS ----- Related
- KATHLEEN: DOCUMENTS ----- Incoming
- THE NEXT GENERATION: DOCUMENTS ----- Billy
- NON-FAMILY: WOODS HOLE FOLKS ----- Mrs. Van Doorn
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