Category: Letters

Messy Morning Roundelay

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letterfront
(Swain Residence, Short Tract, New York – 1863)
Written by  Susan Maria Swain (Mm. Van Nostrand)

Sometimes, when I read in diaries or letters a reference to the “future generations” by my own direct descendants, I feel as an audience member watching a play when the fourth wall is broken. Instead of separated by an accepted illusion that I am not involved in the actions playing out on a stage, I am separated by a time illusion of 152 years, touching a document written by a person of my own person—one I am senior to by 4 years.

This letter is written in the love-drunk months preceding their wedding in September, and has the flowery language of people trying to impress the other with their poetic thoughtfulness. While confirming their date of marriage, I realized that I share the same marriage date with my ggg grandparents, exactly 150 years later! Weddings in the Fall are the best of all! 🙂

The letter is transcribed as it is presented in the original document.

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Grace merely lived

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IMG_3440
(Source: Dalton Cemetery)
(Long Branch, New Jersey – 1872)
Written by  Susan Maria Swain (Mm. Van Nostrand)

How do you confirm ages of your relatives? What do you do with the non-direct descendants? Do they get added to your tree? Let me know in the comments!

In this letter, my ggg grandma Susan is on a trip for a family reunion by herself and with her daughter (my aunt) Grace J. VanNostrand. According to ancestry, Grace is the eldest child, born in 1864 and would be 8 years old at the time of this letter. However, in this letter she appears to be the youngest child. My grandmother Susan writes, “Grace is delighted with sea bathing she screams with delight every time we put her in the water.” The act of helping Grace into the ocean does not seem keeping with an able-bodied 8-year old, especially when their 6-year old daughter Hattie (Harriet) is walking to school solo in the July sun.

The information I have suggests that Grace married a George W. Smith. Ancestry says she died in 1946, and other than the photo of the grave above suggesting a daughter (named Georgia), I can find no further information. Even Ancestry’s little leaves are silent. The unfortunate truth of not having children means that in the egocentric process of genealogy, almost no one will have kept good information for “miscellaneous relatives.” They exist on trees for completeness, to denote the fun-fact of how many siblings a direct relative had, or if they did something note-worthy. But, Grace merely lived.

I could not locate her in the Short Tract Cemetery, only Grace’s grandmother who was her namesake. However, in the Dalton Cemetery I found a stone that seems to combine her with the rest, but no dates.

Are you related to me? Do you know Grace J. VanNostrand or George W. Smith of Dalton, NY c. 1860-1940s?

The letter is transcribed exactly as it is presented in the original document.

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My hand didn’t tremble

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hillThomas Hill (1829-1908), Niagara Falls, c. 1860, oil on canvas
(Swain, New York – Tuesday Morn.)
Written by  Susan Maria Swain (Mm. Van Nostrand)

I find this letter very sweet, between these two people I’ll never meet beyond the page.

My grandparents were married September 15th in the year 1863, he was 28 and she 24. This letter, though undated, is written from her parents’ residence (who are also my grandparents, but it’s confusing to call everyone that) and must be very recently after their marriage because this is first time she’s ever addressed William as her “husband” in a letter and she calls out this novelty by writing, “my hand didn’t tremble when I wrote that…”

My guess is this letter must be written around October 1863, because they seem to have recently traveled from Niagra falls for their honeymoon and she asks him to bring her shawl so I suspect the weather is just starting to cool off during the day.

The letter is transcribed exactly as it is presented in the original document.

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My Dearest Will…

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mydear(Approximate Years 1860-1870)
Letter Between my great great great grandparents

It’s an odd thing, acquiring the family heirlooms of pen and paper. The meaningless counting of chicken eggs, notations of the weather, and once-private correspondences of love. Do you have paper heirlooms too? What are they?

They died over 100 years ago, their graves mossy and worn. But, in these letters, once new, my great great great grandparents are the same age as I exist now. As they write these letters in the past of their present, and in the present I know their future looking into the past. I know their coming joys, triumphs, and failures. I’ve read the diary pages they’ve yet to write and I know which one becomes the widow[er].

Despite the relative oddity of that, I’ve decided to translate the letters and diaries into a more readable presentation. For personal catharsis dealing with the passing of my own grandfather (and giver of these letters) and for a type of preservation and sharing.

The letter is transcribed exactly as it is presented in the original document.

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