This is a page from one of my great-grandmother’s letters to her fiancé, my great-grandfather. It shows how difficult it was for my mother to type out a more readable version. Here’s mine:
“Meanwhile, he must keep a good heart that perhaps Henry will send him one from Porto Rico. The donnas all smoke segars there. I often laugh at them smoking the little paper segars, so if he should get one of them, perhaps she will make him smoke. I often ask myself if I shall ever sit in the corner again……and see the dear, dear girls going around the room after the rough sounds of my old fiddle. When you write me again, do not think that a foolish letter, as you call it, is not exceptable, for if I had read my Bible as much as I have read your letter, i should be a saint, almost. I now wish you a Happy New Year, and hope that before another closes, I shall have the pleasure of signing Mrs. H instead of Miss W.”
That’s only the first half, not even tackling the cross-written part. It was thin onionn-skin paper, and written crossed on the back. A few of them had a third cross-written diagonally over the others. They did this to save paper.
Ann Dickinson Sargent 