Luzerne County PA Archives History - Letters .....Margaret Harrington's Letter To Her Mother May 5, 1879 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: katrina coopey katrinacoopey@hotmail.com May 21, 2010, 7:12 pm May 5th 1879 Dear Mother, I take the pleasure of writing these few sad lines to you hoping they will find you and my sisters and little brother in good health. Dear mother you send to ask if it was true my poor Curley was dead alas it is too true. You sent a letter to his father, Co. Luzern, and I had your letter today. Dear Mother I have had trouble since I came to this country. I didn’t know I was born when I left you in Newport. How well I do now but God help me, I guess I’ll have more of it now because I always had him to help me through it. Dear Mother I hope to God I will never die until I have a good talk with you to tell you all. I will not begin in this letter but I will tell you my worst trouble of all. Dear Mother about six months ago Curley got a pain in his stomach and he could not keep nothing on it. He used to throw everything up that he eat. He was well liked here, we are living here three years and he was driver boss, you know master over the drivers in the mines and got his two dollars a day steady, work or not. We were doing pretty good. Then when he got sick the owner of the mines sent him to Philadelphia to the head hospital there. He was in two/three months but dear Mother they could do nothing for him. The master of the mines paid twenty dollars a week for him and said that he should be cured if money would do it but all the world would not do it. He kept me and my children when Curley was sick. He gave me twenty dollars a month and I had two boarders all the time, a Welsh young man from Mountain Ash and Curley’s brother Paddy. I’ve got them yet. Paddy has been living with me these two years now and my Willy is a big boy. He is working and getting seventy-five cents a day. I don’t want for anything thank God. The morning Curley died the master of the mines came in before fifty people and put one hundred dollars in my hand and he told me to cheer up. I should not want and he gave me that for everything I needed to bury my poor Curley. The people around here are mad at me because whenever there do be anyone killed he never gives them anything nor makes anything of them. Dear Mother, Curley lived two months after he came home from Philadelphia. He had five doctors waiting on him but dear Mother all the doctors in the world would do him no good. There were six doctors opened him because none of them knew what was the matter with him until he died and then they opened him and they know it all came from a hurt from a mule horse. His stomach had closed up and nothing could digest through it. He never eat one bit for nine weeks before he died, the doctors kept him alive by giving him injections every four hours of milk and beef tea. He died a happy death. He was anointed three times thanks be to God. Dear Mother I feel bad but I guess I would feel worse if he stayed in the hospital and died, or if he was killed in the mines but thank God her was not. I did all that I could to save my dear for he was the dearest friend I had in this world. Dear Mother he was always speaking about you. A day or two before he died he said that he only wished he’d seen you. I asked him what for but he would not tell me – but I knew it was about the children. His heart was in them. He had the four of them around him when he died. Dear Mother you would not know your Maggie now. Dear, I am not well at all. I am all the time vexing about him. Dear Mother I’ve got four as nice children as you would wish to see. Willy is seven years old on the fourth of this month. Ellen is three years and four months old and Danny is two years and four months. You see there is only one year between them and Mary Ann is eight months old. So I’ve got my hands full dear Mother. I lost my rest the time he was sick. There were plenty to stay up with him but that was no use. I had to stay and I am not the better of it yet. Dear Mother, let me know where is our Mary Ann living now and let me know is James with you and let me know is Ellen in the same place and let me know where is Fanny and Jane, let me know where you are living and who is living with you. Tell me the truth now dear Mother, I could come home if I liked to the old country, tell me what way is it in. Tell me would you sooner for me to come home or to stay here. That is one thing, here I do not want, but you know I am very lonesome but the children and the boarders keep me busy but I have no one to speak my mind to. Now let me know everything in the letter and don’t keep it long, for if you would wish me to come home I would like to come in August. It will cost me about one hundred dollars from here. You see I live a long way from New York. [the top of the page missing] ...gave it to you if ever he would see you. For his sake here is a bit of his hair and a bit of the last suit he wore. Keep them safe for his sake. Tell Billy Sullivan’s mother in Mountain Ash that she will be surprised one of these days to see me again. So now dear Mother, I will conclude. No more at present from your ever loving daughter, Margaret Harrington. XXX – some kisses from the children and I hope it will be kisses nearer than on paper some of these fine days, so goodbye and may God bless you. Additional Comments: This letter was written to Ann Tobin of Risca, near Cardiff, Wales. Sadly Margaret died some 14 months later. Margaret's oldest son Willy was born in Wales in 1872, I believe the other children were born in Pennsylvania. After her death her daughter Ellen was adopted, I don't know what happened to the other children. The original letter is still in our family. This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/ File size: 6.2 Kb