HettyAdamsonLetters

Hetty Adamson was born Hetty Evans in the Brecha Valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales in 1844 at the age of 13 she was taken on the long journey from Wales to America with her Father, Mother and brother John the letters below are a wonderful account of the trials and tribulations of the journey and her life in America ..........

Once more I take my pen to write you to let you know we are still alive and as well as usual we had a very cold winter much snow and ice, I had three falls and hurt myself very bad but am well now.

I received your Mothers photo for which I thank you very much. I sent the letter and one of them to my Brother right away I think she looks nice I remember how she looked when she was young. My Brothers eldest daughter looks very much like she did then.

I got a letter today from John November 2nd inst they are well but the prospect for a wheat crop is not good there this spring. I suppose you think I have a long time before answering your last letter but I have everything to do and time goes. We had a photo of our house taken and I send one to you and Auntie and one to your sister and hope to hear from you soon and what you think of this our home for seventeen years, it is built of wood on the outside like most of the houses over here and plastered on the inside and papered, and painted white on the outside and the window shutters green. Arthur Roberts thought it very strange when he first came and by the way is Arthur a married man or not. Which if he is I wish you when you write to me again to write on a separate bit of paper and put it in the letter so I would know nobody else would know anything about it then. He did not say anything about a wife and I supposed he was a single man but since he went away Arnott’s wife pretends to think he his married. Well I told her he has a right to for all that I know.

I got a paper from him last month he is well and do well so he says his picture was in the papers he was Judge of the children’s class at the Dog Show at Rochester N.Y.

Well Dear Cousin I would like to see you but suppose I never will unless you come out here.

I said we were in our usual health we are, but I don’t feel very strong and I notice my husband is getting weaker too. That is my husband and I sitting in the front of our house in the photo but it don’t show us very plain. The house fronts west this view is how it looks from North West. Most of this Town is North West of here and our farm is South East six miles. Mr. Adamson has gone out there today with two men to do some work. The farm is rented but we have to have a good deal or repairing done, we have to hire it done as he can do nothing himself. Well I close with love to all.

I received your welcome letters of July and was glad to know you are all well, we are in our usual health, and I got a letter John’s wife written a week ago today, saying they were well and making hay that is harvesting hay, it was a week ago tomorrow for she said the girls had washed and she had churned and dressed chickens for dinner they had two men working for them and that John had sold a teem of mules for 300-50 dollars for three hundred and fifty dollars. It is very hot here now and we have had much rain but they have not had so much out in Nebraska it so hot we can hardly live in summer and so cold in winter it is all we can do to live with good fires.

The wheat and the oats crops is not very good here this year, hay, potatoes and corn will be pretty good, if we don’t have frost too soon, all kinds of fruit is not so plenty as it was last years but will and some to spare we use a great deal of fruit in this country we put it up air tight in the fall or whenever its ripe and ear it in the winter on.

September 15 – Dear Cousin, I fear that by this time you think either I did not get your letters and photo or else I have forgotten but no so, I received both and you who have always had your Mother and some of your relatives about you can not understand how glad I was to get them, your picture looks very nice and my son asked what does your husband do, my husband is a farmer when he could do anything, we have our farm yet 200 and 60 acres we sent it we have a nice big house of nine rooms in town where we have five and 2 acres of land, we keep a horse and buggy – carriage.

I am glad my dear Aunt Ann is so well of course she has lived to a good age and I hope will live many years yet. I remember my Aunts Sally and Hetty talking one day and wondering which of my Aunts I like best, I couldn’t tell them and I don’t know now, I know all the good times I ever seen I had with them. I have been an old women ever since, my life has not been like most women but I can always look are round and see others worse off than I am, so I am thankful.

I have not heard anything from my Uncles John and Ricy D Jones if I do I write to you, I don’t know what county Pontycymmer is in nor where Neath is more than anything I would like a photo of my Aunt very much and I thank you for your kind sympathy and I am glad although we cannot talk face to face we can communicate in this way.

I was glad you can read my letters I did not get much schooling and when I was twelve years of age I could not talk any English for years and years we did not hear from there and I never knew where my Aunt Sally died or what she died of.

My brother John has worked very hard he had to work hard for others and when he got to work for himself he never stopped, they have a farm of one hundred acres and a good house and barn and all other necessary buildings on it and has it well stocked, they milk nine cows this summer, his wife is a very good woman and helps him along and he rents a hundred and sixty acres besides and farms and pastures that so you see he does some large farming, although he is not a very large man. Their children are all nice the oldest girl was 18 last June and the oldest boy is 16 then a girl 14, boy 11, girl 9, a boy 7. a girl 4 their names are, Stella, Chauncy, Hetty, Monty, Lockie, John, Leslie and Clara Belle, the last two are named for John and his wife and they call them Leslie and Belle. I sent them the first letters I got from you of course John don’t remember so much about the people back there he was only six years of age when we left no wonder your dear Mother felt bad to see us come away, she knew we had seen nothing of the world except from Carmarthen to Abergorlech.

Well there was nothing here when we come here and only a very few people my husbands people are on of the first to settle in this part of the country they had been here 10 years when we came, Newton now has about five thousand people and it used to be miles to the nearest house it is all fields and Church’s all over and houses.

There is no place in Iowa that is better than Jasper County and no better soul any where than in Adamson Grove six miles south east of Newton that is where our farm is but we have to work here to make of success the same as every one else.

Sometime I will if I can send you a picture of my husband and son, my sons wife is not well has not been for some weeks, Dear Cousin I dope you will be able to make this out and excuse all errors and mistakes.

PS dear cousin write again whenever you can and I will do the same good by for this time. H.A.

I received the souvenir card of Pontycymmer you sent me about New Year and thank you. For it gives me an idea how it looks. We have had a very fine winter the best I ever seen here, have not had more than four inches of snow at one time and that only at two or three times. But for all that there is much sickness, we are all as well as usual I did have a bad cold but am better.

I was not very well last Autumn and owe John Roberts a letter. I received a letter from Brother Johns Daughter written on the 14th inst saying they we all well and her papa and mama had been up in Hyanus, Nebraska, visiting her Uncle James from Newton, and got back on the fifth.

Arnott and his father got ready to go to visit Johns on the 21st of October but Mr. Adamson took sick the night before and Arnott went all along h could do that. But Mr. Adamson cannot travel by himself and will have to wait for warmer weather. I am glad to learn my aunt your Mother is enjoying good health, that is worth everything any time in life, more so in old age. I would be glad to get her picture I have written to John telling him about you and Aunt Anne.

The crops were not very good here last summer nor in Nebraska either, there was more fruit here than there, it has been snowing this afternoon about three inches and stopped.

Well Dear Cousin do you and my Aunt talk Welsh where your live, there is only one woman in this town who came from Wales, besides myself and can talk but very little Welsh. I talk it very well. Till fifteen years ago there was an old couple living here, John and Mary Davis who came here the same time that we did they always talked Welsh to me. We got acquainted with them on the Troubadour, between Swansea and Liverpool. They were good friends to John and I. I made home with them after my Father died until I married. John thought there was no better woman than Mrs. Davis and I think so to.

I think every day for a month I will write to Hetty tomorrow, tomorrow I have just as much to do as today and sometimes more.

I wish you all a Happy and prosperous year, Hoping this find you well and that you will write soon.

I received your kind letter and was more glad than you can realize to learn that your Mother one who remembers me, is still alive and thinks of me and talks about me. I am afraid there are but few in that country who remembers me now for I am an old woman myself sixty-three. I remember you a little girl in your Mothers arms and I remember that last time, she was to see us. I went with her almost down the Brechfa and I remember what she said to me, that is a long time ago I was twelve years of age an my Mother died in less than a year after that and we were in a strange country amongst a strange people and didn’t even know the language but we go along we always paid our own expenses and kept out of bad company, although we did not have much when we left the Mormons. We have always been glad we did not go to Salt Lake for we would have frozen in the mountains as scores of others did. We did not get here till the ninth of August and Thomas Jinkins got to Salt Lake in September and it had snowed on them twice before that.

The Winter was a very cold one and very long I think if we have stopped further East my Mother and Father both would have lived longer than they did, My Father died August 31st, 1866 and I was married July 3, 1868 and my first child was born October 27, 1869 and died November 22, 1869. It was a little boy and we called him Everett, and he one of the best and handsomest child and boy I ever seen and everybody who seen him said he was. But he took sick on the 24 of May 1886 and died on the 29th just 20 years ago now. He was suffering everything, he had peritonitis he was 16 years five months and 17 days old. Our next boy and all the one we have now, was born January 7, 1874, so is now 33 years of age, he is nothing like as handsome as Everett but is generously considered to be a fine looking man weighs over two hundred pounds.

He is highly educated and chose to be a Veterinary Physician and Surgeon. He has a Veterinary Infirmary in this town and has a good practice. He was married November 28, 1900. Have not children his Wife’s name was Lizzie A. Burnside his name is Arnott Abraham Adamson.

My Husband bought a house and had a barn built for Arnott because he is all we have and we wanted him near us.

Your Mother gave me a little text book, the diamond text book one and a fourth inch wide and two inches long, I have it yet and I have the woman and dog my Aunt Jane gave me when she came home from Swansea, when she got Anne and Hetty The Peafoills, I wonder if your Mother remembers them, I mean the Peafoills.

I do not know much that has been going on in that country since we left, I know my Aunties are all dead except Aunt Anne and I did now her address.

Tommy Roberts wrote me one letter after he had been back in the old country it was 12 years after he had been back unless he has been back lately, I hope to here from you often now.

The last I heard of my Uncle John was that he had to Jackson County California in 1857 and Uncle Ricy had moved to Wyoming. The last I heard a girl who was raised here lives out in Salt Lake City and she came to visit a sisters and I asked, do you know my Uncle Ricy D. Jones, and she was well acquainted with his boys and girls and when she went back told them of me and tried to get one of them who went to Washington D.C. to stop off here and see me. But he did not. So she went to a photographers and bought a picture of the five boys and their Mother and Sisters and sent it to me and one boy in the picture the sixth, that was my uncles, my uncles youngest boy has died since, that was several years ago if I do hear something of them I will write and let you know.

My Brother John Evans lives in Nebraska 300 hundred miles west of here, he has a good wife and four daughter and three boys, the eldest girl will be 18 next June and the youngest is a little three year old and there is a boy between every girl, he owns a farm of one 100 acres and is well to do. The oldest looks like Aunt Anne used to be, teeth and all.

My husband has poor health, if it was not for that I could come and see you, he has not walked without crutches since 1889, I am in very good health myself.

Well cousin I hope you will be able to read my letters I will send you a picture of myself it was taken some years ago but it will give some idea how I look only I some years older now, I have my own teeth so my mouth has never changed. I have not a picture of my husband he was a good looking man, his whiskers is as white as snow although he is two years younger than I am.

I received your welcome letter two days ago and was very glad to hear from you all and to learn that my dear Aunt was still alive and reasonable well when you wrote, and hope she will continue for a long time yet. I am not surprised to get a letter from you I like yourself have been thinking of writing but failed to do so. Last September a year ago Mr. Adamson and I on the first day went out to Nebraska to where John my brother lives and did stay one week and I got a picture of him when he was about 24 years of age and had copies taken of it, he has not had any taken lately and I will send one to you right away. I am glad your daughter is happily married and settled and that your son is doing well in School I see there are so many thing I want to tell you I am getting thing mixed.

Last September my Brother and his Wife came and stayed a week with us it was the week of our Fairs so they got to see a great many friends and acquaintances, they ought to have stayed longer but thought they could not spare time, he is a well to do farmer.

I received a card from them the 26th of November my birthday and they were well then, my husband is not any better than he was when I wrote last, he and I had the gripe last spring very bad and I have not felt near as strong as I did the summer before, I am very will for a woman of my age 66 and do the work for Mr. Adamson.

The weather has been very cold here since Sunday night freezing all the time, there is about 4 inches of snow on the ground, we had about that much a few weeks ago but it went off in two days, we had more rain in November than usual it is very slippery now.

Arthur Roberts was here last Spring he is a nice appealing young man I showed him your photo’s and he said you are much stouter than I. I asked him if I look anything like his people back there and he said yes indeed you do. He did not succeed in getting a job here so went to Desmoines 38 miles west where he found a good position and better went to Rochester, N.Y. where he is now but we expect him back some day.

I slipped and fell and sprained my right wrist a few weeks ago but it almost well now,

I am very glad you have your Mother’s photo and I would be very glad to get one for I am afraid is the only way I will get to see her.

My Husband bought a house and had a barn built for Arnott because he is all we have and we wanted him near us.

I do not know much that has been going on in that country slice we left, I know my Aunties are all dead except Aunt Anne and I did now her address.

Tommy Roberts wrote me one letter after he had been back in the old country it was 12 years after he had been back unless he has been back lately, I hope to here from you often now.

My husband has poor health, if it was not for that I could come and see you, he has not walked without crutches since 1889, I am in very good health myself.

I received yours of 15 yesterday and was very sorry to lear of dear Aunt Annes illness I received you other letters and card Lizzie Mary in due time but I an my husband were both very sick at the time I took on weakness day between Christmas and New Years with gripps and tonsillitis very bad and I did more laying down than sitting up for three weeks I am pretty well now but can not stand much work and I have thought every week well I must write to Hetty and I have feared maybe my Aunt was worse one thing am glad she is with you and well taken care of.

Mr. Adamson is about as well as usual now and Arnott is well I saw him pass this morning and I got a card from John’s nine year old boy Leslie last week saying they were all well . The second girl Hetty will graduate from the High School there this spring.

Several years ago I got a letter and a Christmas card from John Roberts and in two or three years following I received several other letters saying how well off he was and that he had five 5 Tailor Shops and that his boys run them and that he did not do very much but ride around over the country with his wife an that one of his boys was talking of coming to this country, and about a year before Arthur came that he was coming next we did not hear any more till the night before he came we got a telegram saying he would leave Saint Paul that night and signed John Roberts so I called Arnott and told him to go to the depot and meet him, I knew he would be in on the early train, he went and pursued others by far he was looking for a man fifty years old, he went to the Hotel and found Arthur enquiring for us, so brought him down here. I seen them coming and went to the door and said you are not John Roberts and he said Ah, I am John Roberts son. Later I found he had booked himself on the ship under the name of Rogers. I did not like his appearance very well but said nothing and the rest did not seem to notice. I have not received any letters that purported to be from John since Arthur came so I don’t know weather I ever had any from him or not.

Arthur said his father was coming out here the next June after he came to set up a shop but his Mother was not. I have not heard from Arthur since last spring so don’t know where he is in Rochester or not.

If your Mother is still with you and I hope she is tell her we live about a mile and a half from where my Father and Mother are buried and I go to see them very many times every summer they are buried in a nice place in the Newton Cemetery and we put nice white marble head stones between 3 and 4 feet high at the head of their graves and I always keep flowers there in summer and on Mr. and Mrs. Davis graves too.

I do hope you will all be better when this reaches you and that you write to me again,

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When starting to reproduce the next letter I was unsure of it’s date, but sadly it refers to death of my Mamgu and thus I could date the year if writing.

Ann Thomas nee Jones was Hetty Richards Mother and Hetty Adamson Auntie she died age 85 years on the 16th February, 1911 and was interred at Penyfai Chapel, Nr. Bridgend on the 20th February with her Husband Dafydd Thomas – Hetty Richards lays alongside them.

‘Twas hard to part with one so dear, we little thought the time so near, altho’ she’s gone, we think it best, My dearest mother is at rest.

She suffered much, but murmured not, we watched her day by day, with aching hearts, grow less and less, Until she passed away ! Her lot was hard, oh very hard ! But she feared not her doom, For well she new that there was rest and peace beyond the tomb.

If we got the first letter a day sooner and I told my husband that you would miss her more than any of us, I will miss hearing from her and that did me a great deal of good.

Many thanks to you, no wonder she grieved over us coming out here there was nothing here when we came but land and water and wood that is more than there is some place in America and I have often though how hard it must have been for my Mother to die and leave us children for of course she realized the dangers and temptations we would be exposed to but we faired better than many who had better chances but I am sorry I did not write sooner to you after Christmas to you so dear Aunt Ann could know how well I did take care of my Fathers and Mothers graves, we will buried in the same cemetery. We have one monument up already to put our names on it’s our children’s are already there all but Arnott.

Dear Cousin I know your heart is heavy but I know it is better for Aunty to go and leave you than if you had to go and leave ones in her helplessness to bear the sorrow of her loss, she’s the last one there to remember me or to know my parents so it is the best of friends must part.

Write to me again and let me hear how you are getting along. My husband is really miserable this morning but joins with me in sending Love to you all and yours

I have been owing a letter for a long time you I suppose think by this time that you are not going to hear from me any more but you will as long as I can see to write.

Last Spring my health was very poor and it seemed hard work for me to do anything and we had a very dry hot summer and the crops were not as good as they are sometimes, but I never seen so many flies in one year as we had last summer.

Crops were not as good in Nebraska where my Brother is as they were here he was here to see us in August came the 21st and went away on the 28th he had one Thousand and 41 bushels of wheat and some corn but no oats his health is not very good.

This autumn has been nice and we have had plenty of rain it turned cold yesterday and everything is frozen up to day it has been freezing hard all day although the sun has been shinning.

Dear Cousin you ask me if we had such times as you do at Coronation time we have King to Crown everyman in America think himself a King. Every four years they elect a new President and the men spend lots of time electioneering and we celebrate the fourth of July every year because it is the anniversary of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the USA. Different communities do it different ways but generally a good many get killed in America on that day every year, a good many of the people do not do myth but sport but a good many have to work and I am one f them, that is I do my own work and we live like farmers and that is the best way for this country. The last Thursday in November is thanks giving day all over the United States of America, that is a great day for a Turkey dinner and invite your friends, we had turkey last year but not invite anybody in because I didn’t feel able to wait on them.

We are invited to a Birthday dinner next Thursday to one of our old neighbors that we used to go to Church with and our Children used to play together it will have to be warmer than it is today if we go.

We are pretty well now and I hope this will find you all well and happy, my son and wife are well, write soon,

Note : The following signatories on the declaration of Independence were Welsh – John Adams, Samuel Adams, William Floyd, Button Gwinnett, Benjamin Harrison, Stephen Hopkins, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Hopkinson, John Penn, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Robert Morris, John Morton, William Williams, Arthur Middleton and Francis Henry Lightfoot Lee.

I received your letter in due time and was very glad to hear from you once more, and real ashamed that I had not written sooner, although I have not been feeling very well any of the time. From the middle of May until middle of July I had rheumatism in my knees. I never was so miserable for so long a time in all my life, I am better now but feel stiff and then there is always so much to do, that time after time, would put off writing.

Mr. Adamson has kept up and round this fall better than usual, Arnott and his Wife are well but his Wife’s Mothers is very sick, she does not live with them. We had a very hard cold winter last Winter and along, but last summer was better than the summer before, and better crops, all but apples, that is in Iowa. But in Nebraska it was very dry and crops were not good there but they had enough, to do them.

My Brother and his Wife came to see us in September they came for the Jasper County Fair and then we all went to the Iowa State Fair at Desmoines.

Johns oldest daughter is here now, to make us a visit, she came a week ago last night. The other one is teaching school and gets 50 dollars a month.

The cost of living is very high here now butter is 30cents a pound and eggs are 30cents a dozen, and everything else in proportion. I sold a foul yesterday one half dollar and five cents or fifty-five cents.

I have not heard from Arthur for a long time, Arnott says he met him on a train last spring and that he was traveling for a London rug house and doing well, I though of his poor Mother when I had the rheumatism last spring, I was not down bedfast anytime, but was bad enough. There are two women in this town who have been bedfast for fifteen years and part of the time cant feed themselves. I know you miss your dear Mother, but it was not like was with me I my Mother, you have your family and we were amongst strangers, indeed there were not many people here at the time.

Stella, Johns girl, who is here now looks like your Mother and mine, she has black eyes and hair.

This Autumn has been very fine no cold weather to speak of some years we have had deep snow before this time.

Thanksgiving will be a week from Thursday the 28th and my birthday will be the 26th. I will be 69 years old.

After long delay I am beginning to write a letter in answer to your letters. Last summer a year ago my brother and his second daughter went over several of the western states and Utah, when he came here in the fall I asked if he had seen or heard anything of uncle John or uncle Ricy, he said no and I gave him a good scolding for not hunting up Uncle Ricy, anyway for I understand uncle John had left Utah and gone to California in 1857.

So last summer after harvest John took another trip and went to this town where my uncle used to live and found my uncles widow and living on the farm which he had owned over sixty years, and John says it is one of the best in the Bear River Valley. But Uncle Ricy had been dead five years and they told my brother that uncle John had been dead some time before that. I am very sorry I did not learn this before your Dear Mother died. John died at Oakland California and Ricy at Wellsville, Cache County, Utah. My brother goes to see his grave.

My Aunt Uncle Ricy’s widow was very nice to John after he convinced here he was really uncles nephew and told him a great deal about uncle. This was his second wife she has ten children all living and the first had eight two of whom are dead. One daughter left two little boys they are men now one of uncles sons died from a hurt he got from horse falling on him. John did not get to see any of the older children two of them are lawyers one is a professor in a college and one is running a store in Salt Lake City and John one of the younger set has been a missionary for two years to Ireland and Scotland and he took a year and traveled over Wales and knows more about the old farms we used to live on than my brother did, he was only six my brother when he came to this country. I don’t suppose any of our relations are about Brechfa now his age is thirty years. Most of the family are married and have children of their own. My aunt was going to leave this farm and move into town, her and the youngest son Sterling, age 18, she had bought a small place of five acres but was not going to sell the farm. Dear Cousin I have longed many times years ago for some of my relations who society I could enjoy but it was not to be, so what cannot be helped must be endured.

I am very sorry I did no learn all this before dear Aunt Anne your Mother died, they had been born next to each other and grew up together. It was very different here when we came to this country to what it is now there was no railroad here for ten years after, it got here before the railroad got to Utah, and by that my uncle had died, although his daughter Hetty said she had seen him talk many times about his brothers and sisters with tears running down his cheeks and he had great desire to visit the Land of his birthplace once more but the wish was never granted. When my brother was to see me last August he had several photos of cousins and Aunt but none of Uncle, but they promised to send some when they get some copied from a picture they have of him in his prime, he was fine looking man well dear cousin on the 16th of October I caught my foot in a piece of carpet and gave my right ankle a bad twist it is almost well now but I have suffered very much and if it had not been for that I would have written long ago. We are in our usual health now the winter is

very cold so far but last summer very hot and dry here and where John is, it was more dry they did not have corn there this year but pretty good wheat and oats.

One of Johns boys was here for four weeks in November he came together corn and made his two dollars a day easy.. I got a card not king they are all well and of the girls the second one Hetty has been teaching for two years, this winter she is attending the State Normal School at Persym Nebraska, thinking she can get a better position is she is qualified for it.

My son Arnott had a hard spell off sickness last summer and don’t feel as well as he did before but is around practicing his profession, There is some small pox in Iowa some fatal quite a few sudden deaths Dear Cousins I hope you will be able to read most of this letter I am a poor scribe at best and this paper is not lined, Oh yes I received L.M photos for which I am truly thankful we join in wishing a happy and prosperous year and everything that is good. I also received your letter with the picture of your house and think it nice out here they don’t build them so close together but in the city they are 20 story’s high.

Hoping this will find you all well and that you will write again soon. I will close

L.M. is Hetty Richards daughter Elizabeth Mary affectionately called Lizzie Mary she married Jenkin Thomas and became Mrs. E.M. Thomas she kindly gave me the originals of the letters from Hetty Adamson to her Mother.

I received your kind letter of Nov 21st, and see now that January is more than half gone and I have not answered it. I am owing everybody letters, I am sorry you were not feeling very well, and hope you are better before this. I too was felling bad about that time. Mr. damson was sick almost through September and October, and has been usually poorly all winter, he can get up and come to the table to eat, and that is all I am thankful be can do that.

My brother came to see us the first of September and stayed a week I was sick the night before he came, and not very well all the time he was here. There was another many here that used to be a boy with John when John was a Boy, visiting his sister. He died in a hospital in Missouri on 6th sixth and was brought back here and buried last Sunday, I received a letter from John last week, they are all well we had a very hot summer but this winter has been very nice.

So far my foot hurt me all last winter, but is all right now, and I am felling all right now but cannot stand to do much work. I am sorry your Maggie does not have good-health for that is worth everything, I hope she is better by this time.

Everybody is sorry that war is going on and we know what war is although it was not so bad here in the North as it was in the South. It was bad enough I don’t want to see any more of it, I thank you for your sisters pictures and little children, they look nice I sent the letter to John and just got it back. I don’t write to cousins in Utah they are all Mormons one of them a Lawyer, goes to Washington D.C. but he never stopped in Newton that I know of.

Well Dear Cousin, so many people have come in I hope you will be able to make this out. I received Lizzie Mary’s Christmas Card and thank her for it, I am glad Arthur Roberts is coming home it will be comfort to his Mother. I am sure I have received papers from there and have several, do you get them.

I have been thinking for weeks I would write a letter for you, but something else would have to be done and so the time would pass. You said in your last letter that it was in February you heard from me, very soon after that Mr. Adamson and I were taken sick with the gripe, I just had the gripe real hard and for 29 days the Doctors did not give us much hope, that we would ever be any better and he recovered very slowly and we were both very week all summer. I can see I have aged like everything in the last year, we are pretty well now and the weather has been fine this Autumn, last summer was not as hot as usual and is not so cold as usual now, and only a very little snow.

It was not hot enough last summer for the Indian corn to ripen good, The wheat and oats were fairly good here, in some place the ground was so wet they could not cut it with the machine.

My Brother wrote, wheat and oats was poor yield out there, and the corn a good yield, but would be soft, when its that way it wont keep good.

We had two of my brothers daughters Hetty and Lock Evans here this summer for two weeks. Hetty had just got through teaching a nine month school and Locky nine month in high school, she is in her third year in high school now. They went home on the 3rd of July, John went to California and got home all right, but last month he and the two youngest children Leslie and Belle started to town after supper in a one horse carriage, the horse got scared at a motor bike and jumped to one side and went to kicking upset the buggy and threw John out and broke several ribs, he was badly hurt, but was getting better and able to be up the last we heard, the rest were all well except Chainey the oldest boy who is working in a bank in Omaha, he had to go to hospital and be operated on for appendicitis, on the 13th of last month, was very sick but got along very well and was thinking of going back to work last week.

Dear Cousin I hope your son wont enlist, I know what temptation it is when there is war. I and everyone in this country feel very sorry for the people over there and we are afraid they will draw America into the general war, it is a terrible thing but it seems there has got to be war every so often. When the column was broke Arnott came from college in the middle of the night after he had gone upstairs to be his Father said, I wonder if he don’t think of enlisting. He had just been home two weeks before to celebrate Easter sure enough that was wheat he intended to do but he said he thought he should come ad see what we thought about it.

I said just look at your Father, who has never seen a well day since the war. Well he did no enlist although several from here did and some never came back.

I received several papers from you for which I thank you. Did Arthur Roberts ever come back to see his people or not, I have not heard a word from him since you wrote, they were looking for him, that is a long time ago.

We had what they called a home coming from the 4th to 9th of October 1915 and people from all over who used to live here came.

Two women from Utah, one of them was raised here came and stayed with us and her Brother from Dallas, Center, Iow3a and a sister for, Desmoines came also, and Mrs. A. Donald a daughter. Dr. Jabes Green who used to live here came and all stayed with us.

I was pretty tired, it was over the great parades, the biggest Newton, ever had and it was nice for the young. That Woman from Utah, said your cousins in Utah, are prosperous, but Uncle Ricys eldest daughter suffers greatly from rheumatism. Did you know my Mother used to suffer greatly with that and there are two women in this town now who cannot feed themselves. So you and I have much to thankful for, though we are getting old. Write when you can, Love to all

A small note undated place in one of the letters :

Dear Cousin I have not heard from Arthur since before I heard from you last, do you know if he in this Country yet I felt sorry for him when you wrote to me I wish you would let me know.

I have not heard from anybody there since you wrote.

Love to all, Hetty Adamson


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