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Prospect Grove Feb 28th '51

Dear Lucy Yours mailed Jan 21st, (My birth day) arrived last evening. I was so glad to hear from you, to receive another letter from your own hand, I was fearful I never should and promised to learn your recent affiliation in the departure of another dear one to "the shadowy hand" to be with us no more but to be happy and blessed forever. You'll meet them there, your brother and babe, in perfect joy.

Oct 24th 1851 Dear Brother & Sister You see that I commenced this many months ago and now I can only write what you probably hear thru others. What changes a few months has brot to me - the birth of a hair haired daughter. The meeting again dear ones - happy hours spent with a mother now no more - happy hours not to be recalled but in memory. Oh the agony of the thought never to see her face again. Dear dear mother she is gone - gone to a better world than this. You can imagine the vacuum her death has made. Cannot realize it until you go to the cabin where she lived and sit at the table where she presided. You can then feel the force of that word. Gone. Just the few past months have brot life and death joy and sorrow. My little ones are well; the the babe we call Mary Elisabeth