Cousin Clara’s letter from 1931
April 16th, 2012 @ 15:54Posted by: John
My good friend Pam Maltsberger is helping research our family history. She took this letter written to Sabra which was in longhand and nearly impossible to read and transcribed it into a Word document. Thanks Pam!!
For any who don’t know, Sabra and Orva are my Dad’s paternal Grandparents. This starts as a condolence letter after Orva’s death. The house Clara compliments is the house at 505 Rigsby in San Antonio which was the hub of our part of the Whipple family up until 1962. In ’62 my grandparents, who the house had passed down to, sold it and moved the hub to New Braunfels above the island.
I find the letter very fascinating. Hope you do, too. You’ll read how she’s asking for Raymond to come visit her. I know that Granny, Grandad, Ray and Bill took a trip to visit Clara at her house in Philadelphia, I think in the mid-50′s around the time I was born, and it was a wonderful thing for all of them. We can visit Cousin Clara through her letter.
TRANSCRIPTION OF LETTER
FROM: MRS. JOHN G. MCGUIGAN (?)
6018 DREXEL RD. PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
TO: MRS. SABRA WHIPPLE
505 RIGSBY AVE. SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
WRITTEN: DECEMBER 3, 1931
POSTMARKED: DECEMBER 7, 1931
(WRITTEN ON STATIONERY FROM THE BELLEVUE STRATFORD HOTEL, PHILADELPHIA)
Dear cousin Sabra:
I have been planning to write you for cousin Ernest sent me word of Cousin Orva’s death. It was certainly hard on your to be away at the time and it is you who will feel the loneliness now. Didn’t you finally fix your house to rent part of it? Who was with Orva while you were away. Orva was such a gentleman. He was blessed in wife and children and I am so thankful the opportunity came for me to know you all. If my husband hadn’t seen the notice of the Federation meeting at San Antonio in the paper most likely I might never have known you only by letter. I had known a long time the Federation meeting was to be there but it never occurred to me I could go. When my husband found it was to be there he insisted upon me going if they made me a delegate. This they did. Of course they paid none of my expenses but I got reduced rates and planned my trip to see as many of my kin folks as possible. I live over and over the good times I had meeting and knowing my relatives many of whom I had never dreamed of ever seeing. Now when you write and tell me about anything it is all a vivid picture in my mind. I am glad Virginia is so
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