FAWCETT, Erasmus to Virginia Fawcett - 1868-09-21
From Gauss and his Children
|
Letter
Gonzales Co. Texas, Sept. 21st 1868
Dear Sister
I have been indebted to you for a letter a long long time. I have frequently though of writing but the lack of something that I thought would be pleasing and interesting has always made me put it of hopeing that a subject worth writing about would present its self. I have now one not pleasant but mournfully grievous beyond my power of discription. My faithful companion Ann is no more. You are probably less surprised than I have been. I thought I was destined to go first, being fifteen years older, much more enfeebled from the large quantity of medicine that I had swallowed, and my frequent attacks made many persons think that I would not live long. She was attacted over a month ago with a chill followed as usual by fever which continued to return withoug the chill, or if there was any chills they were so slight that we could not tell when they were on. An old sore over her eye that was a great trouble to her twelve years ago, rose again and was aa painful as ever. it swelled up and broke discharging some matter. we then hoped all her trouble would soon be over, but in this we were sadly mistaken, her head continued to ache almost constantly, and at times so excruciating as to make her delirious, We sent for a Doctor who upon examining her pronounced the case congestive, which is almost equivalent to saying that the patient is dying, Our neighbors were very kind done all that they could, but she died at one oclock monday night the 8th Sept.
I am now the only one at the head of five children for my family. they have but a poore prospect ahead of them. Frank’s chance is not so bad as he is now eighten years old, tolerably stout and will out weigh me. he is now my main dependence for work on our little farm. some times a little sulky but in general a very good boy. My daughter Bransonia is left in an awkward situation. I am not able to send her off to a boarding school. She is now loosing what little education she had, and very seldom sees a lady and there is not girl in this neighborhood of her age. Curtis is now getting largenough to work, will probably be able to plow a gentle horse nex Spring. Bobby is small and of a much less manly chracter than Curtis but at picking cotton and other light work does his part pretty well. All of these children ought to be at school but I have not got the money to pay the tuition, and during the spring months the boys could not be spared from the field I am now living a retired life, in an obscure place, not from choice, but from necesity. I feel it very sensibly on acount of my children, they have but a poor chance of education or good address When we arrived in Texas I found things quite diferent from what I had expected. Keyes was on a tract of land with but poor improvements, no Spring or well, but a pond or lake of water that a decent dog would hardly condecend to drink out of. Seven eights of the land not worth a fence, and scarsely any timber fit to make rails out of. Added to this Keyes was entirely out with the farming business and would not spend a cent towards cultivating the land, he prefered relying exclusively on the sheep for a living.
The price of wool being down, and a disease called “the scab” being in the flock, I thought the prospect looked bad. I had expended $400, in getting to Texas, and had but little left, the more I learned about sheep the less I liked the business, added to this they became sickly and commenced dying so fast that I was anxious to dispose of my little interest in the flock. I swaped them of, and have in excange 200 acres of land, one horse, one mule and two cows and calves. I have an undisputed titled to the land perfected in me, though I owe the men that I got the tract from $126.00 payable next chrismass a year, it is what is called post oak land, that is sandy soil, with scattering runty post oaks not one in forty long enough to make even a Texas rail which is only eight feet long. The improvements are one very good log cabbin, a tolerable Kitchen with a little room between it and the cabbin, a little smoke house and a never failing well of water. Thirty or forty acres of the land has been in cultivation ten or twelve years, some of it is the worse of wear, but there is some of the tract never been cultivated of good soil. on this tract I hope to make a living by diging it out of old mother earth, a hard way I know, but I have no other means. The children are becoming hardened to the ruff Texas life that they will probably have to live. Little Keysey is now in good health, and frequently sleeps soundly on the floor a shirt between his skin and the plank.
You probably have heard from Willis and Keyes since I have. they had their sheep out west of San Antonio the last time I heared over a month ago. Willis’ son Jossie is now living with a Mr. Nations with in less than a half mile of us. Jossie and his father have not fallen out, but have a kind of understanding that Jossie might try his hand at making his living seperated from parental influances. Jossie is a good lively tall and slender Fawcett. I can see something of the Fawcett about him, but he is like the Stablers in hight.
I am ashamed of the above scratch, and would transcribe it but probably I would not better it much as I write so little that I am loosing in penmanship considerable
Please let me hear from Missouri. The children, Jossie, and I are all well.
Affectionately' E. R. Fawcett
[crosswise in the margins:] Give my love to all our kin in Missouri. What a pleasure it would be to see you all once more. May be I had beeter make much of Jossie as it may be my lot not to see much more of the Fawcetts during my Short remnant of life
All of us have had a tuch of the chills and are now all clear of them.
Source
Handwritten original in the private collection of the Chambless family. Transcribed to softcopy by Susan D. Chambless, March 17, 1999.
