My internet has been down for a few days on my home
computer. It is frustrating because it
seems the only thing I can do is play solitaire. So much of what I do on a computer is tied to
the internet from research, surfing and email.
It seems that it is rare nowadays to handwrite a letter giving either
good news or bad news. It made me think
of a letter that one of my ancestors wrote.
William Henry Dollar was born on 22 May 1812 at the Eno
River, Orange Co., NC. He married Jennie
Sparks on 22 May 1838 in Orange Co., NC.
Soon after they left Orange Co., NC with their young son and traveled by
wagon to Ashe Co., NC. Henry Dollar
owned some land and worked as a blacksmith.
He and Jennie had nine children, eight of whom survived to
adulthood. After 55 years of marriage,
Jennie died in 1893. It must have been
difficult, but William Henry Dollar wrote a letter to his daughter living out
in Utah telling her of her mother’s death and that she had been buried near the
homeplace. The envelope itself was edged
in black which I’ve been told is a tradition to let the reader know that it was
bad news. William Henry Dollar was 81
years old by this point in life. He and
his wife had raised their children – lost one daughter as infant and another in
sickness. Their youngest daughter lived
far away in Oklahoma and their other daughter lived in Utah. Emeline, the other daughter, had married her
sister’s husband after her death. She
raised her sister’s five children plus six of her own. I can only imagine how hard it was for her
father to write that letter and how difficult it was to receive it.
In the 1800’s the only real communication between family
members were letters. It was a time
period when adult children married and left their homes. Sometimes they traveled short distances, but
many times they traveled clear across the country never to see their families
again. The only ways to keep contact
were letters that traveled across the country on the postal system of the 19th
century. Sometimes these letters would
take months to reach their destination.
When a letter arrived it was a special event….seems funny that is almost
the attitude that we have today, because so few people write letters anymore.
I remember my great grandmother and grandmother writing
letters to family members back in Tennessee and North Carolina as well as
fairly close to home. It was too
expensive to pick up the phone to call and many didn’t have a phone readily
available. Those letters were saved and
shared with other family members when they came to visit. In fact, I have a few of those letters that
were sent by my grandmother to her sister in North Carolina.
I imagine that Emeline received that letter and reached out
to her father by letter and invited him to come and live with her. William Henry had his sons around him…but
must have needed the comfort of a daughter, because he traveled from Ashe Co.,
NC to Cleveland, Emery Co., UT to spend his remaining years with his daughter
in Utah. That must have been quite a
journey. In 1840, he and his wife must
have traveled hard miles on a wagon to reach Ashe Co., NC from Orange Co.,
NC. It still must have been a hard
journey to reach the train from where he lived – but infinitely shorter. Once he boarded the train he could travel
clear across the country in a matter of days which had to have been astonishing
to him.
After his arrival, I’m told that William Henry Dollar
converted to Mormonism – just as his daughter had done many years before. He died just a two short years later after
his wife and his buried there in Cleveland Cemetery in Emery Co., UT.
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