Hill Country Living
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By Coulter Fussell
One of the great mysteries of the Wagner Letter Collection – which spans from the 1850s well into the middle of the 20th Century — is that I’m missing any letters from the 1870s. Of all times! It pains me to know that the entire decade of letters during the Reconstruction Era is gone. There must have been another trunk of letters somewhere that got separated. Coincidentally, this collection also gets a little thin during the 1930s. So, I have next to no Wagner Letters from 1931, which would have been pretty dang interesting, don’t you think?
Here is what could possibly be the only Wagner Letter I have from the 1870s. Husband Daniel is off working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and it seems that Maria has LOST her mother back home in Oxford!
And the doctor has blamed Maria for her mama wandering off. Well, rest assured Maria found her mom eventually because the mom shows up in the letters as a found/alive person for like 16 more years. On top of the lost mom, Maria’s young child, John Henry, has sprained a body part.
Daniel tries to flirt with Maria toward the end of the letter and I’m not sure if it’s the week for that.
Philadelphia 17,
March ‘71
My Dear Wife,
Yours of the 13th to hand and I sit down to answer it. You cause me great uneasiness about poor mother. I feel so sorry for her. I wonder where she has gone. I suppose you have certainly found out by this time. Poor mother! She must suffer very much both mentally and bodily. She has had a hard time, has made a martyr of herself. I hope and pray that you or any of her children have a tenth of her troubles. I am strongly in hopes you have heard of her in Oxford.
As for that matter you allude to about the “Doctor,” that is all nonsense. You couldn’t help it any more than I could and if you had told me ten times more it would have made no difference in any feelings for you – besides the bible says something about forgiveness.
We might have committed worse things than he and still deserve to be forgiven for them – that is my religion – but I am sorry you are having such a rough time at home with your work etc. and am glad you sent for the “Record of Distinguished Women” (which I got today.) I presume we will now have another Florence Nightengale or Joan of Arc in our town, won’t we?
Am glad to hear that John is over his sprain, poor little fellow. I think of you and him nearly all the time. That is – you know – I don’t think of you and him sometimes when I am with other gals but when I ain’t, I do.
I am nearly through buying and will be home in about a week, not later. We all send our love and kisses to you and John and Ella and C. and Eugene and Hiram and all, Your husband etc., D.R.W.
