Letter to Helen
The letter below is a handwritten letter to Helen Rachel Williams (Smith College Class of 1892; 1871-1957). I have questions marks (?) after any words or names I am not sure of. This letter is found in the Smith College Archives: Helen Rachel Williams correspondence w/Edith Granger (Box 1471.1/Folder 13).
50 Elm Street,
Northampton
December 31, 1890
My dear Helen,
Just to think it is the last day of 1890. Tomorrow begins my year- alas, I don’t want it to.
Wouldn’t you like to know what we had for breakfast? Now wouldn’t you really? Well, I shan’t tell you. I don’t want to make you envious for you’re only at home. You’re not in lively Northampton in a boarding-house, and I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for anything in the world.
How many times have you made the hated journey to Boston? How many Christmas presents did you get? How many letters have you written? How many new tunes on the banjo have you learned? How many more essays have left your hands completed? Now then, just answer those questions if you please. I’ll answer some of them on my part by saying that I have been most horribly lazy. I haven’t done a thing except take some music lessons and not go to bed early. When I get up energy enough, I thrum a little on your beloved instrument. I’ve eaten so much candy that I can hardly move, and yet persist in dancing every evening (and paying for it by an aching foot every morning) and playing wild (?) games whenever occasion offers. Last night Miss Lena Ullrich gave us Topsy and I became a howling Banshee again, and then of course we told ghost stories. There are four or five other girls here, none of whom I knew before except Miss Brown slightly and Loretta Ullrich (?), who came Saturday. But it is not hard to get acquainted under our circumstances and we make the house ring sometimes.
There is some mail here for your beloved friends Miss Fourland and Miss Peterson, which I should love to forward if I knew the addresses of the ladies. I had my first letter from Lonnie (?) today. She asks casually if she shall keep or send the pocket-book.
I had a goodly number of gifts, none of them large but almost all things that I had wanted. I have also had a good share of letters but that’s no sign I don’t want one from you. Now do be a good girl and “refresh me soul.”
With much love and a happy New Year, Edith