The following letter was written to my Great Grandmother, Margaret Hudson, by Frances Julia Louise Hudson, her 1/2 first cousin. Margaret was 11 years old, living in San Bernardino, CA. Frances later married Dr. Francis J. Mayes.
Mayesville SC Sept 17th 1881
My Dear Little Maggie
I have just received your letter this afternoon and I am going to give you actual proof of my appreciation by writing immediately.
You don’t know how much I enjoyed your sweet little missive and how highly I value your and Johnnie’s pictures. If your letter had come a week sooner I could have sent you my photograph but have given them all away now. I will send one just as soon as I can have some taken,.
You will see from the post mark that I am not at home now. I am teaching about 30 miles above home. I taught here last year and opened school Tues last for the next scholastic term of ten months. Mamie my sister whom I teach came today and brought me your letter. We left home very reluctantly as it leaves Ma and Bubber so lonely. Mamie will be ready for the junior class at college next spring. I hope we will be able to send her off then and I will stay with Ma. Mamie is quite bright and pretty and I am very proud of her. I have given her almost her entire education and shall be very much disappointed if she doesn’t become an intelligent and useful woman.
I have only been at home one month this vacation. I was selected by this county as a delegate to the State Normal Institute, which met in Greenville during the month of Aug. If you will look on your map of SC you will se that Greenville is in the northern part of the state nestled snugly at the foot of the Blue Ridge. So besides enjoying the instruction of some of the finest professors in the US, I formed a great many pleasant acquaintances and feasted my eyes on mountain scenery. The most charming feature in the case was that the county defrayed my entire expense. So it is nice to be a teacher sometimes, Maggie. I am glad you intend being a teacher some day. I think it is an excellent school for the young both morally and mentally. You are well advanced for one of your years. There is a girl boarding with me just your age and class. I read her your letter and it pleased her very much indeed. She has given me a piece of Mica or Icing Glass and a rock for you. The curiosities I collected this summer I left at home or I would have sent some of them.
The Mica is from a famous spring Glenn in the northern part of this state and the rock from the Blue Ridge.
When you write again send a little bouquet of California flowers to her and she will appreciate them very much. Her name is Janie McCutchen.
How I wish we could have you all to spend Christmas with us. Wouldn’t we have a merry time? Well, if we can’t dine together this new year we may sometime. I am coming out to see you some of these days. (ink faded)…….about traveling. I am so passionately fond of it. In my next I will tell you something about my visit to the mountains this summer.
Tell me in your next please what your band of hope is*. We have not anything of the kind out here and maybe it would be nice for my little girls.
Mamie is snugly tucked in bed and ever and anon cries out “Sister, come on” so I will be obliged to obey. Write to me very soon and tell me all about Uncle John, Aunt Marticia and the little ones. Next time I will write more if nothing prevents. Uncle Mac’s family was well when I left. His sons who live in Atlanta, Ga, came out this summer and spent a month.
With much love for Uncle J and Aunt M and a kiss for yourself and the little ones I am ever your affectionate cousin Louise.
* My note – this was apparently a temperance group for children
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