Reference
Z699/307
Title
Emily Howland to Mary Ellen Strange 12 Mar 1872
Sherwood N.Y. March 12.1872
M.E.Strange Dear friend
Our dear Mrs. B has written you all more fully than I can now.
Our beloved one has gone home leaving sweet & pleasant memories to fill the place his presence lit so short a time ago.
Lovely to the last hour of his life; how great is the void he has left in my heart & home!
There is not much for me to say, feeling it is impossible to express.
I fancy I must feel somewhat as a mother does bereft of her infant, he has been my constant care so long, more my companion, friend, with him I shared letters and reading, all my trials & all my comforts.
I can never see Teddy (thus he wished me to call him) in any other light, than as one of the loveliest specimens of human nature I ever met, I am not singular in this feeling, all who knew him admired & loved him.
Edward Dorland with whom he boarded 3 months said he & his family felt deeply attached to E. This friend attended the funeral which was large, and spoke most feelingly & fittingly; we laid his body in a little burying place allotted by my grandfather in the early settlement of this County. It is a pretty place by a wooded ravine. There my grandparents, my mother & the most part of my relatives are buried. You will hear through Mrs.B.'s [Mrs M.J.Bursleigh's] letters of the long storm the coldest of the winter which delayed the burial, I felt some satisfaction in the thought that thus the promise he had asked of me that his burial should not be hasty, was most fully carried out. His body remained with us from 1st day until 6th day.
I shall soon send a little parcel of presents he has designated for his dear ones. The book mark he called a bridal present, he wrote on it in the same beautiful style only the 5th day before his death I think. There were 4 views of Ackworth which he said belonged to you jointly he has in a list he made, put them down for you, I cannot find them, I hope I may. He loaned them to an old Ackworth Scholar perhaps they were not returned.
He thought a good deal about what to send his brother in Canada but did not decide. I think I shall send what he suggested, a large woollen shirt, a pair of buckskin gloves, some amusing books & some pocket handkerchiefs to the wife.
I have written to a friend in Canada & asked him to inform your brother. The most of his clothing Teddy desired me to take South on my next annual visit there & give it to the suffering, of whom there are always many there. The large trunk he said would do to carry them & other parcels hereafter.
I hope all this will be satisfactory. He spent a good deal of thought on the little keepsakes.
The Whittiers I hope you will prize very much, "The Eternal Goodness" and "My Psalm" are like the voice of his soul on the brink of the grave, to me. How many times I read them to him, or repeated detached verses I do not know. Many times when I thought he was going I recited "And so beside the silent sea I wait the muffled oar
No harm from Him can come to me on ocean or on shore."
He would assent by pressing my hand or by a fervent "yes."
The little fortnight ago I sat reading to him and remarked that I meant to try to be with him now for the time grew shorter when I could have him, I did not realise that the shadow of death would fall before midnight.
We talked always with freedom of the coming change. I never saw any one rest with such cheerful trust & perfect childlike faith in the love of the Heavenly Father. It was the most triumphant death I ever witnessed. Now I suppose over the grave of one dear to both of us, whose sad fate, not sad either, caused the knowledge of each other, we part, each to our several duties, may we hope some time to meet the loved one gone before?
Affectionately
Emily Howland.
Please remember me to the "Cousin Sophie May" who so kindly remembered me. E.H.
[Attached list : M.S.M. As soon as may be in each case
Emma Beck
E.C.M.
M.E.Strange
Date free text
12 Mar 1872
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From: 1872 To: 1872
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No. of pieces: 1
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