AU10/100/7/7

Letter from S.A.Francis in Norwood Grove, Manitoba [Canada] to Arthur Henry Peer: "I am taking this opportunity to write you a few lines in answer to yours of the 7th Aug. Have been very busy the last two or three weeks so have not had an opportunity to do so before. Pleased to hear that you spent such an enjoyable holiday and of course when you talk about Folkestone I feel quite at home as I camped at Shorncliffe with the volunteers on two different occasions. It always seemed such a healthy place high up on the cliffs and I know I always returned home after stay [sic] there feeling much benefited by the change. We have harvest on us now and there is every prospect of a good crop and providing we have a couple of weeks fine weather now things should hum here for the next six months. We are both feeling remarkably well and the country seems to suit Mrs.Francis as she is much better and looking so bonny since she arrived. Of course I am attributing it to the climate but perhaps married life has something to do with it, anyway I do not hanker to return into the state of single blessedness again. We have such a lot of nice friends here and feel quite at home. Mrs.Francis has joined the choir and wears a hassock and surplice with the rest. Nearly all the choirs at churches of any size wear gowns including Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians so you will see it is the general rule. I am enclosing you a postcard one of our chums took of the three inhabitants of the "Refuge" before a break occurred in our ranks. I thought perhaps it would interest you to see what camping out looks like here. the tent is pitched at the back of the lot on which our cottage stands and looks across the valley from the south west. The tent is twelve by twelve and the walls six feet high. The lots [sic] has some nice trees on it and looks very pretty with all the different colored foliage out. The street too is one of the prettiest in the neighbourhood as the trees come right to the front of the lots and houses being built well back makes it looks as though they are nestling in the trees. The days are beginning to draw in now and the evenings and mornings get quite cold. The dread winter will soon be on us. How are all the Ampthill friends now. Perhaps you would kindly show the postcard to some of them when you get a chance including Mr.Tutt, Mr.Claridge and Mr.Whitbread. I see I have about come to the end of the paper and also to the end of my time. Please give my kind regards to all your people and wishing you the very best wishes possible. Mrs.Francis joins me in these and hopes that you will in the near future make up your mind to take a trip out to the Golden West and see the vast country of Canada for yourself".

8 Sep 1905

From: 1905 To: 1905

item

Francis, Samuel Alfred,
Peer, Arthur Henry,
Smart, Ellen,
Francis, Ellen,
Tutt, Alfred Ernest,
Claridge, Frank William,
Whitbread, Walter

rifle volunteers, harvesting, specific emigration, Canadians, general health, church choirs, Presbyterians, general Baptists, clothing, weather, Folkestone, Shorncliffe Camp, AMPTHILL