Mount Dora, Florida
April 13, 1923My dear Abby,
I sent you a hurried note the other day and now I get your letter telling me what you have been going through during the past weeks. I seem to know your cousin Jessie, for you have told me so much of your good times at her house. What an experience that must have been! the funeral under all the circumstances which you describe! I have wondered about your friend in Amherst since Prof. Paige died. Does Mrs. P. live there as before and is Beryl in Louisville still? I am way off down here and so much that happens is hardly realized. I sometimes wonder if I actually know the many things that are as vital to you. It is inevitable, the absence brings ignorance of many things and conditions - you are altogether wonderful in the matter of letter writing so that I always get a feast from your letters. I shall be back with you again ere long - it is now near the middle of April. Your description of the building is interesting and I am likely to see the skeleton of it after all.
I presume the new dormitory is nearly completion. Chrissie Smith wrote me the other day of her expectations for next year. She is to be in the building - How the years rush along!
I trust Miss Alice Stevens is on the road to recovery - The Faculty hav ehad experiences - I have heard of the illness of Mr Warbeke, Miss E. B. Talbot and there has been one death.
I saw by the Sp. Union that Miss Woolley was coming to Ormond beach as guest of Mrs. Wallace of Springfield, but have not know that she came. Ann wrote me of her mother's illness, and she was away for some time then, I suppose.
I am at present quite absorbed in the committee work for our celebration next summer. Dr. Lillie wrote me this past week that the red tape was thro' with and we now have the proper authority for proceeding with the marker for Penikese. I have written to Dr Parker to get his idea for the marker and I hope he will proceed to order it quite soon, as time flies and we must be "up & doing."
The date is probably Aug. 14 and the chief speaker should be David Starr Jordan. I have written Mrs. Millard Straight and Charles R. Crane to suggest the way to meet expenses - I think Mr Crane, as Pres. of trustees of M.B.L. will take a hand here.
The latest move is the attempt to get Edwin Markham - our American poet, who read the poem on Lincoln at the dedication of the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. last May - to read us a poem on Agassiz next summer. I am not saying much about this as it is so uncertain, but I have written him & expect an answer soon. I have to decide about the speakers & plan for their being in Woods Hole. My nephew & family are thinking of taking a house in Woods Hole this summer perhaps I told you.
Emma takes the Institutional Comm. [?]
My heart goes out to you, as I think of your sorrow in the loss of Jessie's husband shall see you before many weeks -