Bloomfield, N. J.
Dear Carrie:No doubt you are beginning to think I am a fraud, promising to write so often and never doing it. I see that the date of your letter is April 13, but I am sure that you can guess I have had little time for writing.
I know you want to know all the college news first of all, if you have not heard it already from other girls. I got the enclosed clipping from the Springfield Republican for you some time ago, & I am sure it will tell you far more than I can write. I meant to send it to you a fe days ago, but somehow it got lost. After hunting all over for it in vain, I looked through my waste basket this afternoon and there it was at the very bottom.
Although vacation is more than half over, it seems but a little while since I left South Hadley. This year I went to Silver Bay. I had a perfectly grand time. There were seventy two girls in our delegation. It was the second largest delegation, Wellesley having about ninety. Of course I cannot begin to tell you about it. Just imagine the most beautiful place on earth with girls from about a hundred different (places) institutions and a score of fine speakers like Mr. J. H. Denison and Dr. Cuthburt Hall with lots of gay times going on and you will have a little picture of what it was like. There were about eight hundred girls there altogether.
Zilpah Benner sailed for Europe on the Fourth of July. She is going to travel with and [sic] older friend for three months and then settle down in a German family alone for a year. After that she is coming back to college to join 1909. It will be awful not to have her there! I saw her off from New York on the Fourth.
This last year has truly been the best one so far in every way. It has been certainly a great privilege to live in Brigham Hall. I suppose I have told you often enough how much I enjoyed my roommate. She was with me until Feb 22. (the festivities of which date were, of course, postponed till May 9). Besides we had a lovely crowd of Juniors. Edith Weatherill had your room. The Seniors too were great. I never before made so many friends in an upper class as I did with those Seniors this year. Edna Moore and Ruth Buffum are two girls I have always wanted to know & this year I got very well acquainted with them. Do you remember Harriet Lee? She came back this year to get her degree and lived in Brigham. I got to know her very well too. Clara, my room-mate was taken into the Black Diamond Society (Sigma Phi Delta). It did not harm her a bit, but through her I got to know those girls very well.
I have taken Zoology this last year & have enjoyed it immensely. I am not going on with it though, simply because I can't get it in.
Now to leave South Hadley and tell you a little about home. Besides my Silver Bay trip I am spending my whole vacation at home. I did spend a week in New York with my friend, Celia Fischer but that was all.
On the first of August Mamma and my youngest sister went away to the Catskills to spend a whole month. It is the second time I can remember that Mamma has gone away without the whole family. Edna and I are keeping house and we each intend to have a friend with us. Edna's friend came Friday night. She lives in the central part of N. Y. state & this is the first time she has stayed here more than a day. Celia is coming in a couple of days. After she comes we four are going out on a good many outings and picnics that we have planned. I am getting quite experienced in the line of house-keeping and cooking.
Oh! I must return to college news, to tell you were I am going to live next year. I got no. 141 which was four from the last. When I chose only Mead and Wilder were open and I chose Wilder, 3rd floor no 43. Emma Pierce's room. Of course there was no chance at Brigham although I did think of going back, and although I wanted to go with the Rocky crowd, I like Wilder very well indeed. They are going to have a new matron & a new head-of-the-house there.
Now with this letter and the clipping I am sure you will have enough reading for a little while. I hope you are getting much better all the time. Let me hear from you soon.
How did you like that slang?
Good bye, give my love to you[r] sister
Lovingly,
Mattie
August 11, 1907.