5001 Lake Avenue
Chicago, Ill.Mr Joseph Robbins
Dear Father
The last news I received from home said you were far from well. I have been feeling anxious about you and hope you are better. I want you to write and tell me frankly how you are or I shall not be satisfied.
I am busy all the time. I finish my recitations and immediate school duties at noon, but I have to spend most of the afternoon and evening to study up for the next days lessons. My literature particularly requires a large range of reading but it is a great pleasure to me and I am getting a great deal of good from it.
I am rooming alone which is quite a consideration! Some of Mrs Starrets boarders are gone, which gives us more room but less income.
I was into the City yesterday to hear one of the great divines of Chicago, Dr Scudder. He is an odd looking, dried up little old man, with a face like a withered apple, surmounted by a great schock [sic] of yellow hair, but he is brimful of life and earnestness. The singing was very fine, furnished by a quartette of voices.
Mr Starrett is a finely eduated man and a gentleman, but his ideas and conversation is enough to destroy the strongest hopes any one has anchored to. He is a finished cynic.
There are some things I don't like about my position here, but I have confidence in Mrs Starrett and thinks [sic] she means to be pefectly [sic] honest and will live up to her contracts if it be possible.
I need a watch very much. I have no time in my room or on the floor I am on. It necessitates my going up and [down] two flights of stairs very often which would be avoided if I had a watch. In fact it is almost impossible for me to keep my engagements promptly without one. I would like you to get me one in Pittsburgh and have it sent as a registered package. You are a better judge of a good watch than I. I want it good, hansome [sic] and not very large.
Later
I did not have time to finish this letter the day I began it. Since then we have a new element in the house. An Englishman and his two daughters have taken the suite of rooms just vacated by our other boarders. They are people of means and are travelling in this country for the health of one of the daughters, who is an invalid. One of the young ladies is a fine musician, and hope they will be a pleasant acquisition to the house.
Our Spring vacation begins the last week in March and lasts one week. Do you want me to come home to settle up our business? [sic] I wrote to Edd to get me a pass and he wrote me he did not think he could. It would make it a very expensive trip. What do you think about it!
It is as cold as midwinter here, with ice on the Lake and no prospects of a moderation.
Please write me very soon, with love to you all,
Your loving daughter
Gertrude R.