Mrs. Louise S. Rounds,
Honorary President Illinois W. C. T. U. and
National Evangelist.Clifton Springs, N.Y. Nov. 1, 1904.
My dear Miss Nichols:-
Having reached home safe and well, I want to send you a few lines to tell you how much you contributed to the pleasure of my Eastern trip, and to thank you for it. I enjoyed very much the ride to Meriden and the occasional glimpses I caught of the sea. The meeting in Meriden was small, owing to the unpopularity of the doctrine of Woman suffrage.
From M. I went on to Hartford Tues. A.M. The con. was like your own very sweet in spirit and inspiring in the earnest zeal manifested by the women in our cause.
I did not have very much to do at the Con, but as I had no other date I staid until final adjournment. Mrs. Forbes after 21 years of faithful service retired from the presidency and Mrs. C. B. Buell, former Nat'l Cor. Sec. was elected in her place. She had a very large vote, and I think all were satisfied. - On Fri. A.M. I left Hartford for home reaching here that night at eleven o'clock - a most uncanny hour in which to enter a dark, cold and uninhabited house. I found my sister about the same as when I left her. It is a comfort to me to have her where she has every need quickly supplied. -
With constant pleasure I live over the days spent with you and the dear delight of adding all your family - or at least all whom I met - to my list of friends. Please remember that for you must "take me in" for a month some time, where I shall be free to go away for so long a time - and just let me sleep and go to the beach! O is'nt [sic] it fine to just live, where one can be near or on the ocean? Give my sincere regards to your mother, sisters and to your silent brother whom I met: also remember me kindly to Mr. Agard.
With much love for and many thanks to you for my visit to Westerly - I am sincerely thine -
Louise S. Rounds.
The unveiling of the statue of Miss Willard at Wash. has been postponed. It
iswill not be ready, so Anna Gordon says in a letter to me rec'd last Sat eve.R.
[From the dealer who sold me the letter:
Mrs. Louise S. Rounds is the one who is connected to getting Frances Willard to join the temperance cause. At the age of seventeen Frances E.C. Willard was sent from home to school, entering Milwaukee Female College in 1857. She completed her education at the Northwestern Female College in Evanston, Illinois. After several years of teaching, her soul was stirred by the reports of the temperance crusade in Ohio during the winter of 1874, and in this she felt she heard the divine call of her life work. Of all her friends, no one stood by her in her wish to join the crusade except Mrs. Mary A. Livermore who sent her a letter full of enthusiasm for the new line of work, and predicted her success therein. In the summer of 1874, while in New York City, a letter reached her from Mrs. Louise S. Rounds, of Chicago, who was identified there with the young temperance association. "It has come to me," wrote Mrs. Rounds, "as I believe, from the Lord, that you ought to be our president. We are a little band without money or experience, but with strong faith. If you would come, there will be no doubt of your election." So it happened that Miss Willard turning from the most attractive offers entered the open door of philanthropy in the West. Within a week she had been made president of the Chicago Woman's Christian Temperance Union.]