Grove Farm
Saxmundham, Suffolk
October 23, 1906
I hope this will meet you all quite well as it leaves us. I received your letter this morning which I was very pleased to get.
I had ever such a long letter from Louie also. I expect she will be home again in a fortnight's time and your mother is coming back with her. I expect she will miss you all now more than ever after Louie and the baby come away.
Louie has had a lot of people come to see her and the baby. I expect it will seem rather dull down here to her after seeing such a lot of people but she will have the boy to cheer her up.
I was sorry to hear that Mary had not been very well. I expect little Ernie was pleased to see his Uncle Arthur wasn't he?
Is he helping to thresh? Is Ernie still away at work? He has had to go away quite a lot of times hasn't he?
I expect you are glad that you haven't had to go away much as it cost such a lot to live when you are away don't it?
I hope you won't upset the ink bottle anymore after you have wrote my letter as it must be very provoking to have to write your letter twice.
Willie and Dick have just had their dinner at 3 o'clock today as they have been working in the town. Willie has had the toothache very bad so now he has been to the doctor's and had it drawn so it is better now.
Father is going to Rushmere on Saturday to see his brother and stay for the Sunday.
I had a nice letter from Annie last Sunday week and we heard from Mary last Saturday week.
I'm wondering if you will be at Indian Head when this letter comes but if not I daresay you will get it some time or other.
I was pleased to hear about your harvest festival and I would like to have been there but I can't come as its such a long long way and the wide sea in between. I do so long to see you some times and then I feel so pleased when your letters come.
I went to Saxmundham Church twice last Sunday but the Sunday before I did not go out only once.
Mr. Aldous who took the farm where we used to live came here last Sunday week and he say that his people don't like living there at all.
I expect that little rose which I sent in my last letter was quite dead by the time you got it wasn't it?
Dick is now just come in with the milk so I must not stop to write much more as I must look after the separator.
Do you have to walk a long way to work now or are you near the house? I suppose that little Ernie won't be able to play in the garden now that it is cold. It will be a year ago tomorrow since you and Louie went back to Lexden after your first stay at the Grove Farm.
And now dear Horrie I must bring my letter to a close and I hope I shan't upset the ink over it.
With love to all and my truest love to you I remain your ever loving Alice
P.S. Dick want me to tell you that he has got some great beets where you saw him digging in the garden.
It must be sad for someone to have an ocean between them and so many that they care about.
ReplyDeleteGorges it was ten years before they saw each other again thanks to WWI and the Canadian Army giving my grandfather a free ride back to England to fight the Germans. Otherwise I don't know when he would have been able to afford the trip back to England to get married.
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