On the back: "This is a good photo of Dorothy & Edith but not very good one of Joyce & I. Taken July 1925." This image was not included with the letter below. (Dorothy Haskins 1894-?, Edith Haskins 1890-?, Joyce Gordon 1913-?, and unknown.)
The majority of letters & photos I've found are from the Pinborough side of our family so I was quite pleased to find some letters & photos from the Australian Draisey-Atkinson-Woodcock side of the tree. So many people, so little time. Here's a quick letter from Australia.
Postmarked June 1 1948 Brisbane Australia. From Edith Haskins to Nellie Atkinson Debenham (my great aunt).
Dear Nellie
We were both surprised & very pleased to hear from you.
So you won't have to look at the end of the letter first. I am Edith, the second eldest.
We wrote to Ben some time ago & he has answered, we were very glad to get news it was years since we had heard anything.
Aunty Polly used to write regularly, but since she passed away, we seemed to have lost touch.
Well anyhow I will tell you all about ourselves first. Mum is very well only her hands are very shaky, she can't write too well, she is eighty in September this year.
My eldest sister Lottie & Maggie who is younger than me died in 1917. My brother John was killed in Belgium at World War I in August 1917 & the other who died the same year. Lottie only had one child (Joyce) & she has three children now, Nelly the youngest of our family is married, & her son Eric is married & they are expecting a babe this month. Dorothy & I are still unmarried, living at home. I work in the office of the Telephone Dept, but not on the exchange. Dorothy stays home & does dressmaking.
Joyce is the one who used to write to June, I have just been down to her place & she says she even remembers the address, her eldest is ten years old in August. Both Nelly & Joyce live very near us., only about 15 minutes walk.
Nelly's husband is a carpenter in the Railway & Joyce's husband is in the Educational Dept. Joyce was only four when her mother died, so she came to us.
Uncle Ben & Auntie Mariam had five children, four girls & one boy & they are all married. Uncle ben died about nine years ago.
Mum says you are the only one wasn't born in Australia. You & Nelly Atkinson in Sydney & our Nelly were all born about the same & were all named Nelly & none of the Mothers knew anything about it.
Elder Rowley came to see Mum, we remembered their family, they lived in the same street as your people here in Brisbane, I knew of his Father, but I never met him.
Mum can't go out very much now so she doesn't see so many of the church people only when they get time to call & then she is very pleased to see them.
We will put some Photos in that were taken in the back yard about 12 months ago on Mothers Day which is generally the first Sunday in May.
We were just thinking there was brother of yours (Cliff) was born in America, so next time you write, we would like to know all about all of you. You do not mention Annie or Lily in your letter, it is as you say nice to keep in touch with each other.
Our weather now is very nice, it will soon be winter & we are having cold weather night & morning but beautiful warm days. I wish we could all have wings so we could see each other, but never mind. I hope now that you have started writing you will continue. We will be looking forward to your next letter & if at any time any of you are lucky enough to come to Brisbane, we will be very glad to see you.
We all send our love to all our American relations & especially yourself.
From your Loving
Cousin Edith
P.S. Tell us the names of your husband & all your family next time you write.
Until next time, Happy Hunting!
Laurie
ACCURACY NOTE: All letters are mostly transcribed as written. I try to stay true to the writer's penmanship including the spelling & grammar mistakes, missing punctuation, run on sentences and such but, in some cases, I add in periods to make the letter easier to read. These old letters had few if any paragraph breaks, so I sometimes add them by the "page turn" to make it easier to read. And yes, sometimes I make a few mistakes in transcription.
