One of the many, and I mean MANY, frustrations of these old letters is references to photos I will likely never see. Gosh darn. I’d LOVE to see a photo of the 2 sets of twins. At least I know who they were, Bernice & Bernard born in 1920; and Marvin and Martha born in 1922. I also know about the tragic death of Great Uncle Bill which you can read about here. Now, if I can only figure out who was in Melbourne back in 1945?
June 11th, 1945
Somervell St
Annerley S.E.
Brisbane Queensland Australia
I am very sorry to hear about Bill being killed his wife must have got a terrible shock. I have pictures of the 2 sets of twins.
My Dear Nephew Ben,
I received your very welcome letter on the 8th of June & was I not pleased and excited. I just could not read it for a few minutes but I soon settled & read it all through.
It was very good of you and your wife & family to be so good to Mrs. & Mr. Tipple. Although we do not know them but we know Mrs. Tipple’s brother who is Winnie’s husband & daughter & they are a nice family. I have quite a lot of snaps of your mother & father’s family. I have a picture of you & 2 of your daughters & their husbands & baby.
Winnie told me in one of her letters that one of your sisters or daughters is in Melbourne. I would like to know her address & I might write to her. Winnie might have made a mistake. You say Nellie has a son in the service, do you know where he is if he is in Australia? Send him my address & tell him to write to me and if Lillian’s boys are in the services in Australia tell them to write also. I will answer their letters. You don’t know how glad I am you wrote to me.
I am not able to go to church now but some of the church women come to see me & I have them all your names & they ask all the Americans that go to the church if they know any of you. Once, when I was at the church the President was up from Sydney (I forget his name) I asked him if he knew you & he said you had done some work for him but he did not know you very well.
Edith is going to write to you about the different people who lived in the neighborhood when you were there. Jack Cambell told our Nellie one day when she saw him that you & he played truant from school together one day. He is in a very good position now but he lives on the other side of the town & I don’t see him very often.
I don’t remember if I told you anything about my family in my last letter but I will tell you some of it now.
I had 5 girls & one boy (his name was John he went to the last war he was killed in action on August 22, 1917). Lottie was my oldest girl she was married before John went away & she had a daughter 4 1/2 years old when she died in November 15, 1917 & another daughter Maggie died on the 7th December the same year so that was 3 who died in the same year & their father passed away in 1930. So now I have 3 daughters Edith I think (you must remember her) & Dorothy who are at home with me. & Nellie is married & has a son who is 23 years old & is engaged to be married.
I took Lottie’s child when her mother died & she lived with me until she got married & now she has 2 children going to school a girl 7 years old & a boy 6 years. They are my great grandchildren & we are all very happy now. I have my own home & so have Nellie & Joyce (my granddaughter) her boys name is Ian (his father is Scotch) & the girls name is Deirdre.
(It is rather funny about the Nellies there is your Nellie & our Nellie & your Uncle Ben has a Nellie & they were all born all about the same time & none of us knew they were named Nellie until some time after.)
Oh well Dear Ben I am getting old & this is a long letter for me to write. I hope you will excuse all the mistakes & I have to write with lead pencil as my hands are very shaky. Thank you for your photo. I have a photo of you & your mother & all her big family taken after your father died.
We are all well & hope you are the same. Love to your wife & family & all your sisters & brothers & their families & lots of love to your kind self for writing to me & may God bless you all.
From your Aunt Susannah Haskins.
Quick Notes on The Letter
As always, more questions than answers. Still wondering, who was Mrs. Tipple? as mentioned in the Feb. 1945 letter. And who is Jack Campbell? I’m very grateful for the details about Sushannah Haskins family members which has helped me fill more in over at Ancestry.com - though still no clues or photos popping up in that family line. Maybe one day…
Happy Family Tree Picking!
Laurie
