(Collection of Michael Willis, Calvert County, Maryland)
East New Market
February 5, 1895
My dear friend:
It is very cold tonight and coming colder, and I really hope you are not out on the water tonight. We have had snow and sleighing for a week and no sign of a thaw as of yet. We have had quite a change in our family relations, Ella and Arthur Charles were married Jan. 23, and made a trip to the city and have come back and settled down to housekeeping. We board with them and he keeps store at the depot where the Brambles used to keep. I am sure you know him, everybody calls him "Duck". Addie Willoughby has been very ill, the doctor had very little hopes of her for a long time, but I think she is a little better now. I suppose you have heard of Daisy Hubbard's marriage to Charlie Webster. They were married in December and in about three weeks afterward Mrs. Hubbard went crazy. Charlie came down and took her home with him. I haven't heard from her since she left here. The boys and girls around here are having lots of fun sleighing. You ought to be here enjoying yourself with your old friends. Now, for another piece of news, they say Mr. Isenberg is going to marry Miss Hattie Abdell. Don't you feel sorry for me? Then George Eccles and Ella Isenberg are going to be married too. The next thing I hear you will be getting married too. Send me your photograph by that time and an invitation to the wedding. School is getting along about as usual, so many boys and girls that I don't know what to do first. I have forty-two enrolled. I hardly realize how time flies. I realize that it does from the fact that the boys and girls that went to school a few years ago are grown up now, and in a few more years I shall be gone to that long silent home from whence none ever return. Hampton are you living for God and all the good you can do to your fellow men? I trust you are, and if not pray to your Heavenly Father to help you, for it must be an awful living to die without Christ. Poor Maggie Varnes is lying out there in the cemetery covered over with the snow tonight. I was standing at her bedside when she died and she did not realize that she was dying. Poor Harry Helsby was buried shortly after New Year's. So you see two of your young friends have been called home and the very best thing we can do is to be ready when our time comes. With many wishes for a very "Happy New Year" and hoping to hear from you soon, I remain
Your true friend,
Alice Webster