Letter from W. H. Younce to His Sister

Franklin, Ind.
Dec. 23, 1875

Dear Sister,

Your kind letter of a recent date at hand and as it is the first one I have rec’d. from you for a long time I will answer you at once. I also got a letter from Calvin today. Glad to hear from you all and that you are all getting along all right. I having nothing new or strange to tell you. We are getting along as usual. You tell me that Willie is to have been married today. I wish him good luck and a long and prosperous life. I wish it was so that I could spend Christmas with you. I would enjoy it so much. I think sometimes that fate has certainly dealt harshly with me in separating me so far from all my dear friends, especially Father and Mother. It had always been the fondest hope of my youth that I should live with or near them during life, but the hand of fate has otherwise ordained and under the circumstances I have wished many times that this continual longing for home and friends would grow weaker but not so. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I continually find myself longing for the association of home and friends. But dear sister as you are there with our dear parents and Mother is in the decline of years, I ask you in her behalf to look after her and try to comfort her in her age and make her last days the happiest days of her life and I do console myself with the thought that there is a home where we can all meet again and I pray God that we may be an unbroken family in that land beyond the Jordan of death where we can live together forever. Do not think that I am saying too much in this direction but I felt like saying what I have said and trust you will receive it in the same spirit in which it is written.

This (———-) going to school and doing well. I am getting along all right in the store. Have a splendid situation at fifty dollars a month which you see is good wages. I bought 42 feet more ground joining my lot a few days ago for which I paid $175.00 in cash and got it cheap. I have a nice place and a good house. (———————–) pictures taken and send you all some.

I will close by wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Now please write soon . Do not put it off so long.

Your Brother,
W. H. Younce