Letter, Susan B. Anthony to Burt Luther Anthony
A letter from Susan B. Anthony to her nephew, Burt Luther Anthony. Susan responds to Burt’s previous inquiry about a desk that is in his possession. She offers to give him a chair that belongs with the desk and sends him a pen and penholder that his father had used. Susan suggests books for Burt to read. She tells him about her Christmas dinner and invites him to visit when he can get away from work.
[page 1]
Dear Nephew Burt: –
I am beginning my new year by answering long-neglected letters.
Yours before me is dated “10th Month, 27th,” and I think I have received
one since, which I have sent to your mother or Lucy to read.
This letter is all about the dear old desk. I will try to get
about writing a label for it with my own hand, but meantime let me tell
you it was purchased by Robert Dale Owen for the Women’s Loyal League
in 1863, and was first used in the office at 93 Cooper Institute. I
am now sitting in the chair which was purchased at the same time, and
which I sat in before that desk in those days. You may have this chair
to go with the desk, and then you will be fully equipped for writing.
The desk and chair are now thirty-seven years old. They were used
there in that office, and next in my Revolution office until 1870, when
I shipped the desk to your father at Fort Scott. I think he always kept
it in the little office at the corner of Wall St., and then moved it to
the old store on Main St., where you got it. Enclosed is one of the
penholders with the pen in it, just as he wrote with it the last time.
Your possession of the desk will date from June, 1900.
The other desk your mother has sent to Anna O., and I will give her
the other penholder. She likes it very much, and I hope she will write
many a loving letter to you upon it.
[page 2]
(B.L.A.)
I am glad you have preserved the old desk in all its simplicity. It
was nice of you to write to Mrs. Gross.
I like the idea of your reading Dickens. It will help you more than
anything I can think of, but you want to begin to read something like
Macauley’s History of England, the History of the United States, etc.,
so as to be up in your knowledge of the history of the world.
Aunt Mary and I took Christmas dinner with Anna O., and Aunt Mary
remarked that Mary Luther herself could not have cooked a turkey any
better, or got the various fixings up and served them any more nicely:
and that is praise for anybody. I was over there last Friday to lunch,
and she told me that Cousin Dan had sent your mother passes to come down,
and she is expecting a letter from her daily.
Now when your mother gets here, and is well settled, you must
steal a little time to come and visit her. If you keep watch you can take
advantage of some of the excursions. There will be such to look at
Niagara Falls when it is frozen. But at any rate, you must seize upon
a time when your boss will think there is the least work to do.
With a happy New Year and New Century, I am,
Your affectionate aunt,