Letter, Kate Gleason to James Gleason
A letter from Kate Gleason to her brother, James Gleason. Kate tells Jim about their mother’s travel plans to visit Jim at Cornell. She reports that Jim’s former roommate Charles Warner has been hired in the family’s shop even though neither Kate nor their father likes him, and that their brother Andrew is doing well in school. She notes that she quietly celebrated her 23rd birthday and that she and friend Emma Michel have resigned from the Dawn Club. Kate sends Jim money and instructs him to introduce their mother to the man he is considering for a roommate.
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William Gleason,
Manufacturer of Machinists Tools,
Office, Brown’s Race,
Rochester, N.Y., Nov. 26th. 1888
Dear Jim,-
Mother will take the 9 o’clock train Wednesday morning so
that you will want to be at the station to meet her sometime between
half-past twelve and one o’clock. If you have a class that div-
ision I suppose you can’t be down and I will instruct her about taking
the ‘bus in case she does’nt see you. I would like Elinor to see
little Dee Waite and have written Dee that you will call for her to
take her down while Elinor and Mother are with you. You know
where the Waite’s live on the campus, don’t you? If not it will
be easy for you to find out. I will send your society pin and in-
itiation fee with Mother.
Warner is coming in the shop to learn the
trade at the munificent salary of $4 a week. Neither Father or I
like him but we thought we would give him a chance, however I don’t
expect he will improve it for he dies’nt seem to know enough to come
in out of the wet.
Andrew is getting on like a house on fire in geom-
etry, he learns three theorems a day now and when it comes to the
review on Friday, he seems to know them almost as well as when he
first recites them.
My 23rd. birth day passed without a torch-light
procession; I thought I would celebrate it quietly this year, in fact
I don’t mean to make any birth-day splurges now until I am thirty.
Father did’nt come down with the customary $50 because unfortunate-
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ly for me it was pay-roll day. We only had $825 in the bank and a
machine shop pay roll of $750 and it would have made the balance too
fine to have given me the money. But I was remembered in the
shape of cuff buttons with a chain and anchor attachment, silk stock-
ings with stunning embroidery on them, fancy lace handk’chfs, gor-
geous hair ornaments, Whist counters &c. &c.
The post-man just brought in your letter and as you seem
to be in desperate circumstances, I will take the risk of enclosing
this $20 bill. I also enclose a postal card so that you can ac-
knowledge it at once for it’s a decidedly shaky way to send money and
I will be anxious until I hear you get it. As it is after banking
hours, I cannot get a draft for you.
There is no use trying to be so fearfully economical as to
get a room for a dollar a week. You better introduce young Ide
to Mother and if she likes him, it would be best I think to go in
with him on the $4 room. His father’s reputation in business
is good, I’ve heard of him more or less since I’ve been down here and
they say children take after their parents so the chances for Ide
being about right is better than Warner’s,-if Warner’s governor is
what we hear.
Emma and I have both resigned from the Dawn Club. She
resigned because she expected to go to Detroit and I resigned be-
cause I don’t care to go out any more than is necessary this winter
and only joined the club because she wanted me to. I hav’nt heard
whether it busted up after we left or not. It very likly did, for
I don’t see how any club could get without us.
I have a power of work
to do so will have to cut short the flow of my eloquence. Will re-
member the newspapers next week. Yours Lovingly, Kate.