Skip to main content

Mrs. Walter Bownes to Walt Whitman, 7 June [1876?]

 loc_jp.00176.jpg Mr Walter Whitman

Dear Friend no doubt you will be surprised to get a letter from here but as I am a relative of yours and daughter of Elizabeth Burroughs nee Wheeler, I guess you will pardon the liberty my mother being nearly through her journey and feeling as if she would like to hear from you dearest asked me to write you and trying to please her on everything while with us for a little longer. she would like to know about your sisters—and brothers if alive and where they are. also about anything in the family and hoping you will be spared many long years [damaged]fullnes and it would afford us the greatest pleasure if you would come and make us a visit you when in Woodside some.  loc_jp.00177.jpg [cut away] by sending love of the united family My Brother John Burroughs called to see you some time ago in in Camden

Yours in respect Mrs Walter Bownes Woodside LI [illegible]

Notes

  • 1. Ted Genoways dated this letter 1879 (see Walt Whitman, The Correspondence, ed. Ted Genoways [Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004], 7:145). It seems more likely based on the content, however, that this letter came before the letter from Sarah [Bownes?] to Whitman of April 6, 1877. [back]
Back to top