If things go on as they have for the past week, you will have to think yourself lucky
if you get even a postal in ten days. You must remember that I am housekeeper,
nurse, marketer, & have to see that the house is decent, if
loc.02969.002.jpg
possible, besides being interrupted at every ten minutes to answer some one who calls from a good
motive to ask how Wm.1 is, but would
do better not to come often.
So far I am the only nurse, & if you have been as badly
loc.02969.003.jpg
off as he is, you may have some idea of what it means. In this case it means that I wash & dress
him so far as he can be dressed,—wash his urinals, for he has to be protected
night & day, from the constant dripping,—& to keep
loc.02969.004.jpg him at all clean is
nearly impossible. Some nights I get not more than four hours sleep & that very
broken, & some days not one moment to rest at all. To-day I am nearly blind from
loss of sleep. We have some very bad nights since the
loc_as.00155_large.jpg attack four weeks ago, & one of
the very bad and troublesome developments is the nausea and throwing up, so you see
that I am not very idle, & I some days could not write a postal card to save
you. You will ask why we don't have a nurse? the
loc_as.00156_large.jpg answer is William
does not want one, & is not ready yet, he sends love to you & says tell you
he would write if he could.
P.S. I have had to leave this letter six times to do some thing else.
Correspondent:
Ellen M. "Nelly" O'Connor (1830–1913) was the
wife of William D. O'Connor (1832–1889), one of Whitman's staunchest
defenders. Before marrying William, Ellen Tarr was active in the antislavery and
women's rights movements as a contributor to the Liberator and to a women's rights newspaper Una. Whitman dined with the O'Connors frequently during his Washington
years. Though Whitman and William O'Connor would temporarily break off their
friendship in late 1872 over Reconstruction policies with regard to emancipated
African Americans, Ellen would remain friendly with Whitman. The correspondence
between Whitman and Ellen is almost as voluminous as the poet's correspondence
with William. Three years after William O'Connor's death, Ellen married the
Providence businessman Albert Calder. For more on Whitman's relationship with the O'Connors, see Dashae
E. Lott, "O'Connor, William Douglas [1832–1889]" and Lott's "O'Connor (Calder),
Ellen ('Nelly') M. Tarr (1830–1913)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).