I am too sorry that you are not well enough to see me, but I trust I may be able to do so, when I come again—I read with much interest the celebration of your seventy second birth day—You & I are nearing the other land—I was seventy two in November last—
I did want to see you so much—I had a little old shoe with me, with which I wanted to inspire you to write me some verses—
It was once worn by my darling & only little grandchild—it always speaks volumes to me about her sweet ways & her new angel life—
Could you write me something loc_vm.01301_large.jpg that I can preserve of your own, written in your seventy third year I should value it greatly—
I wish I could read you what is said in the "Lawyers and judges of Maine" about Judge Whitman. You would like him, so perfect a character—
But I have said too much.—
May our Heavenly Father spare both you & I for sometime yet
Truly your friend Lavinia F WhitmanMy address is 2337 N. 18th st Phila
Correspondent:
Lavinia Fanning Watson Whitman
(1818–1900) was the eldest daughter of John Fanning Watson—author of
Annals of Philadelphia (1830) and a well known
historian of Philadelphia and New York City—and his wife Phebe Barron
Crowell. In 1846, Lavinia became the first woman to sponsor a United States Navy
ship when she christened the sloop-of-war, the USS
Germantown, in Philadelphia. She married Harrison Gray Otis Whitman, a
son of Maine Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ezekial Whitman.