Title: Walt Whitman to Louisa Orr Haslam Whitman, 16 November [1885]
Date: November 16, 1885
Whitman Archive ID: loc.05003
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alex Kinnaman, Stefan Schöberlein, Ian Faith, and Stephanie Blalock
image 1 | image 2 |
328 Mickle street
Camden
Nov: 16
Dear Lou
Thanks for the beautiful & costly wolf-skin robe,—it is just the thing I wanted most—already comes in first rate—used it yesterday—Ed's stockings1 came Saturday—I am feeling pretty well—better than three weeks ago
Walt Whitman
Correspondent:
Louisa Orr Haslam Whitman (1842–1892), called
"Loo" or "Lou," married Whitman's brother George Whitman on April 14, 1871. Their
son, Walter Orr Whitman, was born in 1875 but died the following year. A second
son was stillborn. Whitman lived in Camden, New Jersey, with George and Louisa from
1873 until 1884, when George and Louisa moved to a farm outside of Camden and
Whitman decided to stay in the city. Louisa and Whitman had a warm relationship
during the poet's final decades. For more, see Karen Wolfe, "Whitman, Louisa Orr Haslam (Mrs. George) (1842–1892)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and
Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
1. These stockings were for Whitman's mentally and physically incapacitated brother Edward, who had lived with George and Louisa but was now living at a boarding house in the country. [back]