Christmas Day was saddened by the news of your illness. On today we rejoice that you
are better. There are many, now, who give thanks for your glorious work for life,
for purity—for both in one; and the number will increase. You have loc_jc.00365_large.jpg
loc_jc.00364_large.jpg helped make homes
happy; you have taught lovers to love wisely; you have helped men to pray, who, but
for you would have known only irreverence.
God bless you!
And if you can come back—tell us again—that all is good.
With tender gratitude, A. H. Spaulding Boston. Dec. 26Correspondent:
Ada H. Spaulding (b. 1841),
née Pearsons, was a socialite and active member of various reform movements
and women's clubs. She served as the President of the Home Club of East Boston
and was a member of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union. She married
Ebenezer Spaulding, an Assistant Surgeon during the Civil War, and, later, a
homeopathic physician and surgeon who practiced in Boston. Ada Spaulding read
and admired Whitman's poetry, visited the poet, and wrote a number of letters to
him in his final years. For more on Spaulding, see Sherry Ceniza, "Women's Letters to Walt
Whitman: Some Corrections," Walt Whitman Quarterly
Review 9 (Winter 1992), 142–147.