Letter from Betsey Cossett Alvord, 28 June 1845
Farmington
Cousins Wilford & Phebe
While enjoying the pleasure of a visit with your dear
parents in Farmington, in company with my Mother & being favored with more
leisure time than has been my privilege for a long season, I thought I would improve a
few moments in addressing a few lines to you. I have not ^much^ of interest to communicate
but I wish to acknowledge the receipt of your letter and some papers, (the "Star," which were
gratefully received.) as also to give you some information respecting Mother's present of
state health &c. It gave us all pleasure to learn that you were still in the enjoyment
of good health & spirits & that so good a degree of prosparity attended your labors in the ministry
and we will ever esteem it a privilege to hear from you by letter & know of your prosprty
both in temporal, & spiritual things, & I doubt not but you feel equally desirious to know
concerning the welfare of your kindred & friends in this land. Your Mother has nearly
completed a letter to you in which she will give an account of herself & family & things apper
taining to them & I will inform you a little respecting our family &co. There has been no very
material change with mother since I wrote, nor since you visited us last fall. I have however
considered her rather on the decline, indeed I know that her health in general is has not
been near as good as it was last summer. Her situation has been such for a long time that
that it has often appeared to me that we must all perish together for the want of strength to endure
Not long since we came to the conclusion that somthing must be done, some new measure
adopted, & we finally decided to procure some good place & hire Mother boarded a short season
we accordingly engaged a place, but when the time arrived for her to go she was determined
against it & manifested feelings of such a kind that we could not, neither would we urge her,
but thought we might adopt some better plan or at least more congelial to her feelings.
It was next proposed that I should accompany her on a visit to Farmington, & we finally
succeeded in that thing. We hired a horse & chaise, rode very slow, made a number of calls
but when we arrived here, she was quite fatigued, more so I presume on account of
her being lo[a]th[e] to come & worrying all the way about it. What effect this visit will have
