April 7, 1904

From: Joseph Gleasure, Square, Listowel, Ireland
To: Frank Gleasure, 459 Cambridge Street, Allston, Massachusetts

My Dear Brother,

I hope the arrival of this letter will find you in the best of health as we all are at present.

We are greatly troubled at not getting a letter since Christmas. My father wrote to you in January, and he told me to ask you did you get it? We thought when you didn't write that you were sick or that something happened to you so that you couldn't write.

I wrote to Miss Reardon some time after Xmas and got an answer soon after and I wrote last week again to her. She told me she would send me some papers about the Civil Service when she gets them from Washington and that she would give me any help she could. I am getting on splendidly at school. We are just after our Easter holidays and this is the first week we opened.

Some time ago I didn't pay half enough attention to my studies as I am now, but when I see how far back I was and the time slipping away quickly, I made up my mind to work while I had the chance. It is just what Miss Reardon told me that young fellows think it a fine thing to be done with school and then when they are out of school for a year or so they begin bemourning that they didn't stop at school longer. Any kind of a smart fellow can get a situation in any office nowadays.

Annie has got a kind of a job now with a bank clerk. Mr. Brunker was removed and a married man with one little girl about 6 or 7 years old. Annie has to go down to them about 3 and carry out the child for a walk and teach her a few lessons every day and after get their tea ready, and she is done then at 6. She is getting over a L1 for 3 months. It will be bringing in something to her and besides it will make her handy when she goes out in the world. I am practicing with dumbbells now every night since January. A fellow  would want to be a bit tough to bear all the hardships of the world. Somers, the fellow that came home from Africa with the wounded finger, I don't know did you know him, has a gimanaziam in the town now. He was with Sandow for a long time and came home last year. He is all muscle, they stand out on him like big thick ropes tied around him.

It was lucky yourself and Peter stuck at them all the time for it is now your are reaping the benefit and only for them you would hardly be able to stick the firing so long I suppose. Frank Buckley is at them for the last couple of years and he do be casting in those country sports. He threw a half wt.  nineteen and a half feet in Lixnaw last month, and he can beat them all around the town casting stones.

You will be gone three years the middle of this month and it only seems a couple of years ago since you went away. We would hardly know you now I suppose you must have got very stout. I think you ought to take your picture now coming on the summer. We would all like very much to look upon your features after being so long away.

I hope you won't delay in writing to let us know how you are getting on. My father said the people you are staying with might keep your letters and that you should be careful. As I have no more to say, I will close, hoping nothing has happened,

Your loving brother,
Joseph Gleasure