From: Helen Reardon, Pleasant St., South Natick, Massachusetts
To: Frank Gleasure, 28 Herrick St., Brighton, Mass
My dear Frank,
No words can give you any idea of my sorrow for you. I scarcely slept an hour last night thinking of your loneliness.
I was in Boston yesterday and would have hunted you up at lunch time if I had known where to find you.
The one more sad thing to me is that I have a letter on my desk begun to Joe. Miss Bailey went to New Jersey at the time she received the letter from him. She sent word to me to answer it. She has been sick and I had planned to have you and Joe come out to dinner Sunday. Miss Bailey came home by the Fall River boat last Saturday and is better.
If I had known about it I should have been only thankful to help you in some way and could have gone to the funeral.
Now I had many surprises for you and Joe but we cannot have the good time I planned. Now I want you to come out Sunday to dinner with me. I am living in the house that you lived in when you went across the water. Come directly here. I shall be home from church by half past twelve and we have dinner at half past one. I shall expect you without fail.
It will be sad for you but it will do you good to get away for the Sunday. I will write to Annie. I am sure you did everything you could for Joe. You have truly been tried in the fire and not found wanting.
With all sympathy
Helen A. Reardon
Isn't that a lovely letter. Helen Reardon had a way of picking the right words in an awfully sad situation. I'm unclear as to what the relationship was between these 2 ladies and the Gleasures.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it was such a nice letter. Notice the difference between this one and the one that will post tomorrow morning, sent from May Gleasure.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Helen Reardon and Miss Bailey (We still haven't learned her first name as far as I remember) were the Gleasures' school teachers in Natick before they went back to Listowel. Frank did work for them around their property and they seem to have been very close to the family.