Letters - Dear Cousin, Respectfully Yours, Alice E. Anderson

Dear Reader,
      The next scores or so of posts will be not my own writings, but correspondences of my Great-Grandfather Leon Gould. Great-Grandpa Leon had a large family (of 11 children), and journeyed as secretary to Alexander Smith in the RLDS church before eventually joining the Church of Christ (TL) and becoming an Apostle. His descendants have been blessed with a rich spiritual heritage and many true family accounts of  what can only be called miracles. If you read these letters and are interested in reading more of the Gould family history, look for a book titled "Trek of Faith" by Peggy Tucker. These letters contain the original spelling mistakes and have not been corrected. Feel free to print and keep these letters in your own family history files if you so wish. In the future, a book of Leon's writings will be made available. Enjoy!



                                                                                                            Bemidji, Minn.
                                                                                                            Dec. 6, 1899
Mr. Leon Gould
Moose, Minn.

Dear Cousin;- Well I got that far and then I didn’t know how to go any farther, but guess I might just as well commence one place as another. I have not forgot that I owe you a letter. I have thought at different time that I would answer it, but then again I would think that maybe I had better not, so I did not.

    “If a person could only know how to tell just what was the thing to do at all times.
May be it would be better if I should not write this time but I am going to guess at it and write anyway. I have thought ever since you were down at Mr. Nye’s this fall when Bro. Robert’s was there that I ought to write and beg your pardon for the way I treated you at that time.
I would have gone out and went to getting supper if I had have thought of your going off before supper. I would have set down and visited a few minutes before getting supper if I had not thought you would stay longer. Mamy told me to go in and visit with you before going to work at supper but I would not do it for I thought I would have time to do the visiting after supper, and when you went off as you did Mamy was the next thing to being offended at me. She said it was all my fault. They all would have been glad if you had have stayed over night with them. 

     I should have spoke to you the next day at church and I intended to all the time but before I got through the talking with the girls and my folks why you was gone. Now I really started to go over where you had been standing when I looked up and you were gone. So please do not think that it was because I did not want to speak to you for I did want to, I didn’t want to treat you as if you were an entire stranger and to tell you the truth I really felt bad all the afternoon on account of the way I had treated you. I mean bad not badly.

     Now I will tell you another reason I have for writing. Ma and all my folks and Freem’s too think that you and I have had trouble of some kind. Ma said the other day she guessed that you and I have had trouble for she could think of no other reason why you wouldn’t ever come and see us when you are up here.

     I started out Thanksgiving Day to have a talk with you but as Lester was with you I gave it up. Now Leon you are welcome to come here as often as you can and will. We would all, myself included, be glad to have you come. Another thing that made her (Ma) think we had had trouble was because Maude had not written to me for so long. She thought Maude had taken your part.

    Now if you, Winnie and Tommy are still in Beltrami Co. and Christmas time we want you to be sure and come to our house and spend Christmas Day with us as we intend to have the relation in this county here if the weather is so they can come.
Be sure and come for dinner.

     Another item of business is, that the boys say they are talking of having a school house built ready for school by the First of Jan. in the Dist,. we live in here and they thought it would be a good chance for a winter term for you if you wanted it.

    Well I think I have better quit for fear you will get sick of reading this, I wouldn’t blame you if you did have no better feeling than disquiet for me, but I will feel some better now that I have begged pardon.

                                                                                       Respectfully Yours
                                                                                       Alice E. Anderson

P.S. Byron got a deer yesterday. I suppose we will never see Maude Gould again. How different her wedding was from anything we had ever imagined in years gone by.