Letters - PRIVATE: Leon, I do care for you, Ever Your True Friend, Alice

Dear Reader - the moment of truth!! :)

Private                                                                                                            Dec. 99
                                                                                                                   Bemidji, Minn.
Mr. Leon Gould
Bemidji, Minn.

“Leon” Your message was received last Tuesday evening, I believe if you knew all the thoughts that have passed through my mind the last few months you would be surprised. My mind has run on one subject almost entirely, and the chief object in that subject is yourself.
Leon, I have many, many times been afraid I was not doing right by not accepting your love but its seems no matter how hard I try I cannot find out the Lord’s will about the matter.
I have made up my mind that I will tell you how I feel, tell you about the matter and see if you can suggest any plan to help right the matter.

     Leon, I do care for you, I do care for you more than I have ever cared for anyone else and yet I cannot find out for sure whether I really love anyone well enough to marry him ----(dim) ---- I am just as Ma said she was, she did not know how anyone could tel when they loved anyone well enough to marry him.
But it seems that she found out in time. Would you be surprised if I told you that at the very time that we were at Mrs. Bra---s when attending -------(dim) school I was tempted time and again to accept your love but I decided everytime that maybe it would be best not to do so for fear I would regret it someday. I know that I cared for you before then and that I have cared for you since then but my opposition to cousin’s marrying --- ---- ----(dim)---- accepting you love for a time. Now if I really knew that it was the Lord’s will for us to become united in marriage I would not oppose it any longer. But how am I to find out? I have prayed and prayed over the matter and cannot feel any better satisfied – the matter than ever. I must admit that at the time during the last two year I have thought I might_for others more than for you but I have every time so far found out that it was only a passing fancy and that I really cared for you the most. Now if I could only make you happy and gain peace and happiness for myself and done the Lord’s will at the same time I would be satisfied.

    Leon, can you not think of some way that we may find out what is right for us to do? I have waited to write to you ever since I got your letter from Moose but I have been afraid to do so for fear I had not a right to do it but I am going to write anyway for I must confide in someone. If I am wrong in going to you with these trials of mine may The Lord and yourself forgive me.

    If you have found out that you do not care for me longer, if you find that you feelings towards me have changed send this letter back to me and try to forget that I ever sent it to you.
I will now close hoping and praying the Lord’s will may be shown to us in such a manner that we may know what we should do.
                                                                            Ever Your True Friend
                                                                             Alice E. Anderson

(transcribed by Samii S. Gould)