Pleasant Valley Ills.

Jan’y 21, 1883

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Dear Brother

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As usual a long time has passed since I wrote to you or received any word from you.

I have many times purposed to write and something would interrupt and prevent. I don’t write by lamplight and there are always so many things to take one’s time by day that it is very difficult for me to write letters.

We are in the midst of winter now, and it is cold and blustering today. I wish there could be some way that you could come and visit us all and settle somewhere near the rest of us, or do you like that country best. I hope you don't have such blizzards as we do here.

The last letter I saw from you was one you wrote to Tempe in which you spoke of your life as a failure. I have thought often of that. Why should you regard your life in that light. No life need be a failure if we make that use of it which our Creator designed we should. If you feel that you have made great mistakes so do we all. God promises to forgive all mistakes and sins if we come to Him through Christ. May He win you to trust wholly in his love and mercy; then your life though it has been a wandering restless one will not be a failure but a blessed success.

 

Monday Jan’y 22

When I commenced writing yesterday I thought a half sheet would hold all I could write. If I could see you there would be many things to say but it is slow work for me to write. I do so little of it late years, and there are so many things to interrupt. 

Is your P.O. still Kamiloops. Is that country settling up, and is it a good country? Do you have intelligent neighbors? Are the winters long and cold? Our boys sometimes think they would like to have us sell and go into a new region. Would we gain by coming into your part of the world?

Howard was in Colorado one year and liked it, but that is not a farming country. He begun to get restless last fall and talked of going back to the mountains and I persuaded him to go to school awhile first. He is in Dixon now studying Phonography, Drawing and German and I hope he will be led into some branch of business that will keep him out of the mines.

Wherever our lot is cast in life let us try to live right and exert an influence for good upon our neighbors and associates. Then, though in a worldly point of view our lives may seem failures in the true light they will be bright and successful.

May the opening year bring you health and happiness and all the blessings that God sees best to give. Please write to some one of us as often as you can. 

Your sister Mary