A Letter from Home:

Robert Gilmour

I could not bee with you

New York, 23 June 1865

I sit down to convay some of my ideas to you on paper

I have got along prity well since you left

it is prety hard to fill your place in my eyes

in reality the[re] ar[e] few can doo it

I am ancious how your howrs pafs

if ever you give me a thought atall

***

all that troubles me is the sleeping

I am going to go out to the pasure tomorrow evening

in the place whare

I would like to be my self

I cannot get along for the sleeping as I thought I could

***

my dear pet tak[e] good care

I can write but litle more to night

believe me as ever

your afection[ate] husband

Robert

good Night My dear pet

good Night.

Mary Pollock Gilmour

As time has not permitted that I complete parts II & III of the Pneumatic Retrospective I am posting this poem. Well, actually, its a poem made up from my GGGrandfathers' words taken from a love letter to his wife while she was on a trip back to County Londonderry. I have removed the gossip** and conversational asides to form the emotional content laced through out the letters, expressing his longing for her, and his distress at their being apart, into a poetic format. It may not be poetry to you but it is to me. And I am sure that it would seem so, to anyone who has been separated by time, circumstances and great distance, from the one you truly love.

**O.K., So here is some of the gossip too:

[...dear Mary I think the[re] are some thing up next door

Mrs Neal was brought home drunk tonight +

the old man hase not been hear this too nights

I think the[re] will be a brake up in the shanty prity soon

she sends her love to you sutch sorts it is but

you know she is drunk...]