Letters, long lost

I'm busy with the artifact collection portion of the Nora Show. This morning I peeked in an old hat box that belonged to my grandmother (Nora). There I found a small collection of letters addressed to her, written between 1909 and1913. They were almost all from her father, Eugene Mahoney.

Nora was 16 in 1909, living with her uncle & aunt, attending school at Washington Academy, in Machias, Maine then on to Secretarial School. Her brother Paul was at sea on coastal vessels still sailing with full canvas. Nora's father, Eugene, stepmother, Susie and half brother, Max were living in Goose Cove, West Tremont Maine. Her father was scalloping and fishing, her stepmother was a busy seamstress. The letters have a folksy tone, many ending with the sentence, "All hands are in good health" I might adopt that phrase with my journal entries. They end in 1913 when her father died tragically from blood poisoning resulting from a blistered foot. Nora was barely 20, she lost her mother, at 2 after Lulu Ellen gave birth to her brother Paul in 1895.


For the Record,
This day came in cool and sunny , a dry and gorgeous October day.
"All hands are in good health"