TO: Sophronia Troupe – Fostoria, Ohio (Seneca Co.)
FROM: Amos Troupe – Dimondale, MI (Eaton Co.)
Envelope – yes
Miss Sophronia Troupe April 5, 1874
I will now try and answer your letter which I received some time ago but was negligent about answering. But it is Easter Sunday and I was goint to Dimondale to Church. So I thought I would take this letter down to mail it. It is pretty cold now for this time of the year. I heard that your neck bothers you again. Write me a letter just as soon as you get this and let me know how it is getting along and whether you can’t get it cured with some of the doctors in Fostoria. You tell Israel {Israel Troupe} if he wants that horn, he wants to write and let me know something about it. We made about or pretty near three hundred pounds of sugar. It has been too cold for sugar water to run. So we have not made any for a week or more. It is snowing today. We are all well but I have a bad cold. Lizzy {Sarah Elizabeth Troupe} is working out for a family in Dimondale by the name of Burton Blogett Esq. I don’t know as I shall come out there this summer or not. It depends on circomstances if I should take a notion to go then. I would be very apt to come. I must close. Write Immediately. From Amos Troupe to Miss Sophronia Troupe – Fostoria, Ohio
To: Sophronia Troupe (Niece) Fostoria, Ohio
And Susannah (Stahl) Hutchins
From: Anna Liza Hutchins – Kendallville, Ind.
And Lydia Story
Envelope – yes
Dear Mother and Niece, April 17th, 1874
I set down to write you a few lines to let you know how we get along. They are all well but myself. I am almost sick and have been for some time. I have a pain in my side and breast but I hope these few lines will find you all enjoying good health.
I received your letter this morning and was very glad to hear from you all and I got Mother’s picture and I thank her very much for it.
I would like to see you all again, for the time seems very long to me when I hant well. I guess I will go to the doctor if I don’t soon get better and get some medicine.
Well Frony, {Sophronia Troupe} I got a letter from Lizzie {Sarah Elizabeth Troupe} the other day. She wrote she was working out and got a dollar a week. She said she hadn’t got any letter from you for a long time. She said she would send me one of her pictures when she gets them taken and she would send you one if you would write her a letter. I wrote her one yesterday but I hant sent it yet. I guess I will send it tomorrow.
Well we made some garden. We planted onions but the weather is so cold that things don’t grow much.
Frony did you hear from Mandy Burgoon since she went home? Tell Louisa Feebles I want make me a “rapper”? I don’t need one til next winter. Then it will be too cold to wear them. Tell her I send my best respects to her. So no more at present for I have a pain in my shoulder that I can’t hardly write. Write soon.
Lydia Story to Frony Troupe
Well Frony, {Sophronia Troupe} I most forgot to tell you how many Easter eggs I eat. I eat four. Two for you and two for myself. I cooked two dozen and eight for dinner. Jerome {Jerome Douglas Hutchins} was here Easter. He come over on Saturday evening. It stormed all day and on Monday morning the snow was as deep as it was any time this winter.
Well Frony, {Sophronia Troupe} the children are gone to bed and are asleep. Analiza {Anna Liza Hutchins} is here now. She helped me wash today. I think she is a very good little girl. Cena {Sarah Delcena Hutchins} is most as big as I am. Roscoe’s {Roscoe Gustavia Hutchins} are all well. Jonas {Jonas Michael Hutchins} is working for his father. I guess I will quit for tonight. So good bye.
Well Fronie, {Sophronia Troupe} I will write a few lines as Aunt Lydia {Lydia Stahl Hanas} is a writing.
Tell Grandmother {Sarah Hampshire Stahl} we would thank her ever so many times for her pictures, if she would send us one.
Well Fronie {Sophronia Troupe} last Monday was my Birthday. I was 13 years old.
Well Fronie, {Sophronia Troupe} I eat 8 easter eggs. I don’t believe I eat any for you, for I didn’t think of you once.
Well Fronie, {Sophronia Troupe} I most quit for this time, hoping to hear from you soon. So good bye for this time. Write soon.
From Anna Liza Hutchins to Sophronia Troupe
Write soon if you please, if not, write anyhow
To: Sophronia Troupe – Fostoria, Ohio
From: Amos Troupe – Dimondale, MI
Envelope – yes
Miss Sophronia Troupe, Apr 30, 1874
I received your letter a few days ago. I was glad to hear from you. Well, it is raining and snowing today. So we could not work so I thought I would write a letter. We have a cold backward spring. Some folks have set several their oats. We have sowed all we are going to sow. Hay is very scarce. It can’t be had for any price. The last anybody sold around here was sold for twenty dollars per ton. We have enough to put us through. We sold a half a ton.
We made about four hundred weight of sugar and molasses.
The Scarlet Fever is in Dimondale. There is a girl got it. She was taken last Monday. She is pretty sick. Her name is Marian Brant.
We have Sunday School at our school house every Sunday at two o’clock and Mr. Bird, the superintendant reads a sermon directly afterward which is very interesting if a person don’t care what he says. There is preaching every Sunday at Dimondale in the hall and Sunday School. Also they are running opposition against our Sunday School. There is a dance at the hall in Dimondale every two weeks on Friday night.
There was to be one tomorrow night but they are painting the store and so they put it off until one week from tomorrow night.
Our Summer School will commence next Monday. Lizzie {Sarah Elizabeth Troupe} is working out yet. She was to get one dollar per week. She worked two weeks at one place and they paid her the first week, but the last week, the folks she worked for moved off and did not pay her. She is coming home this week and I guess she will go to school.
When you write you let me know whether Israel {Israel Troupe} talks yet of going to Kansas.
Pop talks of selling out if he can get a buyer. His price is four thousand.
We are making fence. We have about eight acres of logging to do this spring. Corn is worth fifty cents per bushel, oats fifty five, potatoes one dollar, wheat one dollar sixty, Eggs eleven cents, butter 30 cents.
If you are at home, give this example to Israel {Israel Troupe} to work. See if he can work it in his head and tell him to write me the answer. Suppose a liberty pole is sixty feet long, 18 inches thick at the bottom and 4 at the top. An equal taper all the way. How many yards of ribbon will it take to wind round the liberty and cover it, if the ribbon is three fourths of an inch wide?
I must close. Write soon.
Amos Troupe