Carl Friedrich Gauss - 1844-02-15

Friday Aprl 12th, 1911

My dear niece,
                        Your very welcome letter rec'd.  glad to know you & Eugine are well through this long severe winter.  seems as tho we are not to have any good weather for gardening.  Got my hot bed planted yesterday.  It's very late but the best we can do.  garden is entirely too wet to work and now its raining again.  Often, this time o year, we have many things from the garden on our table.  We do not have the care & management of the elements, so we can trust the lord to do what is best for us.  He knows all our needs & will give us just what is best altho we deserve nothing.  He has given us life & health with all necessary comforts & surely we ought not complain, but praise Him for all his goodness & mercy.  When we consider all those in the floodded sough, their sufferings & privations, we wonder why we have been spared.  Laura's husband is sick with cancer of the stomache, with no hope of recovery.
        I am glad to have such a good account of Joe Fawcett, - his beginning as a youth was not so promising.  I do not know what year Grand-pa Fawcett came to america, but think 'twas after the Revolutionary war was over.  I remember hearing Ma speak of seeing a memorial procession of Gen. Washington's funeral. She was quite a small girl & did not then know anything of the war, which was more than eight years before.  Grand Pa Keyes moved to harrisonburg after living at the Sweet Springs; then he married his housekeeper after Ma's mother died.
        Then Joseph Fawcett (Pa) came there a deputy Sheriff.  Ma was dissatisfied with her Step-mother, married pa, took her brother Isaac and her sister Pheobe to live with her and raised them, they were quite young children.  Yes ma was a child when sh lived at the Sweet Springs Grandpa Keyes only rented the place, dont know how long he had it.  Pa was the eldest of the sons & daughters of Grand Pa Fawcett:  there is no evidence to show that he was ever in any war, and I feel certain if there was, Ma & Keysey would have found it out; there was nothing which stirred up their wrath like talking of the "Brightesh" altho her father was an Englishman She never could get over her hatred of the "Red coats"  There are many of the name of Keyes in this country but none who are related to us that we ever knew outside the sons & daughters of Grand Pa.  The other son was Benjamine Fawcett who moved to Ohio many years ago.  Ginney Campbell told me there was a settlement of them in the northern part of State - said they were just "Baked Beans Yankees."  Pa's five Sisters moved away  Aunt Annie Bright & Aunt Molly Harrison to Indiana, aunt Hetty Odell & Aunt Kincaid (I forgotten her given name) to Kentucky and Aunt Betsy Kincaid to Saline Co. Mo.  The two Kincaids were no akin at all.  We never heard from any of them and have no knowlede of their locations or their deaths.  Grandpa Fawcett married the second time and had a large family of that wife -- did not see the cousin you mention. -- thought he was a half brother of Pa's.
        This is hardly the time a year for geese to be good, but a nice fat one, is fine.  Other folks are having the poultry fever, but the season is so late and the rats have been so that it hardly pays to set the hens.  Nin had a lot of hens setting all right but the rats have taken the eggs so she has only a small bunch of chicks.  Folks around O'Fallon have all new Incubators "Old Trusty" is the kind.  Susan has not done much with her chickens; sells a great many eggs.  Lost nearly all my plants that first hard freeze in Nov.  Saturday afternoon, Heavy rain yesterday, has still further delayed farm & garden work.
        Nin is giving a party to the O'Fallon High School class, of which Virgil is a member.  There are twelve of them due now, but clouds & thunder threaten so they may not get here.  Larry Henry[?] keeps so unwell.  he ought to come to the country to recuperate if the weather ever gets at all suitable.  remember me to Eugene with the kindest love for yourself from your old aunt.

L. C. McCluer