Dakota Family History Letter from a Father to His Daughter in Watford City on Illness, Kinship, and Care, 1894

Father Letter To His Daughter

Manuscripts & Autographs

Unidentified father. Autograph letter, 28 May 1894, written from Watford City, North Dakota, to his daughter and documenting illness, family estrangement, and the practical difficulties of securing care within an extended family network. The writer expresses distress at having left his daughter “so poorly and with strangers,” criticizes her mother’s relatives for failing to offer sufficient support, recalls the sacrifices made by her deceased mother, and repeatedly reassures his daughter of his own affection and concern.

Watford City, North Dakota, 28 May 1894. Four pages folded from a single sheet. The writer opens, “My darling child, I cannot tell you how sorry I feel to have left you so poorly and with strangers,” before condemning what he sees as the indifference of her maternal relatives. He contrasts their behavior with that of the daughter’s mother, writing that she “many a score of times used to trudge off alone to Pollys when she was scarcely able to do so.” He advises his daughter that “You will have to look to outsiders rather than to them to seek for sympathy,” then turns to his own sense of responsibility: “I now feel how much I should like to be always with you” and “would do anything & everything to make your life more worth living.” He closes by hoping that when he sees her again he will find her “once again beauteous and cheerful,” signing himself “your affect Father.”

The letter preserves a private account of sickness, bereavement, kinship obligations, and dependence on both relatives and non-family caregivers in the late nineteenth century. Its emotional force comes from the father’s explicit comparison between the care once provided by his daughter’s mother and the inadequate assistance he believes her surviving relatives now offer. No condition statement has been supplied.

Item #15087

Price: $225.00