"I could not help thinking of you all day": The Beginning of the Armstrong letters

Here in a bulging manila folder on my desk are 95 or 96 letters written by various members of Edward McCarty Armstrong's family, from 1878-1889. Most of these letters are addressed to Baker White Armstrong, Sr., my husband's and sister-in-law's great-grandfather, although a few are addressed to Baker's brother Robert and a couple are addressed to both young men. For young men they were then. Baker was born in 1858, and his brother shortly thereafter, so these letters span their twenties and thirties when they were trying to find their way in the world. Baker and Robert were sons of Edward and his second wife Louisa Tapscott White, a marriage that produced seven children, three boys and four daughters: Fannie, Baker, Robert, Jane, Nettie, Kate, and Charles. And the letters reveal how much these family members depended upon one another as well as the great affection they all had for one another. The children from the first marriage are often mentioned as well, for when Louisa married the widowed Edward, the children of Edward and Hannah Pancake were all under twenty years of age, and the youngest daughter of that first marriage was still at home in 1878, at "Edgewood," the farm Edward had purchased after the Civil War.

One history of Romney, West Virginia, where Edward McCarty Armstrong had lived more prosperously before the Civil War, describes the life of Edward after the Civil War as one lived in "genteel poverty." The letters reveal the details of that poverty while the writers of the letters struggled to maintain the gentility of a more prosperous time. The family increasingly turned to Baker and Robert to help out monetarily. The two boys went out into the world seeking employment beyond their older half-brothers' mercantile and drug businesses, to Baltimore, Maryland; Roanoke and Salem, Virginia; and, finally, to Texas. During that time the Armstrong family was to suffer one sorrowful blow after another, all shared in letters from "Edgewood," from the "affectionate" father and the "loving" mother.

Edward generally closed his letters to his sons with Yours Affty [Affectionately], EM Armstrong, Sr, or Your Affectionate Father, EM Armstrong, Sr. Louisa always closed hers with your loving Mother. However, in the first letter Edward wrote Baker and Robert after their mother's death, Edward closed with Your loving Father, as if he had taken on something of his wife's spirit in her passing.  Here, however, we will begin with two letters that Louisa wrote on July 30th  and July 31st, 1878. Because the letters are separated from their mailing envelopes, I cannot tell where the letters originated, but Louisa is evidently not at home. The first letter is addressed to Baker and has what looks like "R. B. S. Springs" written at the top of the first page. It seems that Louisa is there, away from home, perhaps at a hot springs to recuperate from an illness. With her are at least two of her children, Fannie, the oldest, and Charles, the youngest.

My Dear Baker
We received your interesting letter by your Pa & were quite entertained. We look regularly every night for news from home & I find that we have used nearly all our papers & stamps. This certainly is no place for me to come for pleasure; but I feel better and stronger and I do sincerely hope I may be much more benefitted. I am so tired [of] moping about. We have made some acquaintances here; but the people you meet here are very different from those I admire. It has been raining here a good deal for several days; but I enjoy that kind of weather more than the bright hot suns (sic). We are looking for you and Jane on Thursday; but as you have to return that night, be sure to start very early. Get your Pa or the Dr. to let you off.

The letter continues with instructions about what clothes Jane is to wear on the trip and about what Louisa wants her son to bring with him for Fanny. In addition, she relays messages that Charles wants to give to his older brother. At the end of the letter she mentions that the ride takes three hours, so perhaps  someone who wanted to do the geographical research could make some educated guesses as to where Louisa was staying at the time. The letter also suggests that Baker was working at the time for "the Dr.," probably a druggist at his older, half- brother's store.


The letter that Louisa writes her husband the next day is a bit more worried, as these excerpts reveal:

My Dear Husband
I hope you reached home safely on yesterday and did not get wet. We missed you so, and especially after supper; we did not have you to chat with us, as we sat on the porch. I could not help thinking of you all day and troubled to see you so much depressed. It seems to me you are more so, than when I left home. Do throw off of your mind as much as possible those worrying matters and cheer up.

That there was something troubling the family is suggested in the following lines, where Louisa refers to "Jimmie," that is, James Armstrong, one of Edward's older sons by his first wife, Hannah:

I feel about as usual today. I think I will write to Jimmie this week. I am afraid I might say something I ought not.

Later we will learn much more about the sorrows and joys of the family of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, who are represented in the photographs at the top of this post. Handwriting that is most likely their granddaughter's,  that of Baker's oldest daughter, Katharine Armstrong, appears on the back of these photographs, identifying the images as "Grandfather Armstrong" and "Grandmother Armstrong." A stamp and handwriting on Edward's photo indicates that it was taken on April 13, 1866. For a better view, click on the photos.