[Headlines from The New York Times (page 1, above the fold) to place the letters in context of the world around them.]
ROOSEVELT TRIUMPHANT IN OHIO; 15 DISTRICTS OUT OF THE 21;HARMON WINS, 2 TO 1, FROM WILSON
SUFFERAGE PARADER LOSES TEACHING JOB. Dismissed from parochial school by Parish Priest for Setting Bad Example. NEXT TO SOCIALISM, HE SAID
St. James Hotel
Utica, N. Y.
Shaw and Campbell
Feb. 22, 1911
My Darling
How do you feel and what do you think? That's the question. It is now 9:20 AM. Mr. Skinner has just gone and I have not done a tap of work. [Mr. Skinner is the co-owner of a coal and grain business in Cooperstown. John has made him an offer to buy his business interest.] We will be anxious to get final word in regard to the matter. If it's a go we will be two happy people and a united family. I can then make plans of a definite nature and settle down to a few weeks of solid work, providing the [Osborne] Co. decides to keep me.
I might decide to quit the road at once. That will depend on the conditions of deal in Cooperstown. If, on the other hand the deal fails of consummation, we will have to accept it and I must settle down to a better class of work. If it fails, I will promise you it will be some time before I shall get unsettled by any other prospective deal. It unfits a fellow for present occupation. I am entirely satisfied that the proposition is an exceptionally good one and am not going to pass it up. I can’t settle down to a good, speedy work under the conditions. Am mighty glad that I didn’t meet Mr. Avery. Have had a letter that he didn’t understand why I didn’t arrange to see him. He goes away for an extended trip in a few days. I will have an excuse not to see
him and he can go on his trip.
I expect to be home Friday night for the meeting and a visit with you. In case I get [xxx] to go to Cooperstown Saturday I hope you can plan to go with me. It will make a nice trip for you and we can see what is before us. Want you to see the town and the business at once. Don’t disappoint me in this. You need that change. I am all un-strung! Not nervous exactly but I am so anxious as to the outcome. Mr. Skinner is evidentially of the same frame of mind as I am. He wants the matter settled. He will have a talk with Mr. Kirby tonight. We may not hear for a week or two.
Must saw off and try to make a cent. How do you feel about the change? I hope you are happy.
Your loving,
John
Editor's notes
John is more energized and emotional in this letter than in any previous ones. He is clearly excited at the proposition of finally having his family together and not being on the road most days, but is also preparing to have the deal fall through and go back to being an outstanding salesman for The Osborne Company.
I found the following announcement in The Coal Trade Journal, March 15, 1911. The next letter from John to Sue is date May 24, 1911--after John had bought the company. Of note, during my many summers, holidays and other events with my great-grandmother and grandmother, in which they obsessively discussed our family history-"we're descended from The Mayflower voyagers, we lived in" this house and that house around Earlville, "Grandfather Rufus did" this or that--the fact that my grandfather owned a business in Cooperstown was never brought up. Perhaps the letters following will tell us why.
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