8.27.1911 ~ Letter (#2) from Margaret Murray Miller

The year of 1911 brought many changes for Margaret's family.  Her cousin, Amelia, had moved to Berthoud, Colorado which was now 27 miles away from where Margaret lived in Boulder.  Margaret and her sister Rachel had both given birth to new babies.  Margaret's new baby was born on April 28th.  She was named Ruth.  Perhaps an even bigger change to Margaret's life though was the loss of her mother, Mary.

Mary Culver Murray  was born in 1844 in Little Valley, New York.  She had lived most of her childhood without a father. Her father, Lyman Culver, had died when she was just 7 years old.  Lyman died at the young age of 48 after he served on a grand jury and contracted typhoid fever.  Eleven men on the jury died. When Mary was in her twenties, she and her mother (Sarah Price Culver) followed her older brother, Cary Culver, to Colorado.  Here,  she met and married her husband, Alexander Murray, in 1879.  She would have been 34 at the time of her marriage and Alexander was six years younger.  She was 39 when Margaret was born and 43 when Rachel was born.  Amazing!  Mary and Alexander raised their girls at their ranch on Ralston Creek.  She died at home at the age of 66.  Before her death, she and Alexander celebrated the birth of 7 grandchildren and suffered the loss of one.  Alexander lived nine years after Mary's death.

Mary Culver Murray is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheatridge, CO

When Margaret's next letter was postmarked on August 28th, her new baby girl would have been exactly 4 months.There's no return address on this envelope . . . who would have time for such things with four children ranging from 4 years-old to 4 months?  The letter is addressed to:

Mrs. Amelia Cole

Berthoud, Colorado

R.H.D No. 5

I have to confess that I feel a little bit uncomfortable publishing this next letter because it contains some pretty personal information in it.  The guys might want to skip the entire paragraph about "the remedy" but I think it's something that our grandmother wouldn't have minded us girls knowing - obviously she felt comfortable enough to share it with her cousin, so why not her granddaughters?  I also think she must have been the kind of woman who did not blush easily as you will come to understand in the letter.  So ladies read the letter with an understanding of life 100 years ago.  

• Average life expectancy was 54.
• There were only 100 people who were known to be 100 years old (now there are 9300). 
• Tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death. 
• About 7 moms died during labor out of every 1,000 births & 1 in 10 babies died before their first birthday
• Most homes lacked indoor plumbing
• About a quarter had phones
• No air conditioners or refrigerators
• Cars were hot sellers but there were relatively few and very few paved roads
• First Hollywood film was shot in the fall of 1911 

But it was the heyday of women's suffrage and Colorado was the first state in the country to give women the right to vote (1893) - a full 27 years before it was won nationally.  So it seems that the women from Colorado were a unique breed.  In the book Representative Women of Colorado which was published in 1911, the preface says, ". . .the women of Colorado hold a unique position in the world.  They have the ballot, a privilege denied their sisters in most other states and other lands.  In no other part of the 

world is woman so important a factor.....as in the Rocky Mountain west."  

Grandmother Miller's second letter reads......

Boulder Colo

August 27th, 1911

Dear Amelia,


This is Sunday evening and a good time to answer your letter received so long ago.  


We are all well again now John is feeling fine after his sick spell he was having when Aunt Vinnie was here.  How are you all standing the summer heat?  It's not so hot this summer as usual do you think?  How are the babies?  My little one is a fine little girl now.  I thank you for the babies picture you sent me.  I hope I may have some pictures taken some day and I'll sure remember you.  


I expect you are waiting for the promised letter with the remedy in it.  Well you go to the drug store or send someone who doesn't blush and ask for a little sponge in a silk net the price is a quarter and then you get 15 cents worth of glycerin and put it in a little glass jar and add a good half teaspoon of salt, and put the sponge in the jar .  If you wish I can go get this little sponge for you. The idea is this, eggs that are salted won't hatch, the salt kills all germs and when you think you are in danger of anything , insert this sponge during the day and take away when you go to bed and then take a wash and insert again for a while.  Of course it feels a little uncomfortable but you will soon get used to it.  It has been alright for me so far.


We went down home last Saturday and stayed over Sunday.  Papa seemed to be feeling pretty good and Rachel too but it is hard for them both.  Rachel just stays in the kitchen all the time and it seems so strange not to see Mama on the porch when we drive up.  Little Edward says Grandma gone away. Rachel says she keeps thinking how Mama limped around to help take care of her when the little baby was born.  She did not know she was so sick.  





As ever your loving cousin
Margaret Miller


P.S. If you come to Boulder in September, be sure and come see me.  MSM  

Now you know "the remedy" and the fact that Margaret thought it was working fairly well for her......but she did have four children in about four years, so I'm not so sure about the effectiveness of this remedy!

If you'd like to know a little more about Rocky Mountain women in 1911, check out this link.  It a link to the book I mentioned earlier and the fascinating thing is that Margaret Murray Miller's aunt, Mary Miller, is listed along with her picture.  The woman next to Mary Miller is surely a relative when you look at her name, but I'm not sure of the relationship.  Check it out, it's fascinating to page through.

Representative Women of Colorado in 1911

The Power of a Handwritten Letter

One of the things I don't like about technology is the fact that it has given people an excuse not to write letters anymore.  Letters used to be the only way that people with distance between them could communicate.  When is the last time you sat down and wrote a letter? Can you imagine being a mother in Europe whose children have all sailed for America?  Can you imagine saying good-bye, knowing that you probably would never see them again and that your only link to them would be handwritten letters?  When I really sit down and think about a scenario like this, I realize that every time I think I am so adventurous in all of my travels, I am truly a wimp.  I don't believe I could have withstood a prospect such as this and yet it's something that our ancestors faced or we wouldn't be here. When I started my genealogy research in the 90's, I received a letter in the mail that will forever color my opinion about emails and my belief about the importance of letters.

We have to have a little family history lesson before the story of "the letter" will make sense . . . bear with me.  As a child, my cousins and I  heard plenty of stories about Grandpa Wyant's family and his famous Civil War grandfather who died with a silver dollar in his head - perhaps one of the only men in history who actually "took at least a little bit of it with him!"  The stories of Grandpa "Hole in the Head" as my son called him when he was little abounded but we never heard much about the Colorado family that Grandma Wyant grew up in.  So naturally, I was curious.  That curiosity grew when I discovered the death certificate of Mary Culver.

Mary's death certificate led to stories that Grandma Wyant might not have even known - the story of her maternal grandmother's family.  The story of Grandma Wyant's family goes all the way back to the year 1635 when our first ancestor in America, Edward Colver (later changed to Culver) came from Middlesex, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  His family grew and prospered in the east and for eight generations, Culver was the family name. The Culver family moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut to New York state.

The Courthouse in Little Valley, Cattaraugus County, New York
where the Culvers lived.

The earliest picture that we have of a Culver - 7th Generation.
Noah Culver ~ Born 1779 ~  Died 1864 ~

When the ninth generation was born, two major changes took place: 1) the first girl in our family line, Mary Culver was born, eventually leading to her marriage and the change of the family name to Murray, and 2) the family became true pioneers by moving to Gold Hill, Colorado Territory in 1860 during the gold rush.

The family name of Culver would have been lost had it not been for the man that Mary Culver eventually married, Alexander Murray.  Mary's father, Lyman Culver, died in New York (1851)  just a year after Alexander was born in far away Scotland.  But when Mary Culver Murray died in 1911, he supplied all of the information about her family on her death certificate.  This was the key that opened the door to over 200 years of Culver family history.

Mary Culver and Alexander Murray married in 1879.  They raised their two daughters, Margaret Silver Murray and Rachel Culver Murray in Colorado on Ralston Creek .

Rachel and Margaret Murray

The ranch on Ralston Creek was purchased for the family by Mary's Chicago real estate tycoon sister, Helen Culver. Eventually, the Ralston Creek land would become the city of Arvada (with streets named after the family) and the ranch would be the summer get-away for the Wyant boys from Indiana.

We don't have a picture of Mary Culver but these are her sisters and brother
Aurelia, Helen, Robert, and Susan 

So back to the letter story.... while I was researching our family, I met a cousin who was from Culver City, California (yes, part of our family went on to California).  We communicated back and forth for a while, knitting the family history together between us and one day I received a note from him saying that he had something that really should belong to me and that I should expect a package.  What a mystery!

The package finally arrived and when I opened it, five yellowed envelopes fell out. Each envelope was addressed in the most beautiful cursive handwriting, postmarked between 1910 and 1935, and  stamped with two cent stamps. They each were addressed to Amelia Cole in Longmont, Colorado and they were coming from Mrs. J. P. Miller (Margaret Silver Murray Miller) from Boulder, Colorado.  Amelia and Margaret were cousins.

In case you don't know much about Colorado, the distance between Longmont and Boulder is only about 14 miles.  These two women lived 14 miles apart and they wrote letters to each other.  Yes, times have changed.  Of course this is not the first thing that I thought of when I opened the letters.  My first realization was that I was holding in my hands five envelopes that were addressed by my great grandmother, a woman who knew she had a great grandchild coming but who never lived to know my name or gender.  She died in December of 1953 and I was born a little over three months later.  My hands were shaking as I opened the envelopes to read.

Before I share one of the letters, I want to point out that if email had been king in 1911, we wouldn't have these little glimpses into the life of one of our grandmothers . . . which is why I urge everyone to keep in touch with the email, but drop a handwritten note to someone you love every once in a while.  You never know what it might mean to someone someday - someone that you don't even know right now.

Margaret's first letter

Postmarked March 29, 1910 at 5:30 PM at Boulder, Colo

Return Address:                                  After 5 days, return to
                                                            Mrs. J.P. Miller
                                                            R.D. Route No. 2
                                                            Boulder, Colo.

Addressed to:                                          Mrs. J.A. Cole

                                                               Longmont, Colo

                                                               R.D. No. 5

            The letter is written on stationary from the Local Union No. 578

                                        International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and reads. . .

Boulder , Colo

March 30th, 1910

Dear Amelia,

John saw Mr. Dalton a few days ago and asked him about the cider and he said to put one pound of mustard seed to eight gallons of cider and keep corked up tight.  I had intended to go down there some day and ask them about it but Amelia it is almost impossible for me to go anywhere unless I work till I'm all tired out and then I'm too tired to go.  I washed four big lines of clothes today and I feel like I have done something.  Last week I cleaned house.  It's early yet but my house is small and gets dirty so quick and I have so awful much sewing to do that I must get at it. 

The babies and John and I are all well and again I'm just sick over one thing.  I lost my diamond set out of my ring.  It has been out of the ring for some time and here the other day I was opening the box I had it in and it slipped out and I saw it hit a little glass thing on the dresser and where it went from there I don't know. We have hunted and hunted and given up and I just feel so bad I don't know what to do.  John says someday he will get me a new set of some kind to put in the ring.

I had a letter from Rachel a few days ago.  She is sick in bed just now for a few days.  She had a mishap at three months.  I was down home not long ago.  Rachel's boy is a fine little fellow and Rachel is nearly as big as Henry.  She weighs over one hundred and eighty five pounds.  I'm not so tiny since Helen was born.  I weigh about one hundred and sixty pounds. 

I expect you think I have forgotten you but don't get time enough to write very many letters.  How are all the folks?  I would love to see the baby.  Anyone can call me at Noel Ward's Red 134.  They live only a few steps from us.  

Must close for now for it's getting late and I'm awful tired.  I'll try and write oftener. 

Yours lovingly,

Margaret 

At the time that Margaret wrote this letter, her "babies" would have been Irwin (age 3), our grandmother, Alberta (age 19 months), and Helen (age 5 months).  She would be "in the family way" soon after this letter was written because her next baby, Ruth, was born a little over a year after this letter was written.

The Millers
Margaret Murray Miller is holding Alberta and Irwin
John Pierson Miller is holding Helen and Ruth

Wyant women . . . our grandmother had many of the same worries and concerns that we did/do as young moms . . . she felt overwhelmed frequently and there was always more work to do than hours in the day; she worked hard for her family; she felt guilty for not keeping in touch with the people she cared about; she gained weight after babies; cared about her sister;  and she loved her diamond ring.  What more could you want in a woman?  Wyant men . . . our grandfather knew diamonds were very important!

One hundred and one years apart . . . but not so different . . . except that technology thing!  Really . . . she had to use her neighbor's phone??  And I'm guessing Red 134 was not on anyone's speed dial!

Kind of Love You/Hate You

It's seems like the world is changing exponentially every time we turn around.  I remember my grandparents saying the same thing without the word "exponentially" in the sentence....primarily because the changes were coming a lot slower back then.  Technology is radically changing the way we relate and communicate.  This is not a unique idea - it's something that we all feel.

One of the things that disturbs me is that we seem to become more impatient and less willing to wait with every new update or download.  Does any of this sound familiar?

• People (and I'm including myself in this group) who used to be completely satisfied with receiving a letter delivered by a guy in blue with a bag over his shoulder now want an attachment on an email or a text.  I confess that I'm often too lazy to find a piece of paper and a pencil to write down a telephone number or address - instead I say "send me a text."  
• We used to pay for long distance, now we pay for data plans.  
• We used to walk out the door and set the answering machine, now we turn around and drive back home if we've forgotten our cell phones.  
• We used to memorize telephone numbers....now we remember speed dial codes.  Not long ago, someone stole my Blackberry in New York.  I temporarily replaced it with a cheap little phone just to get my granddaughter home to Atlanta (heaven forbid I would travel without some sort of communication devise in my purse).  My husband told me to call him when we got to the airport - I couldn't!  I dialed "G" and of course nothing happened.  I still don't know his phone number without looking it up.  
• We used to send birthday cards....now we send e-greetings.  (Can't really say I disagree with this one....have you bought a greeting card lately!  If you can find one under three or four dollars, it's a miracle!)  
• Instead of having lunch with our old friends, we "friend" (yes, friend is now a verb) them on Facebook, look at their pictures for a snapshot of their lives and then go on with ours.   
• Who sends a fax anymore?  When I lived in Saudi Arabia, I was amazed at the fax machine (then called a facsimile).  How was it possible for that letter to appear before my eyes all the way from the United States?
• My parents spent a lot of hard-earned money for a set of encyclopedias from a traveling salesman.  Now we google something or use Wikipedia.
• Greg and I used to read the Sunday paper and complain about the black ink all over our hands from the New York Times.  Now,  more often than not,  the same paper is delivered to our front door and it sits on the coffee table while we both read the downloaded version on our laptops.  

Well I'm sure you more than get my drift.  This is not an experience that is unique to me.  We are all living it. I have a kind of love you/hate you relationship with technology as you probably do as well.  I talked to my father about starting this blog together and his first comment was that he didn't want to be doing any "twitting, tooting, or whatever that thing was that was causing all the Wiener problems."  I assured him that we wouldn't be doing any of that.  But he proceeded to tell me a story of an old preacher which assured me that he "gets it."

The old preacher stood in the pulpit one day with a hammer raised over his head and said "I can do one of two things with this hammer.  I can build something like a house or a porch swing.  Or I can kill someone with it."  My dad used this as an analogy for the internet and technology.  There's good and there's bad - just depends how you use it.  So true and his years of wisdom and perspective are something that my middle school students lack.  Much of my day used to be spent counseling students because of the content of a note that was confiscated by a teacher.  That hasn't happened in years.  Now my first question when someone comes into my office is "Where did this happen?"  Eighty percent of the time, the answer is "Facebook."  The other twenty percent is "the bathroom."  

So why start a blog?  Why promote the madness?  Primarily because like it or not, we are communicating differently these days.  I envision building a Wyant House of History with it that the younger Wyants can take part in.  My cousins and I used to sit around and listen to our uncle's stories - it was our entertainment.  They're the greatest stories.  They are the stuff great adventure books are made of.  I've begged my dad and his brothers to write this stuff down and it just hasn't happened so I'm hoping a blog will help the process.  I'll be the typist.  They will be the storytellers. We'll lose something - the sheer joy and laughter that came when they were all together spinning their stories and playing tag team with their sentences.  But it'll be better than nothing.

The other thing I'd like to do is to share some real life letters that we have in the family.  I'll tell the story of that later but we have some family history written down in the way of cards, letters and journals that I think is valuable to our family and worthy of publication so that we all can enjoy. 

And so begins "Tales from the Beech Hills."  I'll send emails out when there is a new posting.  Visit it and follow it.  At some point, we will be able to put this together in a real life paper book that you can buy and put on your library shelf.  Does anyone have a home library anymore?

The Wyants from the Beech Hills
Front Row: Margaret  Diane, Walbert (Walb), Alberta (Bertie), Dwight
Back Row:  Doyle, Denny, Richard (Dick) and Duane

Sidebar thought.......

Several years ago when we were at a family reunion at Hamline Chapel, my daughter Ashli and I were sitting at my Grandma and Grandpa's grave and talking.  I've often told my kids that Grandpa died exactly one month after Grandma - of a broken heart.  So they've always understood that the two of them had a great love for each other.  As we were sitting there talking, Ashli said, "Mom, look at their names...They loved each other so much their names were the same with only two letters different."

Walbert and Alberta 

Something I had never noticed but what a sweet way to think about the two people who are the true authors of this blog.  Through their lives and the joy and love they brought to their family as they grew, they live on in our hearts.  So Walbert, Alberta and the six D's...... here are your Tales from the Beech Hills.