Letters, 1895-1902.

ArchivalResource

Brooks, J. Louis (John Louis), b.1879. Letters, 1895-1902.

Letters, 1895-1902.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/261233719

A small group of letters addressed to Louis Brooks from family and friends. Unfortunately, there are no letters from Louis. His correspondents wrote about what they were doing, a variety of activities from taking canoe trips to getting drunk. His sister Edith was especially keen on music; she attended many concerts, took piano lessons, and began singing in public. Sister Ruth liked to go ice skating and snow shoeing, which Louis also enjoyed. He and his male friends played basketball, attended fraternity parties, rode bicycles, took photos, and went on canoe trips. Everyone enjoyed going to dances, athletic events, plays, and parties, and they all moaned about their school work. Some friends' letters were mostly boasts about getting drunk and about their successes with women. Mr. Brooks wrote a long letter with details of his trip to the woods of Nova Scotia. While in his second year at Amherst, Louis began to send sketches home, and several letters mention how much his family enjoyed them. Later in New York, Louis continued to send sketches to his family, and they praised his progress. Although the family was not poor (they put in a telephone in 1902), Louis spent summers working in the New Hampshire mountains, and both his sisters worked, Edith singing and at an art gallery, and Ruth as a teacher in a very small rural school. Louis' friends often decried their lack of money. One letter gives a Thanksgiving dinner menu; others list Christmas and birthday presents. Among Louis' correspondents were Anson Ely Morse, the cousin of a cousin, and Chester Whitney Wright, both of whom are listed in Who was Who in America, volume 4. A letter from his cousin Mary Elizabeth Morse mentions that she is working in a lab at Johns Hopkins University in order to earn money for medical school. Sketches of men and of a steamboat are found on the back of one envelope and letter. Also in the collection is a printed Latin exam from Amherst and several wedding and graduation invitations. As well, three letters not related to Louis Brooks found their way into the collection. One letter is addressed to C.A. Brooks of New Hampshire. The other two are addressed to B.J. Balch and are from his daughter, apparently a worker for the American Sunday School Union in Vermont.

184 items : ill.

Winterthur Library