I’ve posted a number of bits about Latter-day Saint women on the Facebook page for She Shall Be an Ensign. Here is one of those bits that hasn’t before appeared on Keepa.
Dorcas Debenham King died in 1905, age 61. I ran across a tender paragraph penned by her husband, Thomas, two years later, in the middle of a business letter:
“I am still pegging away in the Bishopric that they won’t let me out of, so I must be some good, but Oh how I miss dear Dorcas, every day, she was such a help to me, and I assure you she was a stay in the Ward. I try to keep it out of my head, but like Banquo’s Ghost it will not down. The other day the Relief Society new Clerk came to ask me to help her make out her Report, and there I saw the dear & familiar hand writing of dear Dorcas and the reports I had helped her to make out. I could if I had been alone shed tears.”
I see the handwriting of secretaries and clerks all the time, of course – but somehow I’d never thought what seeing that handwriting might have meant to others.
I recently found a letter to me from my cousin written when we were about five. I posted a picture for the family on Facebook. All of her children immediately responded that it was good to see their mother’s handwriting. My cousin wrote our names and dictated the rest to her mother. I hadn’t really noticed that, but that’s all they talked about.
Handwriting is so personal. I can instantly visualize the handwriting of both parents, a grandmother, and a favorite aunt.
I like your story very much, Carol.
I recognize handwriting of my close relatives and some not so close. One day I teared up when i found a scrap of paper, not signed, but it was a Christmas list written by my mother showing what she planned to get for various people.