Half of a Letter by Matthew

This is the last letter I have from the envelope my dad and I found, and it's only a fragment of a letter. Considering only one side of the page is used, this is probably one third of a letter. But I hope that someone has the other page. If you do, here's the rest of that letter. Do you think you could tell me what the first part is about?

Seeing as how this is the last part of the letter, I don't know when it was written. It's still centers around Annie and Jack possibly moving to the States. My guess is this letter was written specifically to Jack, since Matthew mentions spitting. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's still pretty funny.

It's kind of sad seeing this story come to an end, but it was interesting. I do know Annie and Jack finally did make it out here, as the Nelson Genealogy has a picture of her (sadly, at Matthew's funeral in 1943). There could be more letters and more pictures, even though Matthew suggests to them that they shouldn't bring any.

Matthew and Amy went on to have four more children, one of which was my grandmother, Wilma. She is the lovely toddler gracing the top of this blog.

I do have some pictures that we found. I'll post them as soon as I can.

...are not any dearer here than in England. Amy bought fur muffs for Nancy and Nellie on Saturday and she paid 65 cents each for the real french coney (maybe?) skin, woolen singlets 10 cents, mens under shirts & pants 19 cents each, ladies the same, so you see we can buy as cheap here as you can of course if you come bring all your good bed clothes such as blankets & sheets etc and your cutlery. I would not advise you to bring any dishes or pictures or anything breakable. Shoes are cheap enough here so there is no use getting any extra and if you go out waiting and cooking you will get lots of things given you as my Aunt goes out sometimes and she gets all sorts of things and she never gets less than 2 Dollars a day and all her food. So I think I have told you nearly all I can think of at present. We are having lovely weather here just now, plenty of snow and frost Friday morning. When I went to work it was 12 degrees below zero and Saturday it was 15 below so you see it gets a little bit chilly sometimes. When you try to spit on the ground it falls in a little icecicle but it don't seem to be very cold as the air is drier of course if you stood out it would soon freeze you to death. I will now conclude. Hoping this will give you an idea of how things are here and hoping to see you all very soon.

I remain your ever loving brother

Matthew Nelson  

The next segment on this blog will feature letters we found from my grandfather to my grandmother. Thanks for reading this segment and I hope you enjoy the next one!