1958 Marion wrote a letter after Nell Miles Schafer's debilitating stroke in 1957, but before Nell's death in October 1958.
Port Hope
February 26, 1958.Dear Ed and Nell:
Nell was always better at remembering dates than I was, so I am sure you can put reliance on those she has given you.
Both Nell and I were born in Chicago in the house our parents moved into after their marriage in Belleville, Ontario, Oct. 31, 1883. It was on Forest Ave. near 33rd St. The Miles Senior family also lived on Forest Ave. about 1 ½ blocks away. My parents must have moved into the house they built at 309 E. 53rd St. when Nell was a few months old because the next baby in the family was born there in the spring of 1888. We lived there till we moved to La Grange in 1894. At that time Nell and I were both in the same grade at school for I did not start till after I was seven and she began at six. When we went to La Grange I was put in a grade ahead of her and stayed that way, but we always had many of the same friends and played together a great deal. We lived in La Grange for 4 years and moved to Omaha in the spring of '98, I was in grade 8 and Nell in 7. That fall I went to the Omaha High School and I had 2 years there, Nell one. Nell particularly made several good friends in Omaha, with whom she has kept up an intermittent correspondence. We still "played" together, but I was a little more bookish than she was. We moved to Longmont, Colo,. in June, 1900, just at the time school closed or just before; anyway I was passed as completing 2 years of High School and Nell as one. Longmont was a small town or village quite a change from Omaha or La Grange. Our father was sick, in bed 9/10 of the time with a practical nurse living in the house with us. This was the first time that we had not had a maid in the kitchen, what was then called a "general". My 16th birthday was in July 1900 and for a present our father gave Nell and me and Aunt Sarah and two friends of ours, Mary & Bess Henson from La Grange, a camping trip into Estes Park. The Henson girls had a brother who worked for somebody in the railroad business and he was able to get R.R. passes for his sisters to make that long trip from Chicago to Longmont. We drove in what was called a mountain wagon 40 miles by 4 horse team to Estes Park. We had a tent, cot beds and bedding with us in the "boot" of the wagon and we had our meals at a summer hotel on the grounds of which our tent was pitched. We had a happy time riding horse back, climbing the nearby mountains and living out of doors. When we got back to Longmont Aunt Sarah left us to go to Hamilton where she was married in August 1900 to Theodore Berry. My father died in November 1900. Nell and I went to the Longmont High School from September 1900 to the end of the calendar year. Maybe Nell went on in January, I can't recall. But I stayed to help my mother to pack in preparatory to moving to Hamilton, Ontario which we did towards the end of January 1901.
Moving furniture by freight was a slow business in those days. Mama and the five younger children went direct to Hamilton and stayed with the Harte grandparents. Nell and I visited with the Henson girls in La Grange till the furniture arrived in Hamilton and then we went on. So it was quite late in 1901 before we got back to school. Nell went into what was called Form II and I into Form III. In those days there were provincial examinations at the end of Form III called Junior Matriculation Part 1. Part II was at the end of Form IV. Nell took those Part I exams in July 1902 which qualified her for entrance into the Domestic Science course for public school teachers. I took the Part I exams in July 1901 after only a few weeks in a school with such a different curriculum from either Nebraska or Colorado. However I passed and went into Form IV and passed Part II in July 1902. I then stayed at home to help my mother from the summer of 1902 till September of 1903 when she got fed up with having me mooning around! So in the fall of 1903 I went to university in Toronto while Nell was finishing her second year in Guelph, where she graduated in the late spring of 1904. My mother and the five younger children moved back to La Grange from Hamilton in the summer of 1905 I think. Nell and I were at a beach cottage in Hamilton in the summer of 1905. I stayed there with the Henson girls as visitors till I went back to enter my 3rd year at University in the fall of 1905. That was when Nell was employed by the Otis Elevator Co. and she did live for a while at Uncle Herb's at a time when Aunt Delea was ill.
I graduated from University in June 1907 and Nell was the only one of my family present on that occasion. I suppose it was in the fall of 1907 that she began to teach in Hamilton. From then on we saw each other seldom. I entered the Toronto General Hospital for a 3 year course in September 1907 and graduated in 1910. By then she was about to go to Manhattan, and as you say you know of her doings from then on. Nell was always an extrovert personality and made lots of friends. I think I often tagged along with her friends, though even in Hamilton we had some different activities. For instance I belonged to a "Shakespeare Club" of 7 or 8 girls which she was not interested in. She usually had her dance program filled up more quickly than I did. I think I was more "prim" than she was. But we always went to parties together and on hikes in the summer time. Unlike some sisters who share a room we did not use each other's belongings. Her things were hers and mine mine unless offered freely in an emergency.
We have had some deep snow, but at present it is melting fast. The first migratory birds, the horned larks have returned. But of course we know winter lasts all through March in this part of the world.
Lovingly,
Marion
Research Notes:
[1] The family tree of a person who has a DNA match to Janet suggests a lineage to Marion Elise Miles who is a sibling of Janet's ancestor Ella Frances Miles, child of Francis Frederick Miles and Ada Elinor Harte. The DNA match suggests a relationship of 2nd to 3rd cousins. Our genealogy research and the tree of the cousin suggest a relationship of 2nd cousins, with descent: Charles Belfry Kelly, [Link].
[2] The family tree of a person who has a DNA match to a sibling of Janet suggests a lineage to Marion Elise Miles who is a sibling of Janet's ancestor Ella Frances Miles, child of Francis Frederick Miles and Ada Elinor Harte. The DNA match suggests a relationship of 2nd to 3rd cousins. Our genealogy research and the tree of the cousin suggest a relationship of 2nd cousins, with descent: Charles Belfry Kelly, [Link].