June 9th 1865 :: Lydia to Lizzie & friends at home

Randolph June 9th 1865

Lizzie & friends at home

As I feel it my duty to write to you, I will try in this sad dark hour of my life. Dear friends little do you realize how dark this world looks to me in the midst of joy & happiness as it were every thing has been turned to darkness. you all well know that my hole life & affetions were scenterd in that dear departed husband. he was dearer than life to me. you all know how good and kind he was & to think he had such a good home and was taken a way from his home to die. it seems as though I cannot have this so and yet it is so. It must be so.

in his last letter he wrote so much about home & that he looked fareward to the time when he should return home as one of the most happy times in all his life. he says to me live happy as you can and pray for my return. but a las he is gone to his long home where we are all hastning. I would gladly go were it gods will but he is a just god. and to him I look for aid in this hour of affletion. I feel that there is no other comforter, that dear wone that has been taken from the embrase of dear friends in this world has gone to a far better world, where beauty cannot fade nor sorrow dim the eye. he is waiting for me to come to him. he cannot come to me. I have evry reason to think he died happy & if I live such a life as is ask of me I know I shall meet him again where parting will be no more, nor sorrow is never nown.

But a gain whin I think of the long lonly years I perhaps may have to spend in dark and dreary world with out that dear wone that I looked to for so much happiness & of this dear home that we were antisipating an enjoying so much & now it is all left for me, not to enjoy but to mourn my life a way. you know not the feelings of my heart. I cannot describe my feeling. could you see me you could now some thing a bout it yet you could not feel nor see this heart a bleeding with anguish.

for four weeaks I was not able to do anything & now am hardly able to sit up. you are all so far a way you cannot realise any thing about this trouble. write and try and comfort me if you cannot come and see me. tell me what I shall do. I feel that I have the sympathy of every boddy in town yet it does not fill the vacancy. Oh how my heart yearns for that dear departed wone. why was this so when I loved him so. I cannot live without him. think of those eyes & those winning ways those hands that that were always so ready and willing to do for me and now I am all alone. no one to do for me and my health is poor. I must Stop for I am so tired. I am over to mothers. she is very kind to me.

Tell Father that Mr Cline has paid three hundred dollars on those notes. he wants to know how he shall Send it in money or get it in bonety. he does not want to keep the money on hand now. write as soon as you get this and let him know. your sorrowing sister Lydia Collins. write soon. good by.

here are some pieces of my dresses & a piese of my bonnet. I wish I could see you all, write to me.

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On April 26, 1865 Myron Collins, Lydia's husband, died of illness in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. Lydia and Myron were married on November 10, 1858.

Lydia says that she is “over to mothers” which I surmise is likely Myron's mother.

See The Berlin Family :: List of The Letters for a complete listing of all of the family letters.