Miss Nellie Binckley
[Robert Morton Hughes (at Norfolk, Virginia), December 31, 1937, to Dear Nellie (Nella Fontaine Binckley) at Washington, D.C., Box 1, Folder 8: Nellie Brinkley [i.e. Nella Fontaine Binckley], 1927-1937, Robert Morton Hughes Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library, Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA 23529. This is my rough transcription from a carbon copy of the letter sent.]
December 31, 1937.
3230 N. St. N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Dear Nellie:
Pardon my delay in acknowledging receipt of your letter of the 21st and the pictures. My health is jot good and my doctor limits me to meagre hours of work. I can write only on the typewriter, and one of my fingers was out of commission for some time owing to a fall.
We were much interested in the pictures. The dress must be very artistic, but they are not pictures of you, as your back is almost turned to us. I wanted to see how well you bore your years since the time seventy years ago when you and I waited on Cousin Sue, and Mr. Wharton was so afraid that we would set his vestments on fire with our candles. You remember that it was a tableau wedding in Mrs. Ann Eiza [Eliza] Campbell's house in Abingdon.
We live now with our son and his wife, and their two children -- a son and a daughter, aged respectively nine and six. Mattie suffers a good deal with rheumatism, but neither one of us is confined to the house. I had two severe heart attacks last year but none since then, and suffer from the ills incident to my years. I was 82 last September.
Yours affectionately
[Ellen/Nellie/Nella Fontaine Binckley (September 1, 1860-April 27, 1951; she was not born in 1877 as she successfully hoaxed some time after returning from the West Coast to the East Coast in the early 1900s)
Robert Morton Hughes, Sr. (1855-1940)
Cousin Sue = Sue Henry Mitchell/Michel (September 15, 1845-March 15, 1940) married William Meade Taliaferro (1814-1913) on October 16, 1867. Hughes was twelve at the time, and Nellie seven
Ann Elizabeth or Ann Eliza Campbell = ?
Mr. Wharton = Rev. Mr. L. B. Wharton?
Mattie = Martha Louisiana Smith Hughes (1853-1944)
Robert Morton Hughes, Jr. (1880-1951) married Caroline "Carolina" Wright Kennedy (1889-1985) in Norfolk on April 29, 1927; they had two children: Robert Morton Hughes III (February 18, 1929-alive as of February 28, 2014), who married Jean Goode Davis (1929-2014) in 1951, and Caroline Wright Hughes (September 30, 1931-NA), who married John Jenette Neal, Jr. (1929-2006) in 1962]
Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration; in this case, specifically to William for providing a scan of the original letter, and in turn thanks to Mr. Mel Frizzell, Special Collections Specialist.
[Robert Morton Hughes (at Norfolk, Virginia), December 31, 1937, to Dear Nellie (Nella Fontaine Binckley) at Washington, D.C., Box 1, Folder 8: Nellie Brinkley [i.e. Nella Fontaine Binckley], 1927-1937, Robert Morton Hughes Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library, Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA 23529. This is my rough transcription from a carbon copy of the letter sent.]
December 31, 1937.
3230 N. St. N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Dear Nellie:
Pardon my delay in acknowledging receipt of your letter of the 21st and the pictures. My health is jot good and my doctor limits me to meagre hours of work. I can write only on the typewriter, and one of my fingers was out of commission for some time owing to a fall.
We were much interested in the pictures. The dress must be very artistic, but they are not pictures of you, as your back is almost turned to us. I wanted to see how well you bore your years since the time seventy years ago when you and I waited on Cousin Sue, and Mr. Wharton was so afraid that we would set his vestments on fire with our candles. You remember that it was a tableau wedding in Mrs. Ann Eiza [Eliza] Campbell's house in Abingdon.
We live now with our son and his wife, and their two children -- a son and a daughter, aged respectively nine and six. Mattie suffers a good deal with rheumatism, but neither one of us is confined to the house. I had two severe heart attacks last year but none since then, and suffer from the ills incident to my years. I was 82 last September.
Yours affectionately
[Ellen/Nellie/Nella Fontaine Binckley (September 1, 1860-April 27, 1951; she was not born in 1877 as she successfully hoaxed some time after returning from the West Coast to the East Coast in the early 1900s)
Robert Morton Hughes, Sr. (1855-1940)
Cousin Sue = Sue Henry Mitchell/Michel (September 15, 1845-March 15, 1940) married William Meade Taliaferro (1814-1913) on October 16, 1867. Hughes was twelve at the time, and Nellie seven
Ann Elizabeth or Ann Eliza Campbell = ?
Mr. Wharton = Rev. Mr. L. B. Wharton?
Mattie = Martha Louisiana Smith Hughes (1853-1944)
Robert Morton Hughes, Jr. (1880-1951) married Caroline "Carolina" Wright Kennedy (1889-1985) in Norfolk on April 29, 1927; they had two children: Robert Morton Hughes III (February 18, 1929-alive as of February 28, 2014), who married Jean Goode Davis (1929-2014) in 1951, and Caroline Wright Hughes (September 30, 1931-NA), who married John Jenette Neal, Jr. (1929-2006) in 1962]
Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration; in this case, specifically to William for providing a scan of the original letter, and in turn thanks to Mr. Mel Frizzell, Special Collections Specialist.
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