Frank Ryan's Easter Letter to Adelaide McGonigle
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Kimball SD
April 21
Miss Adelaide
Belvidere, Illinois
Dear Adelaide. Well what do you know about this? Can you believe it? Ha. Ha. Try to say how. Received your recent welcome letter and was sort of surprised I must say. Ha. Ha.
My wife has left me so I got your last letter…You needn’t worry about her getting jealous. You don’t write often enough for that…the glorious Easer over and ever we seems to be making for lost time out here.
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There seems to be quite a bit going on at present. I’ve been to two “hops” this week and am going to another one Friday night. Wish you were here to take in a few of those hops.
No classes in society out here. Every one mixes as long as they are presentable. Just having some swell times.
Tomorrow is my last day in school so I feel kind of lonesome today. I always do toward the last day of my school terms.
I surely will miss those little faces for some time. Some of my younger pupils are just as cute as cute they can be especially the little girls.
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So you are still taking on country dances. You’ll be a “hay seed” yet. O, its one of the boys is it? Did you lose out with their “Dad”? And he had the impudence to squeeze your hand. You have a faint idea what you’d like after a “loving up” with him I suspect.
They are sure the limit for “green”. Nothing like them in Dakota. Although we are supposed to be outside of civilization.
I hope you didn’t tell those country friends everything I wrote in that last letter. I didn’t know many girls out there.
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Most of them out there were pretty slow. Had to get an introduction every time I met them. Maybe it was poor memory. Anyhow I hope so.
Hasn’t Big Meahan done anything for those ears of his yet? There were about as much ears as Meahan when I saw him last. H must be unrecognizable by now.
So Roy is around that country yet. I didn’t he’d even stay there this long.
As for his card I have it. I think it was something like your other letter – it was never mailed. Whenever I get it – I’ll answer it. Maybe its delivery on the road.
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Well kid I’ll take your word for it. I mean your hat. I sure would like to see if your taste was good. I know it is not the “wagon wheel”…that so many wear but here you can’t get within arms reach of a girl out here when she has her hat on.
I surely would like to visit Belvidere but when I can I don’t know. Possibly sometime in the near future. Just to take in a…more of the country....occasionally I run into a "stray bum" from Belvidere.
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I have broken four this spring. Had a few runaways but I never got hurt.
It surely is exciting work. Some fun in it to. I’m going to take those colts out to my claim. Will ship out in a few weeks. I hate to go…to tell he truth about it.
You would be surprised if you could see the number of people going west onto their claims. Cars after cars of them going by every day and the majority of them “drunker than Souda (sp). Even the preachers start drinking when they’re homesteading.
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As…called her (unintellible) by the ranch hands and the boys out here. That’s a…word meaning new comer. They don’t like the homesteaders because they are taking up the cattle range on them.
So you told your ma you were writing to me. Its no wonder you don’t know any more than that. Ha. Ha.
I never tell my ma when I’m writing to you.
Whenever I get a letter from you she always asks me who it this from? I just say, ”It’s a fellow I used to work with in Belvidere.” And that’s…ain’t she easy.
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Do mom’s folks still live in town? Is Mrs. Byrne still alive yet? She was such a good old lady.
She used to give me a talking to once in awhile but I guess I needed them.
She was a sort of spiritual and temporal advisor to me. Ha. Ha. She couldn’t have been much more could she? Ha. Ha.
I remember one day I took the milk to the factory, she sent a jug with me to go the creamery and get some fresh buttermilk. Of course I forgot it. Maybe you think I didn’t
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get it when I got back. She said she had a notion to “bate” the “divil” out of me. I don’t suppose Mrs. Humel is dead yet either? She surely had lots of “jib” to spare.
It seems to me as though my letter is getting rather long. Aren’t you getting tired or hungry? Did Mrs. Doran get a chance to tell your Ma so much as all that? I gave Mrs. D a sleigh ride one night a year ago last winter. It was a good fast one. I bet she won’t want another very quick.
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You never said a word about yourself in your last letter. I don’t suppose you consider yourself much anyhow. Ha. Ha. I don’t suppose you are very childish yet anyhow.
I feel as though I was 80 years old this Spring. I have the terribilist headache nearly every day. Maybe my heart is out of place. I can’t locate it any more it must have moved.
Well Kiddoo. I must chop off. Take good care of “yershelf” and don’t be neglecting your prayers. And you might mention my name occasionally and
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Page 12
you know I’ll be baking my own “biscuits” pretty soon and they might prove fatal. Now just see if you can’t answer this without having to be “dunned”. So Bye Bye.
With Love
Frank
Say what will I do with these regards your “ma” sent to my “ma.” If I told a one of them I ever got a letter from you they’d “josh me” the rest of my natural life. I’ll spring it on her some day.