Emma, sick with TB, was planning to go to Kansas where her brothers were working as ranchers. She planned to stay in Solomon, Kansas, at the home of her brother Lon, who was fixing up a place for her to live.
Solomon was ten miles west of Abilene.
Walton, New York, December 8, 1878
Friend Emogene,
Yours of a few days since was rec’d and read with pleasure and now as I have a few leisure moments I’ll try and tell you how pleasant it is here.
The ground is just covered in snow—the sun shines bright and the air is warm and I am enjoying myself exceedingly well as the day is quite a contrast compared with the dark and cloudy weather that we have experienced for the three weeks just past.
I have been teaching for the past three weeks. I have a small school but a pleasant one and some bright little fellows to learn to shoot who someday will make splendid bowman and will make their mark in the world.
I am glad that you had such a good time when home last summer. I would liked to have been there, but concluded that I could not.
How is Lon getting along now?
I get from my brother in Iowa a paper or letter which are types of hard times there—corn 10 cents per bu.; we could hardly husk it for 10 cents her bu.
There is land enough in the West and there is land enough here—much more than is worked. And when it is hard times here it [is] worse in the West. My brother works nothing but a garden; he raised this year 500 bu. onions, 80 bu. tomatoes, 8,000 cabbage etc.
Tell Ida that I will write to her in a few minutes. Write soon.
Yours Truly, Chester Beers
Previous Posts
1. Is that the New Teacher?
2. The Math Tutor
3. Chester Beers to Friend Emma, Correspondence Continues
4. What is the News? October 29, 1869
5. The Merry Laugh of the Village School
6. Teaching Advice in a Poem
7. I Would Not Wait for Erie’s Train
8. 1870 Highland
9. Mrs. Prindle’s Soliloquy
10. February 28, 1870, What Is the News?
11. Who Teaches in the Village, April 1870
12. Fair Hagan’s Pool, June 1870
13. Shades of Night, 1870
14. Deposit, New York, 1871
15. Dear Father, January 1872
16. Emma Attends Albany Normal, March 1872
17. Lumberland Schoolhouse, 1872
18. Verdant Meadows, June 1, 1873
19. I Have Been Very Busy, August 30, 1873
20. 1874–1875
21. 1876, A Challenging Year
22. Impossible To Be Your Friend, 1876
23. The Old Schoolhouse, May 1876
24. Centennial 1876
26. Save Your Patience, June 1876
27. More 1876 Centennial Images
28. Old Acquaintance, February 1877
29. New York Visit? 1877
30. Fall 1877
31. Letter to Miss Aida Austin, October 1877
31B. Aida Receives Another Letter, December 1877
32. School, January 1878
33. Not Always in a Humor to Write, July 1878
34. The Same Broken Phrases, Fall 1878
35. December 1878, Give Me All the News
