Letters From The Past
Letter from Miss Julie E. Miller, Ennis, Texas,
to her cousin, Minerva Ashford, Milam County, Texas
Copyright © Nancy Timmons Samuels, Fort Worth,
Texas. Used with permission.
Mrs. Samuels has added explanatory notes on
the family
Ennis Ellis Co Texas June the 16 1875
Miss Mirnervie Ashford
My Dear Cousin I will answer your kind letter. You must forgive me for not answering it sooner. I would have answered but had no envelope. I think you can forgive me. I guess you thought I had forgotten but I will never forget you. I want to see you all so bad. We are all well.
I am staying with Ma and Sister in Ennis. Sister lives with Mr. Thomas and he went out west to look at the country and they wanted Ma to keep house for them while they was gone so I am staying with them. Cousin Charles Ashford has moved out West. There is a good many going to the Western Countrys to live. Ma talks like she might go too, but I like Ellis Co as good as any. We got a letter from Aunt Peggie Dollar sometime ago. They are all well. I will tell you they post office. It is Knights Prairie, Hamilton Co Illinois. They live a long way. It is very dry hear the crops look fine and so does the garens it rained two weeks ago but need it now very bad the wheat and cotton crops are fine everyboddie is cutting their wheat I have forgot how much it has made to the acre. Mr Alexander has a very sick babe they are our near neighbor Ma and Sister have just been their we have not heard from Madison in so long but think we will get a letter soon We have just got a letter from My Miller kin to day I had not herd from them in long time. I have not seen Sister Fannie in a week she come to see Cousin Charles leave. She lives on Grove Creek now with Jim Ashford. I forgot to tell you that Cousin Charles little boy the babe died it died in April and was sick two weeks that was one thing that made them go out West they thought it was helthier than hear Cousin Millia Chapmans husband is very low with consumption dont think he will ever recover he looks so bad aunt Nancy Ashford is staying with her. Well I will stop as I have written all I know tell Cousin Joe I think she might write to me Tell your Ma to write you must write soon as you get this for I want to hear from you all soon So I remain your devoted cousin Julia E. Miller
Notes by NTS:
Michael and Mary (Chappell) Ashford lived in Tishimingo County, Miss. in 1850. They had 11 children, several of whom moved to Ellis County. Their youngest child, Robert Payne Ashford, died in Milam County. His wife, Sarah Ann Gurley, is the "Aunt Sarah" mentioned in the letters. "Alex" is a brother to Josephine and Minerva.
Harriet Ashford, daughter of Michael and Mary, married William Beard in 1842 and had several children. In February 1850, William and three of their children, Mary, 3, Adam, age unknown, and William, age 8 months, all died within eleven days of each other. Surviving were Harriet, the mother, Margaret (Maggie of the letter), and Adrian, a son, age seven. Also dying in February 1850 was a cousin, Mary Conner. The Julia E. Miller to whom Maggie wrote, was Maggie's sister.
Julia E. Miller married John Goodman/Goodwin in Ellis County in 1876 and in 1880 her mother, Harriet Miller, and Maggie Beard lived with them, enumerated as mother-in-law and sister=in-law, in the Ennis area. "Cousin Jim" Ashford must have been James Ashford, a widower with three children in 1870 Ellis County census. By 1880, he was gone from the county, only his son, William (age 16) remaining. "Cousin Charles" may have been Charles Stewart Ashford who married Virginia Kendall; they did move west. "Cousin Millia Chapman" may have been Melissa, wife of William Chapman, shown in the Ellis County censuses of 1870 and 1880.
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