Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Isabel Field
Date
30 Dec 1894
See full details
See transcription
Object Detail
Date
30 Dec 1894
Transcript
Cranmore Lodge 30th December 1894
My dearest Sis
I cannot thank you and Will enough for the lovely little brooch, you could not have sent me anything at once so useful and ornamental. Your kind presents gave great pleasure, especially to Father who was delighted with his book. Our family has dwindled down to three Mother, Frank and myself. Father went to the W. Coast on Boxing Day and returns home via Wellington. Willie started for the Lakes on Friday and yesterday Bert swagged it out to Evansdale and won’t be home till after New Year.
Frank had had a camping out of his own before Xmas, and borrowed most of Bert’s paraphernalia most of which he had lost and smashed whatever was smashable, and the tally thereof was both amusing and painful. Frank camped out with a rather sickly “Boy” Haggill, whose mother had packed his swag and had thoughtfully put in a bar of Scented soap which returned to town “intact”. Their victuals gave out but Frank with great ingenuity put the end of the German sausage cucumber-wise into water every night and so kept it from withering and to quite Frank’s best Bell’s elocution manner “preserved them from starvation”.
We have spent the quietest Christmas! A tour round the neighbours our only dissipation. I have done a tremendous lot of painting and have had a model nearly every day.
The McLean’s had a blustery cold kind of day for their fete, but a great crowd went out in spite of the bad weather. The Royse’s have some sort of a garden entertainment at the end of the week with games freshly introduced from Adelaide. I think May must be away somewhere I haven’t seen her for nearly a fortnight. We had a billy tea together one night. I entrusted the tucker to her and she nearly killed me with a vile concocotion of parsley and onion and red herring sandwiches.
Miss Holmes sent us one of her original sketches engraved, it wasn’t half bad. I told you I think that I was trying to get Phemie for Alice McG. But her Ladyship sent word that she wasn’t going to take less than £36 a year, and that she didn’t “care particularly” about going to Mrs McGowan’s and as Alice is a stickler for caps and Phemie is a stickler for “taking” babies out I don’t think they would suit even if Phemie did “care” about going.
This is a very Scrappy letter tonight but there is an absolute dearth of news, everyone says we are threatened with a drought, rain hasn’t fallen for weeks, and it has been, with the exception of Boxing Day, oppressively hot.
No more tonight dear old girl with love to you both not forgetting little Babs ever your loving sister Fanny
My dearest Sis
I cannot thank you and Will enough for the lovely little brooch, you could not have sent me anything at once so useful and ornamental. Your kind presents gave great pleasure, especially to Father who was delighted with his book. Our family has dwindled down to three Mother, Frank and myself. Father went to the W. Coast on Boxing Day and returns home via Wellington. Willie started for the Lakes on Friday and yesterday Bert swagged it out to Evansdale and won’t be home till after New Year.
Frank had had a camping out of his own before Xmas, and borrowed most of Bert’s paraphernalia most of which he had lost and smashed whatever was smashable, and the tally thereof was both amusing and painful. Frank camped out with a rather sickly “Boy” Haggill, whose mother had packed his swag and had thoughtfully put in a bar of Scented soap which returned to town “intact”. Their victuals gave out but Frank with great ingenuity put the end of the German sausage cucumber-wise into water every night and so kept it from withering and to quite Frank’s best Bell’s elocution manner “preserved them from starvation”.
We have spent the quietest Christmas! A tour round the neighbours our only dissipation. I have done a tremendous lot of painting and have had a model nearly every day.
The McLean’s had a blustery cold kind of day for their fete, but a great crowd went out in spite of the bad weather. The Royse’s have some sort of a garden entertainment at the end of the week with games freshly introduced from Adelaide. I think May must be away somewhere I haven’t seen her for nearly a fortnight. We had a billy tea together one night. I entrusted the tucker to her and she nearly killed me with a vile concocotion of parsley and onion and red herring sandwiches.
Miss Holmes sent us one of her original sketches engraved, it wasn’t half bad. I told you I think that I was trying to get Phemie for Alice McG. But her Ladyship sent word that she wasn’t going to take less than £36 a year, and that she didn’t “care particularly” about going to Mrs McGowan’s and as Alice is a stickler for caps and Phemie is a stickler for “taking” babies out I don’t think they would suit even if Phemie did “care” about going.
This is a very Scrappy letter tonight but there is an absolute dearth of news, everyone says we are threatened with a drought, rain hasn’t fallen for weeks, and it has been, with the exception of Boxing Day, oppressively hot.
No more tonight dear old girl with love to you both not forgetting little Babs ever your loving sister Fanny
Pages
6 pages
Sender's address
Cranmore Lodge
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-03
Credit Line
Letters
from
Frances
Hodgkins.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-03.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22795199
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22795199