Letter from Mark B. Hardin to Susan L. Hardin, 1873

Creator:

Hardin, Mark B. (Mark Bernard), 1838-1916

Language:

English.

Scope and content:

Letter regards family news and explains the layout of the family burial plot.

Other descriptive data:

Jany 23rd 1873

My dear Sue,

I am glad that you & your family are well & that Johnny is about to go to work. I wish he could have made himself a physician & established himself where he could have had a lucrative practice & made a reputation.

Still if he prefers business to practicing medicine I would not have him go against his inclination or tastes.

A wholesale Gr(ocer)y business if properly managed is a very profitable one, and even the ordinary retail business can be made to pay well.

I have not learned anything more my dear Sue about your mother's grave. As I told you, I went to Alexandria & asked everyone that I thought likely to know anything about it. I was not present at the funeral nor at that of Father. Father was buried in our little family lot, and I do not see how there could have been room for either your mother or little Fannie.

The lot is small - These lie in it. Grandfather, Grandmother, (?) Bernard, Mr. Fowle, & the children lost by Aunt Mary & Aunt Ellen. In one corner of it my Mother & little brother Lauriston & next to them our father. So little space has there that I could not erect a memorial to Father such as I wished & therefore had to place two small marble stones to mark the spot & to put the dates on the side of my mother's monument which faces his grave. This is a painful subject to me as well as your self & I would not enter into such details except to make the case clear to you.

The only possible place in the lot it seems to me was in the corner next to my mother's grave, but the sexton said he did not think there was room there & he could not dig to see without removing, or endangering, my mother's monument. The only person I have not yet asked about it is Aunt Mary in Washington. I will do this, and if I go on next summer will try my best to ascertain something about it. I was at little Fannie's funeral, but cannot recollect (though I have tried again & again) where she was buried. It is very strange that no one seems to know anything about the matter - but as I told you, I never had, until I wrote you a few years ago about father's death, the slightest idea that your mother was buried in Alexa(ndria). May you not after all be mistaken?

Love to your Grandma, & Johnny, remembrances to your Uncle Walter, regards to McPherson, kisses to the children & yourself.

Subjects:

Correspondence

Names:

Hardin, Mark B. (Mark Bernard), 1838-1916

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