Another Bit of Serendipity : Clara Barton to Mrs. George Waterhouse, 1894

As those of you who either follow the BDC's Facebook account or who have started reading my re-posts of Facebook posts each month for the past several months, I do enjoy unexpected discoveries. In fact, some days at work I feel as if I am living a paraphrased version of what Forrest Gump's Mother said about chocolate.

If anyone knows what's here, it would be me but the collection has grown significantly on my watch and there are thousands upon thousands of pages filed in the vertical files. I have a good memory - but I surely can't recall every new addition made to that content in the past two decades. In other words, you - nor I - ever really know just what you'll find here in the Research Room -- until you start looking! I add or discover or re-discover something new virtually every day that I am in the office.

For example, while finishing up the re-write of of my "Tide of Death" presentation in honor of a Local Red Letter Day, I was searching for a particular circular letter that Clara Barton wrote about the 1893 Hurricane. I could find a partial image but I couldn't find the whole letter. I ended up settling for the partial letter for Facebook to go up on 30 August 2021 since I had that image readily available - though I did try. (You'll also figure out that I plan the BDC's FB posts well in advance most of the time. I like to work at least 2 weeks ahead - just in case I have to be out of the office unexpectedly.)

I tried looking in the books that we have about her. I pulled the Clara Barton vertical file in hopes of finding a full copy of her Circular Letter for Storm Sufferers but it wasn't there either. But in that process of looking, I re-discovered a photocopy of a letter from Clara Barton to Molly Gray's great-grandmother, Mrs. George Waterhouse. Molly found it in the papers of her aunt, Marguerite Herendeen Broz, who in turn had gotten the photocopy from Brantley Harvey, Jr. in 1973. His letter to Mrs. Herendeen (at that time) said that he had discovered the letter while doing some research about the storm.

In it, Miss Barton turns down Mrs. Waterhouse's offer to host her. The letter states:

May 30th 1894

Beaufort

My dear, dear Mrs. Waterhouse

From my heart I thank you for your kind and thoughtful invitation to come to you till we shall leave but there will be no moment of time when any of us can leave our post till we leave the town.

I can give you no adequate conception of what it is to break up and close out a foundation like this under the circumstances surrounding us. Again a thousand thanks and hoping to see you again. I am cordially and [?] yours.

Clara Barton

BDC Vertical Files: the gift that just keeps on giving - and will continue to do so long after I am pushing up daisies!