Letters to Cousin Lucy from Emma Thompson Just, 1860-1870

File — Box: 1, Folder: 10

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January 21, 1862-Ogden, Utah Territory
"...I have wanted to write since we came to America...Each day since I left England and you, I have wished that you had come with us...You are the only person back there that I can remember...We came across the plains more easily than some did...I remember some Indians who came and looked into our wagon and begged for things..."
July 6, 1862-Soda Springs, Idaho Territory
"...Poor mother, she is often unhappy..."
December 11, 1864
"...The country is full of Indians so that it is unsafe for a few families to try to make a new settlement and the United States Government sent this company of soldiers to protect us..."
April 22, 1865-Soda Springs, Idaho Territory
"...I am married...maybe fifteen is too young but my husband, George Bennett is twenty- eight so if we waited for me to be older, he would have been older too...I knew that George was my soldier from the minute I saw him..."
December 20, 1865-Fort Douglas, Utah Territory
"...moved again...There were no quarrels, no drunkeness, no bickering at Soda Springs, here we find all of these things...The Mormon people are thrifty, industrious people and frown on anything disorderly but even they do something I can never believe is right. The men have more than one wife..."
October 15, 1866-Lincoln Valley, Idaho Territory
"...My mother is heartbroken and I think she is not well, besides...Father promises that he will take her back to England. I think he would like to stay on here but he is convinced now that she will never be contented..."
November 30, 1876-Helena, Montana Territory
"...We have moved...kept station for a short time at Ross Fork...while we there my mother and father came from Soda Springs...ready to start to England. My little sister Lizzie had died the winter before leaving my poor mother again with no one but me. She was so sad, and wanted us to go back with them so we gladly agreed to do it...We would meet here at Helena...to go down the Missouri river together...we must have missed them. They must be back in England by now...It may be that when they got back to the boat, it was ready to start and they figured that we would be on the next boat...I cannot understand it, though, my father is the kind of man that keeps his word...I think, if he were alive, he would have come..."
September 22, 1868-Deer Lodge, Montana
"...word came that my mother had died on her way back to her loved ones...George has been drinking...we are going to have a baby..."
January 21, 1869-Deer Lodge Montana
"Things went well for a while...Then he [George] began to drink and to gamble...Finally, crazed with drink, he robbed his employer, stole a horse from the stable where he worked and left town..."I found myself deserted by my husband four months before I was to become a mother...he was soon overtaken and is now in jail...friends took me in...These good people want me to get a divorce...to have a husband in jail is not disgraceful enough, I must still ask for a divorce...I know they are right..."
April 30, 1869-Deer Lodge, Montana
"I have my baby, a lovely son...When the baby was three weeks old, his father came to see us...He looked bewildered, then he realized the child he married had become a woman...The divorce will be a simple matter...I have decided the call him [the baby] Fred..."
September 14, 1869-Deer Lodge, Montana
"...Aunt Jane, the only relative I have on this side of England...and Uncle Joe is coming for me...I must begin a new life...I have my divorce...Perhaps the unkindest thing George did was keep me from seeing my father and mother as they passed through on their way to England...as I firmly believed, he [George} was dodging them...He did not want to go back to England..."
September 1, 1870-Lincoln Valley, Idaho Territory
"...My uncle came to Montana and brought me back with him late last fall...I have been working from four in the morning until ten at night...It has been good for me. The ache in my feet helps me to forget the ache in my heart...I am going to marry again...My circumstances are that I have a son and I want him to have a home...This young man was boarding with my aunt when I came from Montana...and fell in love with me the minute we met, but one thing is lacking. I do not love him...He says that his love [is] great enough for both of us...I have been truthful with him..."

Dates

1860-1870

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