Artifacts & Documents: Manuscripts

Orra White Hitchcock's Letter to the Children, August 23, 1850

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While on tour in Europe in 1850, Orra wrote home to their children about their travels. In this letter from Germany, she described a frustrating incident in Belgium caused by miscommunication, and lamented the fact that they did not speak the languages of the countries they were passing through. She also described the landscape they saw along the Rhine River, and their visit to a cathedral where they attended vespers with the nuns and were able to view Catholic religious relics, a practice far different from the Hitchcocks' Calvinist ways.

Like parents everywhere and at all times, she gently scolded her children for not writing and hoped to hear from them before the European tour was over. She also expressed her birthday wishes to 14-year-old Charlie. She hoped he "is satisfied with having lived fourteen years in sin." (As it turned out, none of the children completely followed their parents' strict Calvinism as adults.) Orra sent the letter off in the care of a man from New York who was also attending the Peace Conference, probably thinking it the safest and speediest way.

Creator:
Orra White Hitchcock
Date:
August 23, 1850
Courtesy of:
Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library