Friday, May 30, 1884 Decoration Day. This morning after breakfast Sara, Cousin Rachel & Mrs. Swan went over to the cemetery with a quantity of flowers and decorated the graves of my Mother, Gertrude, Maurice and Gussie. They had forgotten to put one of the little flags at Maurices grave which marks the soldiers graves but I got one of the keepers and placed it. Many people were in the cemetery remembering their dead. Afterwards we drove up to Kingston on some errands. I put up the flags in the morning as poor Maurice did for the last time a year ago today. He did his last work on that day. Washed the wagon and harness and cleaned the horses and took Sara and Julia & Downing for a ride. We thought of all this today and of the sad days which followed until death released him while I was away in New York. After dinner I had the two horses harnessed and we drove to the cemetery taking my father with us, went all about it and then up to Kingston where we met Pratt Port with the veterans and the battle flag of the 120th. We drove down with them to Rondout and back on the hill. They marched to the City Hall where there were to be orations music etc. This day is becoming more and more sacred and more generally observed. The sight of that flag thrilled me through and through and revived the memories of the war. It is a good thing to set apart one day in the year to remember the brave men who fought and died for a noble cause, and to keep green in our hearts the memories of our beloved dead. It was a cool day for these exercises and all the better for the men who had to march. This morning we noticed there had been a frost in the night which killed the potatoes, corn, cucumbers & tomato plants in our garden. Annie Lee sent me a beautiful Easter Lily which she modeled in return I presume for a little picture I gave her several years ago. I received a letter from a Mr. Henry Gillman of Detroit wanting to get a small Autumn picture and asking my price. I wrote him this evening he could have the one in my studio (Autumn in Vermont 12x15) for $150 without frame.
< Previous Entry | Next Entry >Have you ever wanted to see a handful of folders in a collection at the Archives of American Art, but you couldn't find the time to come to our DC reading room? Then the Archives of American Art’s Digitization on Demand service is for YOU!
Original material can be consulted by appointment in our Washington, D.C. Headquarters.
Copies of unrestricted microfilm materials can be obtained through one of our affiliated research centers.
Research and reference services provides help finding, accessing, and using the collections at the Archives of American Art.
