Letters from Elma's Mama

Eathel Westbay was born May 25, 1888, to Leander and Jerusha Westbay of Lake County, Indiana. On January 7, 1907, she married Forrest Gradle, an 18-year-old railroad section hand. The May 1910 census found them living in Porter Township, Porter County. By then Eathel had borne two children, but only one survived — their daughter, Elma.

I would never have heard of any of them, I suppose, had I not happened to buy a couple of letters Eathel wrote in the winter of 1910-11, to her own mother. In them, she tells little stories about the two-and-a-half-year-old Elma, on whom she clearly dotes, and on her now 21-year-old husband, Forrest. The letters were mailed from Merrillville, so I suppose the Gradle family had moved there sometime after May 1910.

The first letter was postmarked December 10, 1910.

Gradle letter 12-10-1910 by AinsworthIN

The fourth page of the above PDF is just the reverse of the third page of Eathel's letter, on which someone has scribbled the address of Eathel's sister, Alice. (The 1910 census, taken in April, showed Alice in Meridian, Mississippi, teaching in a "mission school"; evidently she had moved on to Alabama by December.) I think Alice is the "Auntie Awus" whom little Elma points out in the picture. Goodwin and Philenus are Eathel's brothers. I have not been able to identify the "Uncle Goodwin" whose death Eathel asks about.

The second letter was dated January 5, 1911.

Gradle letter 1-5-1911 by AinsworthIN

Eathel died November 22, 1956. Here is her obituary from The Vidette-Messenger of November 23.