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Letter ReferenceOlive Schreiner BC16/Box3/Fold1/1902/20
ArchiveUniversity of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date30 June 1902
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToFrances (‘Fan’) Schreiner nee Reitz
Other Versions
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections.
1 Hanover
2 June 30 / 02
3
4 Dear old Sister
5
6 Thankyou so much for writing so quickly about the stove & taking so
7much trouble about about it. It was your old stove that I liked so;
8the oven of the one you sent the measure ^of^ was too small, because we
9shall have to bake our bread in it. There no baker here from whom one
10can get bread, so one must have a big enough oven. So I’ve decided
11on a small new Colonist because it only cost £5 10 without a boiler &
12has a very big oven; otherwise its a stove I don’t like, it uses so
13much fuel I’ve ordered one from Isaacs.
14
15 We are not in our house you nor will be for a couple of weeks, as
16preparing for the coronation the workmen wouldn’t get to preparing
17it & the roof leaks so much &c we can’t ^go^ got in till it’s all
18right.
19
20 The snow has melted at last here but it’s still very cold.
21
22 As to the dress, there is nothing I need so much & would be only too
23thankful to get one ready made for £5.0.0 but no ready made thing is
24ever wide enough for me in the shoulders. I am wider than Ettie, &
25inches & inches wider than you. Its a great trouble never to be able
26to wear anything ready made, but I’m sending for a Willcox & Gibs to
27Port Elizabeth where I hear they are now to be had, & shall make
28myself self a dress some time This is a funny little place no baker
29whose bread you can eat, no dressmaker & above all no servant to be
30got for love or money. I have offered a boy 2/6 just to come & help me
31carry up the coal from the cellar for the stove fire but her ^he^
32refuses. I don’t quite see how I am to keep on living here is I
33can’t get any help. The natives all boy-cott me. I tried to get a
34Dutch girl up from Cape Town who used to work with Cron’s mother,
35but she has a situation at Dr Kitchener & says they are so kind to her
36she doesn’t like to leave them. If only I could hire some one to do
37the floor scrubbing & pot cleaning I could do the rest. This is all
38about household matters but one doesn’t seem to have much else to
39write about now-a-days
40
41 Cron is getting on nicely as far as quantity of work goes couldn’t
42do better: works all day allowing himself less than an hour for dinner,
43 & works every night till eleven or ten, but bye & bye after the
44commission has sat & the claims have been settled one way or another,
45he will have more time, & perhaps more paying work, he could hardly
46keep on at the pace he is working now. He’s looking thin & tired but
47keeps well.
48
49 So poor old John Findlay has gone. I always like the dear old man, he
50was so game & full of life, & it seems he was so to the end with all
51his terrible suffering.
52
53 Give my love to my old Brother & all the small generation, though I
54expect Will & Dot are running their Dad in by now. How does little
55mother seem to you? She writes happy cheerful little post cards to me,
56but I fancy by the hand writing she must be failing fast.
57
58 Good bye. "Heir eind it met mijn pen, maar niet met mijn hart."
59
60 Your little sister
61 Olive
62
63