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Letter ReferenceFindlay Family A1199/1180
ArchiveWilliam Cullen Library, Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date30 April 1873
Address FromNew Rush, later Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToCatherine ('Katie') Findlay nee Schreiner
Other VersionsRive 1987: 10-11
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the William Cullen Library, University of Johannesburg, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Historical Papers.
1 New Rush
2 April 30th 1873
3
4 My dearest Katie
5
6 I have just received your kind letter & the very nice little book for
7both of which many thanks. The book will be very useful to me
8especially as I am very bad at remembering birth-days. I must also
9thank you for the likeness of George & Hudson. I can see that it is
10not a very good one but I am still most glad of it.
11
12 This mornings post brought me a letter from Fred, his school seems
13doing very well, but Emma had been ill in bed for three weeks; she was
14much better when he wrote how ever.
15
16 We are all quite well & very glad of the cold weather after our hot &
17long summer.
18
19 We have just had a reed enclosure put up all around our encampment
20which will shelter us nicely from the cold winds & dust for which New
21Rush is celebrated.
22
23 Theo has not been finding much lately & diamonds are still very low in
24price, but we hope that they may soon rise as so many people are
25leaving for the Gold Fields, every day waggons start for them. Some
26friends of mine who are going up in a few weeks time want me much to
27with them, but I don't think I shall do so as they will be away for
28three or four months at least. We hear every week from Willie, he
29seems happy & is doing well with his studies, there are more than a
30hundred boys in the school yet he is head boy.
31
32 Give my best love to the children. I am so glad that they are all well
33again. Is there a good school in Fraserburg for them to go to? In some
34of these little towns the schools are really most wretched. I suppose
35Katie is getting quite a big girl now; she is much older than I was
36when you last saw me at Heald Town.
37
38 Ettie sends much love & many thanks for the book you sent her & will
39write soon. She has so many letters to send off by this post that she
40cannot do so now.
41
42 We very often see Mr. Daummas, he has just heard from his brother who
43is now in France. They were all very well except his younger sister
44who is very delicate. Mrs Hope had just come over from England to
45spend a little time with them when they wrote. I have just been out in
46the town to see a large diamond of three 159 carats which was found
47yesterday by a Mr Hubby. He hopes to get at least £4000 for it as it
48is a beautiful stone. I wonder when our turn for a big one will come,
49soon I hope. If Theo gets a very large one he has promised to send me
50to America to study at one of the large colleges that they have there
51for ladies. It is the great wish of my life & I hope that it is
52destined to be realized one of these days & not like so many of our
53hopes to come to nothing.
54
55 I have no time to add more just now dear Katie. Please write soon to
56
57 Your ever loving sister
58 Olive E.A. Schreiner
59
60 Theo sends love. I enclose a little letter for George & Katie as I
61have never forgotten how much pleasure it used to give me to get a
62letter from dear old Auntie when I was their age. How little it takes
63to make a child happy, does it not?
64
Notation
Rive?s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.