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Format: 2024-04
Format: 2024-04

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 9–10 May 1826

I will begin a letter to you, my dear Virginia, but whether my jewel will allow me to finish it or not, is more than I can tell. the nurse is gone out and I must supply her place until she returns. in the mean time the baby is lying in a sort of precarious sleep which threatens every moment to...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 29 May 1826

I should fear, my beloved Virginia, that my failing to congratulate you at an earlier period on the birth of your daughter, might pass as a proof of indifference, if I were not too well persuaded of your confidence in my affection, to suppose that you could doubt it for an instant. believe me,...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 14 Sept. 1826

I intended dear Virginia to write to you from Richmond, but had not one moment to do it in. I committed your gingham &c to Martha W. praying her to send them immediately. the packet contained besides the gingham (which you will be surprised to hear was the best I could get,) some cambric &...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 21 Nov. 1826

We arrived here yesterday my dear Virginia sometime before sunset and as a post goes out tomorrow (the post goes from here to Lynchburg twice a week) I will write to you though I feel as stupid and unwilling to do any thing as I usually do after a journey. the day we left you was a very...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 24 June 1827

I have just heard dear Virginia that Mrs Faulcon (Louisiana Cocke) was going to Albemarle and that she would take letters for us; I am very much tired already with writing I am terribly sleepy but cannot lose so good an opportunity. I would write to Mary but Mary Cary intends to do so, tell her I...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 13 Sept. 1827

Mr Gilmer was obliged to stay one day here my dearest Virginia & that gives me an opportunity of writing to you which I will do if it is only to tell you how much I have thought of you all since I left you; every thing else I suppose Martha has told you for she was going to write to you...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 30-31 Mar. 1828

I have the head ach, dear Virginia, & do not know whether I can write as long a letter as usual, but will not defer writing as tomorrow I shall be employed all day closely. I read your Louisiana schemes with pain & yet would not say no to them; the abandoning Monticello altogether would...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 13 May 1828

It is long, dearest Virginia, since I have written to you, because I thought you heard regularly from Mama & Cornelia, & would therefore know all that was interesting to you to know concerning your friends here; but now I shall again make a regular correspondent, for, not for worlds,...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 24 June 1828

A letter which I received yesterday from Mary, dearest Virginia, gave me the first feeling of anxiety on the subject of Papa’s health. my impression has hitherto been that it was probably a case of dyspepsia (a complaint inherent in the Randolph constitution) & the idea of it’s being at all...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 3–4 Sept. 1828

I wrote to Mary only yesterday my dearest Virginia, but as I have half an hour this morning, & Cornelia comes next in the regular turn, I shall put you to the expense of an extra eighteen-pence, in order to reply to yours of the 27th Aug. which I have just received. I feel the more inclined...

Nicholas P. Trist to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 1 Mar. 1829

When did I write to you last? for I took no note of, and don’t recollect the time. I have been intending to do so again, a day or two before, and ever since, Ben’s arrival with the books. But, what with the business of the office, what with having to attend at the auction room from after dinner...

Nicholas P. Trist to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 12 Mar. 1829

I have been waiting several days, dearest, in the expectation of having time to write you a letter; but I must not let this post pass, if I send only a line. I literally have not had time to write. The branch permanently assigned to me makes this the busiest time of the year; & it will...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 13 Mar. 1829

I sometimes fear, dearest Virginia, that you will all imagine, that I have become perfectly stupid, such miserable trash do I send you once in two weeks, to let you see that I am alive, & well in bodily health at least, my letters are written under such disadvantages that nothing but a...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 21 July 1829

It is long since I heard from you, my own dear Virginia, but still longer since I have written to you, and I have no right to complain of, however I may regret, your silence. I know what the trouble of children is, and do not wonder at your making what I am fain to call you, after Mr Matthews, “a...

Nicholas P. Trist to Virginia Jefferson Randolph, 4 Sept. 1829

You shd not, Dearest, have allowed anything to keep me so long witht hearing from you. On sunday, I postponed my letter one post from my having written during the week, & from the conviction that I shd myself receive one the next morning. I walked to the p.o. in this assurance: but was...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 1 Nov. 1829

I scarcely know where to direct this letter, my dear Virginia, so uncertain am I as to the movements of my family. I should feel uneasy at not hearing from you, did I not know that in the bustle of a removal there is little time for writing. Mama, I hope, is in Washington; the 16 of October, here...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 15 Oct. 1830

It is so long since I have written to any of you, dearest Virginia, that I am in debt to you all, and considering you as the eldest of the family, (married women being always older than single,) I shall begin address my first letter to you. Mama is absent on a visit to her friend Mrs Barrell at...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 6–7 Aug. 1831

About ten or Eleven days ago, my dear Virginia, Mama went to bed complaining of a soreness of her stomach, but would not take any thing; Mary & myself who sleep in the room with her at Edgehill went also to bed and to sleep; the next morning she told us she had been in violent pain almost the...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 22 Aug. 1831

This is your birthday, dear Virginia, and sorry am I that you are not here with us as you hoped you would be. I should have liked so much if we could have all spent it up at Monticello together. as it is when we do go there I fear it will be after Dr Barclay has taken possession & it will be...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 5 June 1832

I cannot bear to let Mr Barrell go without a line to you dearest Virginia, I wrote a long letter to Cornelia ten days or a fortnight ago & must try to write to Mama as soon as I can. occupied as I always am & perplexed with care, I feel as if my intercourse with my own family was one of...

Cornelia J. Randolph to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 11 Aug. 1833

I must try & make out to write a short letter to my dear Virginia although I am tired & indisposed to write. Lewis has had a fever & headach for the last two days; Mama has not yet thought it necessary to send for the doctor; she would have done so this morning if he had not been...