Letter from Cornelius Worcester Shedd
This letter provided by Jo Rice, a descendant of Mary Adelaide Shedd. It was written in 1916 by Cornelius Worcester Shedd to Annie E. Sherwin Hoerning, regarding the death of her mother Mary Adelaide Shedd Sherwin.
Columbus Miss Apr 12th '16
My dear neice
I was due my sister a letter and had just seated myself to write to her when your letter came. Glancing at the post mark and the return address I saw that something was wrong. I had never dreamed of such a thing as her death. I had very little actual qcquaintance with her. I left home when she was 3 or 4 years old and only saw her about twice afterward till she was grown.
Then when I was visiting in Minn. she was home a few days before I came away. I became more qcquanted with her during the last three years of our correspondence than in all our previous life.
She was a nice lovable character.
I get but little time for writing and then it is in short snatches. I have worked for the same establishment for 28 years except about two years that I was unable to work. Since then I have for 12 years enjoyed the best health possible. I belong to that large class which Abe Lincoln said the Lord had a special regard for. He said the "Lord certainly loved poor people or He would not have made so many of them"." But I was not always that way. I once owned a good home and had a surplus for old age, but the sickness I have refered to cleaned me out financially. The doctors I have employed were better at collecting their fees than at curing the patients. At present I do not own a shingle or a square inch of the "footstool." I have a comfortable income but my good wife don't wish to leave anything for the next generation and manages to use it all. There is plenty in the bank to meet our funeral expenses and we don't worry. But though lacking in coin, we have more friends than any body. Some time ago I was disabled by accident and lay in bed for two weeks. We had an innumerable number of callers. My room was a perfect bower of floral offerencs. All the church, city hall, and courthouse officials called. One lady of 87 years walked a mile and up the stairs to bring me a hot house bouquet and a man over 101 years of age walked a quarter of a mile and up a flight of 22 steps to spend an hour with me. While there he met an old acquaintance whom he had not seen for many years, and he repeated the poem
John Anderson my joe, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw,
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
We do not "know what a day may bring forth" but I have the promise of an unusually long life. In a few days I will be 83 and I am as young and active as I was 40 years ago.
My father in his prime was a fine scholar in languages and mathematics but when he arrived at my present age he was mentally a bankrup. His mathematical mantle fell upon me and I still delight to tackle a tough problem.
I have some hobbies which I mount in season and out of season. One of them is that practically all the ills of old age arise from failure to eliminate mineral matter from the body. The blood gets charged with it and seeks an opportunity to dump it.
The particles are too large for the kidneys to strain out and it accumulates somewhere, and the doctors name the disease according to the location. Eventually it kills. In your mother's case the mineral lodged about the heart and did quick work.
I suffered the tortures of the damned for two years and cured myself permanently with two cents worth of diluted Nitro-Hydrochloric acid. If I were to relate all the wonderful cures mady by that acid you would classify me with Gulliver and Munchausen.
No more at present from
Your Uncle
C. W. Shedd
