The Letters: The Grove City Collegian

It seems to me that time does fly so fast. 
                                                        -Carrie H. Blair, 1893

When I was researching Carrie H. Blair’s time at Grove City College, I happened upon a great find: old issues of a periodical that was published by the college since its founding in 1876, The Grove City Collegian. While I didn’t find any mentions of Carrie in the issues I had access to, some of the topics she writes about in her letters also appear in The Collegian. Carrie likely had a copy of this issue, April 1893 (15 cents a copy or one dollar for the year), since that’s when she started at the school. I looked through the extant issues from 1891 through 1894 to see if I could find any more information about the people and topics in Carrie’s letters.

Smallpox

In her letter of April 21, 1893, Carrie refers to a recent smallpox scare:

You, I presume, are all anxious to know about the small pox. There has been but the one case, and I doubt if it was the small pox at all. The young man was not a student, but he clerked in his father’s store which is on the same street that the college is.

The Letters: My Dear Ones at Home, 1893

Well I have nothing of interest to tell you. 
                                                           -Carrie H. Blair, 1893

I have reread these letters dozens of times, but each time I see something new, like this line above, which just now jumped out at me. I almost laughed out loud. Carrie’s news is beyond fascinating to me, and yet she feels the topics she writes about wouldn’t interest her nineteenth-century audience.

Carrie’s final letter gives an especially rich picture of the big and small issues in her world. From something as threatening as a potential small pox outbreak to her unremarkable report of sewing velvet on her dress, Carrie’s news illuminates the corners of her 1893 boarding house.

And yet, some of her concerns could as easily have been written by a college student away from home for the first time in 2017. She misses her family. She has room-mate troubles. She awaits her report card. She doesn’t like to walk to the college at night alone. (I remember the same anxiety when I had night classes at San Francisco State University and had to make my way back to my dorm room or car.)

That being said, several topics are missing: there is no mention of national or international news, or of God. It’s not unusual that the former is missing. The domestic spheres that most nineteenth-century American women inhabited were rarely touched directly by national or international events, at least initially. A look at the headlines in the nearby Pittsburgh newspapers shows us what was happening that Saturday in April when Carrie wrote her letter:

The Letters: Oh, I Should Love to Hear From You All, 1893

P.S. Last night I dreampt I was at home and I thought poor little Martha was sick and died and I just cried and cried. When I awoke and thought that it was only too true oh! I felt so badly. 

                                                                   -Carrie H. Blair, 1893

Carrie H. Blair

My great-grandmother’s sister, Carrie H. Blair, was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1872, the oldest child of O.S. Blair and Josephine Gallatin. In 1893, at the age of 20, Carrie attended the Conservatory of Music at Grove City College, Grove City, about 90 miles north of her home in Perryopolis.

Grove City College was established in 1876 and was and is a Christian liberal arts college. The photo below shows the Grove City skyline around the time that Carrie was there. The Recitation Hall (with the steeple) is on the right. The bigger building in the middle of the photo is the Physics Building, in front of which is the Carnegie Library. Farther left is Ivy Chapel. 

Photo courtesy of Grove City College Archives, CollegeArchives@GCC.EDU.

I don’t know how long Carrie attended the college, but she wrote three long letters home in April of 1893, soon after she arrived. She seems to have been a new student, and the term appears to have just started a day or two before her first letter. The distance between Grove City and Perryopolis would have made any visits home during the school term unlikely, and we get a glimpse of her vulnerability as she tries to acclimate to her new surroundings and sense the effort she makes to convince her family — and probably herself — that she is doing OK.

Particularly raw was her grief surrounding the death of two of her siblings, Martha, age 6, and Sam, age 17, who had both died of diphtheria two months earlier.

Her first letter was addressed to her siblings Sadie (13) and Sutton (10).

This is the first and last page of Carrie's letter. Pages 2 and 3 are below.

(This is the P.S. at the top of the first page of the letter.)

Grove City Pa., April 6. 1893

Miss Sadie and Mr. Sutton Blair

My Dear Brother and Sister:

         I have received no word from home yet and as I have a few moments at my disposal thought I would write to you.

         Am getting along just splendid and am not home sick yet. Am getting acquainted with so many strange folks. Judson Cunningham and Mr. Sherbondy are here. Judson was so surprised to see me away up here. He said “I can’t believe my eyes.” But, I told him that it was right and that it was I.

         I had to play on the piano yesterday, with Prof. Heffley on one side and Miss Naeter on the other. And there was four other girls there. I got so nervous Prof. Heffley said he thought I was not naturly so nervous.

         I then had to take a lesson from Miss Naeter this morning.

         They gave me Loschhorn’s Estudeux and I tell you it is hard.

         My fingers are very weak, not being used to a piano.

         I have to recite History of music at 3.00 o’clock this P.M.

         They gave me a very high grade of music. Prof. Miss Naeter said that she thought it would be too hard for me, but Prof. Heffley said he thought I was capable of taking it though.

         I have no room mate yet but am still looking for one to come.

         Like my place of boarding very much, they are very good to me but I would like a nice room mate real well.

         Oh! how is my dear little Earl Emory getting along? How are you all?

         I got a letter from J.E. McIntire yesterday, that was the only letter I have received since I came here. Please write real soon to me. Don’t work too hard. Write soon, 
         Your Loving Sister 
         Carrie H. Blair

P.S. Last night I dreampt I was at home and I thought poor little Martha was sick and died and I just cried and cried. When I awoke and thought that it was only too true oh! I felt so badly. 
           Carrie 
                Love to all

I’m not sure who Judson Cunningham and Mr. Sherbondy are, but their families can be found in nearby Fayette County townships in the 1880 and 1900 censuses, and it must have been a relief for Carrie to see some familiar faces. 

Professor E.C. Heffley was the director of the Conservatory of Music. Nora Naeter was the violin and piano teacher.

Her “dear little Earl Emory” is her baby brother Earl, born in September 1892. J.E. McIntire is John Emory (“Emory”) McIntire, whom Carrie would marry in 1895. Emory McIntire was the Jackson Schoolhouse teacher in 1891, which is probably how they met. He was obviously close enough to the family that they gave baby Earl his middle name.

Carrie mentions that her fingers are weak and not used to the piano. In her third letter home (see next post) she mentions playing the organ for Earl, so it’s probable that she already knew how to play and read music, but was just moving to the more substantial instrument.

The postscript about Martha is heart-breaking, but Carrie’s mention of her sister reminds me of a question I’ve had before: Carrie’s brother Sam never mentions Carrie in his letters home, and Carrie doesn’t mention Sam in her letters, either. It seems an odd omission, but Martha was clearly beloved by both.

In her second letter, she mentions the music hall and going “to the college.” The picture below shows the Music Hall on the left, where students had their music lessons until the 1950s, and next to it, the Recitation Hall. Both buildings are gone now.

Photo courtesy of Grove City College Archives, CollegeArchives@GCC.EDU.

There is no envelope or date on the second letter, so it’s possible it was enclosed with the one above. 

(This is written upside down across the top of the first page of the letter.)

Dear Mother and Father:

         I suppose you wonder how I get along. I am doing just splendid.

         My fingers are very weak because I am not used to a piano.

         Oh, I should love to hear from you all. I am getting acquainted very well for all the time I’ve been here.

         I will do all my practicing on Miss Sadie Tompson’s piano. It is a much better piano than some of them at music hall and will just cost the same.

         I believe I will first take lessons from Miss Naeter. Prof. Heffley says I must practice at least five periods, which will cost me five dollars for the term.

         Well I have just been down to the college to take the lesson in History of music and I tell you it is hard. Dr. Ketler told me this afternoon that a young lady would be here for the last of this week or the first of next to be a mate for me. To-night is prayer meeting at Chapel Hall, for the students. And Sat. night there is a social in the hall that is for the purpose of getting acquainted. Next Mon. at 2:20 o’clock the students will give a music recital. I was awfully disappointed this afternoon when I went to the P.O. and didn’t get a letter from home.

         Have you cleaned any house yet? or made any garden? I think it must be some colder here than it is at home. I wish so much that I had brought my brown jacket with me. I intended to but forgot it. Write and tell me what you all are doing.

         Who has not felt how sadly sweet

         The dream of home, the dream of home

         Steals o’er the heart, too soon to fleet

         When far o’er sea or land we roam

         A kiss for each one and a hundred for little Earl. Good bye; Do write real soon,

         Your Loving Daughter

         Carrie H. Blair

         Grove City, Pa

[Written across the top and in various margins:]

I have just splendid boarding but I don’t have a very ravenous appetite yet. Hope it will get better though.

        

Pa, when I opened my trunk, the things which you had put in with the watch and also the watch was just up side-down. I have tried twice to get it to run but it won’t go more than 3 min. at a time. I think it is broken. I will get it fixed because I need it so badly.

Tell Willis I will write to him when I get a little more settled.

In the letter to her parents, Carrie is more evidently missing home. Her exclamation “Oh, I should love to hear from you all” and her disappointment at not getting a letter from them interrupt the newsier parts of her letter, in which she describes her classes and college social events. The poem, too, by Charles Lamb, and her lack of appetite speak to her homesickness.

She signs all of her letters “Carrie H. Blair,” which seems overly formal for the audience she’s writing to. I haven't been able to figure out what the “H” stood for, if anything. Her brother Sutton also had a mysterious initial as a middle name — in his case, “B.”

The Dr. Ketler whom Carrie mentions is Isaac C. Ketler, the school’s first president and president at the time Carrie was there. I find it interesting that he knew of Carrie’s room-mate situation, which seems an odd domestic detail for the president of the college to have on his radar.

The Willis she mentions is her cousin Willis Blair, whom Sam also mentions in one of his letters and who was boarding with her family. 

Sources:

http://www.gcc.edu/Pages/Grove-City-College.aspx

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pamercer/PA/School/gcc/gccmag1893/gccmpg17.htm

© Kristin Luce, 2017