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Show 24 8 to do something now, how thankful I am for this. I am thankful all the time. Here Ellis draws a sharp contrast between herself and her husband. He will die in six weeks, and she is "full of force to do something." This is a complete turn-around from her pre-medical days when it was she who was perennially languishing in illness and he was the one full of force. Her health and vitality (a seeming fulfillment of the promises made in blessings pronounced upon her by her husband many years before, and possibly a gift to grace her dedication to duty) will sustain her for another twenty productive years. There are no letters for the year between January 29, 1918 and February 5, 1919, and therefore no clues as to what impact her husband's death that year might have had upon Ellis or the other families. From the time Nellie and her family began to make their home in Salt Lake City, the letters marked Ellis's own absences from home. The February 19, 1919 letter is from Gridley, California where Ellis notes the high level of prosperity among "our people" (the Latter-day Saints). She details the sources of income for one ranch family she has visited. With regard to her projected classes she says, "I don't know yet just how I will come out for it is my experience that people who live easy are not so anxious to inform themselves along any line, but I am giving lectures in two of the LDS wards and hope to do something." The date tells us that she has recently observed her 72nd birthday. Three weeks later she is in Ocean Park staying with a friend |