Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their Letters

Dear Ellen, Page 056

Dear Ellen have expressed her feelings, and Hiram's are full of protestations of his love for her and assurances that she does love him. His appreciation for her mounted when he was absent. In March 1866 he wrote: "And it is onlv when I am absent from you that I fully realize how dear you are to me and when I am absent 1 make all sorts of good resolutions to be to you all that you can desire and altho you may think that I do not love you yet T do and that to sincerely and truly well." On June 8, 1867, from Omaha he wrote more of his love for her and his problem of expressing it in her presence: I think of yon venj very often My dear little wife and when I am away from home I feel how much 1 ought to love you and how much I do love you and yet when I am at home I treat you so neglectfully that I often wonder you ever forgive me but such is man's nature they never fully appreciate a true loving woman except when Ihcy are absent from [hem and have plenly of leisure to look back and see when they slight and misuse them Still T hope to overcome these bad traits in my nature and treat you as you deserve. And from New York, LSeptember 6, 1867, when she wrote of the death of their ten-month-old son, Hiram wrote: It is in such times . . . that your sweet eonsoling words make me feel how little I appreciate your pure love and affection and yet I want to love you as vou deserve. That I do dearly love [you] 1 am sure but alas my nature; is such that when I am with you when 1 can have your loving heart nestled close to mine and feel your warm affectionate nature cling to me and as it were ask for that love you so truly deserve, I seem as it were rebuked for my neglect my conscience smites me and yet I go on in ihc same way from day to day with a heartlessness that Man only of all God's creation is capable of. And all this 1 see Dear Ellen when I am away from you. and while I am away it fills me with regrets and makes me feel that 1 am unworthy of so great a blessing and .so devoted a wife. Then comes the; thought Will I ever learn wisdom . . . My dear little wife, I hope I pray I may. . . . 56