Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

148
ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
beautiful braids of hair, down to the age when the silver lies
white on my head.
Sister Ida was popular among the neighbors, and as a
little girl she would spend hours talking to Mrs. Van Zandt,
Mrs. Preston, or Mrs. Cummings. She entered into the daily
lives of all with interest, and was bright and witty in conversa-
tion even as a child. The Cummings girls were her friends,
as were Libbie and Sue Krewson, daughters of the sister of
the man who was destined to become her husband, though when
she played with the Krewson girls she was not acquainted with
Datus Myers. It is yet a joy to think that we had loyal friends
among our neighbors, and that their memory had for our
brothers during their lifetimes, and for us sisters who remain,
a satisfaction and a pleasure.
It will be appropriate to copy here a selection from one of
my brother William's last letters to me, where there is a
reference to these same old neighbors.
Dayton, Ohio, 13 Oct., 1898.
To Julia A. Frost, Hiram, 0.
My Dear Sister: You are sixty years old to-day, and I congratulate
you on the return of your birthday and wish you many
happy returns. It seems strange that we are old—we were so
young—it was other people who were old—our grandparents for
instance; but I never thought of our parents as old nor Van Zandt
nor Browns, but Samuel Raymond and George Bradbury Robinson
were old; and father said that the latter was an old man when he
was a little boy. That world in [which] these people flourished and
we were careless, happy children has passed away forever, and soon
no one will know that there ever was such a world; naught will remain
of these save the good which they did. The world passeth away
and the fashion thereof, but he that doeth the will of [my] Father
abideth to the end of the age.