Lucius Wilder Sabin played cornet in a Navy
band; he served for years on the Richmond,
a wooden steam sloop, flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. Between 1879-1881, the Richmond cruised
through the ports of China , Japan and the Philippines
Lute
wrote many letters home to his family in Boston...I’ve transcribed most of
them, and am fascinated by his descriptions of Shanghai—his reports of playing
in the Public Gardens, at Grand Dinners, at private residences of notables in
the city during that time.
This letter is one of my favorites: a letter Lute wrote to his younger sister, Ethel Sabin,
my great-great aunt, who was about five or six years old in 1879...
Shanghai China
Dear little Sister,
I
promised to write to you again and I will do so now. I was very glad to get
your letter sometime ago and I said I would answer it right off but I have
waited a long time.
I
went into the old Chinese City the other day and saw some funny things there
the little Chinese girls dont wear any dresses they have a little sack and
little pants their heads are shaved and all the hair they have got is two
little tails over their ears and they look funny enough. I went into the Prison
and saw some very bad men with great big chains on them and they were all
dirty, and looked very bad. I guess you would not like to see them. I saw some
pretty toys & playthings for little boys and girls and when I come home I
will bring you some of them...
...it
is most a year since I enlisted and left Boston
Write
Soon to
Your
Absent Brother
Lute
They seemed to have a sweet relationship. I bet Little Sister was eager to see those toys from China, such an exotic and faraway place.
ReplyDeleteThey stayed close all their lives. His letters to Frances (another sister) are also good, but these to Ethel are the best!
DeleteHow lovely to have such an old collection, and this was a very sweet letter from big brother to little sister. She might have learnt something about China from it too.
ReplyDeleteShe was probably more interested in the toys he promised to bring back for her, Jo!
DeleteWhat a charming letter, and what a good big brother! Very special.
ReplyDeleteHe wrote to everybody in his family -- it seems that somebody got a letter every week the entire time he was gone. Very dutiful. He came back, married, became a piano tuner in the Boston area; taught music.
DeleteThat's quite something to have some correspondence as old as that, and what a great word picture it paints.
ReplyDeleteI've got a trunk absolutely full of letters, diaries, photos of this family -- it's amazing!
DeleteYou can tell that Lute has tried very hard to write in terms that his little sister would understand, and how delightful to have those toys to look forward to on his return.
ReplyDeleteLute was a sweetheart. My father remembered him (vaguely); but remembered Ethel very well. And he did bring toys back, just as he promised.
DeleteWhat a great brother! You're very lucky to have a trunk full of letters and photos.Luke had excellent penmanship, another almost lost art.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Helen; it's a lost art. I don't know what people are going to save now that letters/postcards, etc. are no longer being written and sent. Sad, really!
DeleteSuch a sweet letter. I bet his sister enjoyed the part about the little girls, but maybe not about the prisoners.
ReplyDeleteI love the line about how those little girls "look funny enough." I'm sure Ethel loved getting those letters in the mail!
DeleteWhat a treat that these letters were saved and what great word pictures Lute paints for his sister.
ReplyDeleteI love the line about the "very bad men" with the chains! That's enough for a little kid -- and Lute seems to know that!
DeleteWhat a nice letter geared just to a little girl's interests. It made me want to see pictures of the things he described.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting, Kristin, to find old photographs of Shanghai during that time period; be able to look at the places he talks about!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWht a lovely sweet letter and how lucky you are to have such a large collection of family memorabilia..
ReplyDeleteI am lucky, I know! It's both a blessing (for obvious reasons) and a curse, in that I'm the only one who is willing to caretake all this wonderful stuff...what to do?
DeleteSo glad you shared this letter...and I imagine the others are also interesting. Keep being a caretaker, Deb! I think someone has an unpublished collection of letters from one of my ancestors, and I do wish I could look at them. Sharing is what makes it worth while hanging on to them.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, of course, that I should continue being a caretaker! By the time I'm dead and gone, somebody will step up, I'm sure. I've thought about donating all of it to the historical societies of Boston, Walpole and Newton; at least I'd know that they'd be taken care of!
DeleteHis handwriting is so neat and easy to read! I wish all our ancestors wrote as well. What a wonderful treasure to have all those letters. I can imagine how strange everything must have looked to Lute in such an exotic place.
ReplyDeleteI'm old enough to have learned to write with a pen/inkwell situation -- it was difficult, what with blots all over the paper, but there's something that's been lost in this age of technology!
DeleteWow! (I seem to be saying that a lot this week). How lucky you are to have letters from so long ago.
ReplyDeleteI love the description and agree that his handwriting is so much better than any of the males in my family today!
I am lucky, Sharon; I know it! I'm in the process of transcribing EVERYTHING, so I can keep the originals safe -- trying to keep it all for future generations.
DeleteSuch a touching letter. But that's how it was done back then. A little news and color, but most important: the contact.
ReplyDeleteI agree -- it's all about "the contact." We've lost that, haven't we, in this high-tech world? There's a connection between me and that ancestor that I find in the actual document, and I think that's gone...I can't imagine finding it in a computer!
DeleteDeb I am in awe of you having such an old letter in your possession. That's a great treasure indeed. I know that I did some research recently on my father's side and was excited to find my great-grandfather was around this area in the British Navy. He was listed in the 1911 census as being on the Waterwitch, a surveying vessel, docked at Hong Kong. But 1879 - wow - that's even older.
ReplyDeleteI'd LOVE to have somebody on a boat called the "Waterwitch." That's fabulous, Alex! We all have amazing treasures here in the Sepia Saturday community; we all appreciate each other's connections to the past...it's what I love about us all!
DeleteReally incredible that the letter has survived so long and in such good condition! Such a sweet letter too.
ReplyDeleteAll Lute's letters were sweet -- those I have, anyway. Most of them are to one or the other of his younger sisters (Frances became my great-grandmother); I have one he wrote to his parents, and that one is more "adult."
Delete