Addressed to Seymour Jacklin Esq.

Only to be opened in the event of my death.

                 

31/1/32

Royston

My dearest Seymour.

I will be glad if you will have my vein opened to be sure of death; also, to have me cremated.

Thank you for all your goodness and loving kindness to me.  You have been a very noble and great husband, especially, in forgiving many things and ways in which I have been unkind and unfair.

Will you talk to the boys about me sometimes – getting them to remember the happy times we have had together.  I hope they will grow up to be good and true men worthy of all your love and sacrifice they have had from you.

Don’t mourn for me and have no regrets, remembering everything possible was done for me and my comfort, and remember it was my wish you stayed with Ted – your last act of unselfishness to me.

May you be blessed and protected through the remaining years of your life.

Nettie

I found this letter, today, in amongst a collection of documents and photos that I have belonging to my father’s family.  I had lost these precious documents and certainly forgotten what they are.

This letter was written by my great-grandmother and we think she wrote it before she was due to go for an operation of some sort, in England.  Needless to say, the operation was obviously successful and the letter didn’t need to be opened in 1932.

I just found it such an interesting read to see what was most important to her to write about at a sensitive moment in her life.  Though she writes of Ted as if he is a young boy, he was actually 15 at the time of her writing and was the youngest of her three boys.  Ted was my grandfather.  I believe he did grow up to become a man good and true, worthy of his father’s love and sacrifice for him.  This photo of him was also amongst the documents I found today:

Hosting the Queen Mother.