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Page: of 436
INTRODUCTION
some of the old family letters. There are hundreds and my grandmother
started sorting through some over forty years ago, my mother has dabbled with a few and every summer when . am visiting in New York I get
inspired to try to go through some and work on family trees, etc. It is a
monumental task, and far more time-consuming than any of us realized.
.. Even though my grandmother had semi-sorted the originals, there
still is no way to know what material we have without reading over the
letters and neither my mother nor I seem to have found time for this.
You understand, of course, that there would be no point in sending you
copies of all the letters she has, and some are from entirely different
people, such as her grandfather Charles Niles’ letters home when he was
in the Civil War.
We're sorry to be so slow in replying, and sorry to be of so little
assistance right now. We ARE working on it, however.
In a postscript Janet added, “‘Ran across Niles Searls’ ten commandments and rule of conduct written in 1846, and some Cornelia [Niles]
wrote for herself when inspired by his . . Thought you might like to see
both, and am enclosing a copy, as they cast a bit of light on their personalities. The more I read of Cornelia’s letters, the more I like her sense
of humor. Some letters to her from Niles are also light in touch, but she is
my favorite.” Anxious to read these tantalizing documents, . swiftly
riffled through the envelope. Finding nothing, I turned back to the letter
and saw a penciled note at the bottom which read: “‘can’t find copy—will
send when I get home.”
More time passed without further word from Janet or her mother. As
1978 came to a close, we received a copy of The Haseley Herald, Janet
and Ed’s annual letter to friends and relatives, which described the family’s rather strenuous activities in 1978. A handwritten note in the margin
concluded with this query: “how about a hand-delivery? How far is it
and how complicated to reach Grass Valley from San Francisco? We
leave here 6 am Jan. 21 and return 8 pm Jan. 28. Might be able to see you
one day the 26th or 27th. Or do you ever get to S.F.?” We learned that Ed
Haseley would be attending a symposium at San Jose State University,
and Janet was coming along with some of the family letters.
We met in San Jose and spent most of one day getting acquainted and
looking at old letters. It was an exciting day, and the weeks that followed
were equally so. I wrote Janet in February 1979 to describe my pleasure:
After we returned home it began to snow and we were snowed in for
about a week, which was all the excuse I needed to entirely neglect all of
my other work so that I could work uninterrupted on transcribing the
letters into typed form. Not only were the letters delightful, but they
Xiv