Letters of Grief: 1800's Death in the Family
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While birth and death dates can give us hint at the joys and hardships of life for our ancestors, nothing illuminates their thoughts and feelings quite like a firsthand letter written to loved ones. We have several surviving letters from Mary Augusta Polley, the first-born child of Joseph and Mary Polley. In fact, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas holds a file entitled, "Mary A. Polley Baylor Reminiscences," containing some of her writings. Below are two letters that have been transcribed (I am not sure by whom, please let me know if you do so I can give credit) that were written by Mary Augusta at pivotal points in her life.
The first was a letter written to her father-in-law, who was also her uncle, Benjamin Armandas Polley, on the occasion of her husband's early death. Mary married her cousin, Joseph Egbert Polley in 1842, and they had three years together before Joseph Egbert passed away. They shared one daughter, Eleanor Adelia Polley, born in 1843, and one son, Joseph Egbert Polley II, who would be born 26 days after the death of his father. Mary was 19 years old at the time that she wrote this letter.
Brazoria Jan 16th 1846
My Dear Father_
It is with a bleeding heart that I take pen in hand to inform you of the death of my Husband. Joseph is gone, he died happy, he said that he was willing to die, he departed this life the 1st of Oct of the congestive fever, after five days and a half sickness. He was taken Friday morning with a very severe pain in his side which lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes, and then it went away, he did not eat breakfast of any account, or dinner; he drank a little tea and a little corn bread with it for his dinner, after a little while, he laid down a few minutes, and got up and walked out threw up his tea, went about most of the evening, that night he took a couple of blue mass pills*. Saturday morning he said he felt well and as he had been promising a year and better to go after a yoke of oxen of his own he thought it was as good a chance as he had, he started early in the morning, rode eighteen miles before dinner, eat his dinner got on his horse and rode 10 miles back on the hunt of the oxen, penned one roped him and tied him to a tree that night, it was to late to pen the other one that night, he could not sleep much he felt so uneasy and bad, next morning he rode out to look for the other ox, he felt a little sick but thought it would wear off, penned the other one and was trying to rope him, he was taken with a vomiting and then a chill came on, the ox jumped the fence and got away, he was too sick to attend to them any more that day. In the night sometime his horse got away out of the lot. Monday morning he walked a mile or two in the wet prairie, found his tracks got himself wet up to the knees, still felt sick a little, borrowed a horse followed his own half way home, caught him, waited half an hour for the gentleman that was with him to go up in a field after a plough he had, when the man came back he told him that he was too sick to go back home with him, said he had a very high fever and thought he had better come home. Come home put up his horse came in the house went to bed, his fever was very high but after a while it appeared to cool off, laughed and talked with me that evening I did not think him dangerous gave him a dose of calomel* that night, and in the night he was taken with a vomiting which lasted until about nine o’clock Tuesday morning we got it stopped, sent for Dr. Collins, he gave him some medicine, told my Father he was dangerous, had him send for Dr. Angier he came gave him calomel and Dover’s powders in broken doses, sat up with him all night giving him medicine blistered him, done all we could, in the night we sent for Dr. Collins again, but it had been to late mortification had taken place that Doctor said he ought to have been called Friday when he had the pain in his side, they think he could not have been saved even then. Joseph told them if he had went to catch the oxen again he would not have seen home again he thought that he would die, felt willing to die. Wednesday evening at two o’clock he died, before he died he talked about his Mother, sisters and brother and yourself in the morning we sent for my sisters and Aunt knew them shook hands with her told her that he was prepared to meet his maker asked me to bring Adelia to him kissed her told my Father to take care of her, said a prayer for me, it was the last. Oh he has gone to heaven and I shall try to meet him as he said. He was in his senses to the last and I ought to say the Lords will be done not mine. He was the kindest of husbands but we have parted for a little while. It is a happy thing to think and know he was prepared. I wish he could have lived to see his boy if no longer. He was born the 31st of Oct. I named him after his Father Joseph Egbert Polley but he his happier where he is in heaven. It is an awful feeling for a person to be kept from those they love dearer than themselves, but it is a consolation to know that they are parted forever. Last spring he had the rheumatism in his feet and hip but he got over it, he has never had a days sickness since, very healthy until his last, I must bid Adieu. Please to write to me. My parents and sisters send their love to all. My love to Mother and Sisters and yourself. Adieu.
From your affectionate daughter,
Mary Augusta Polley
P.S. I send a few words to Marion and Rachel for them to write if you don’t. I should like it very much if they would write once a month if not oftener. If you knew what a pleasure it would be you would write. If you have ever written to us since the letter we got from Marion we have never received them, it is so hard for us to get letters here is the reason of my wanting them to write so often. Expected a letter by Mr. Carver or the Doctor Irvine. Adelia was not well this morning be she is well now. I hope she will not be sick. She is playing now, no more at present.
Yours, M. A. Polley
The Doctor said that he started before he expected to was the reason of his not bringing a letter.
He wants to go home. With this next spring if the courts mainge his things he was to get his money the 1st of this month and he thought that he would go on in the spring, he was never home sick only when he got sick and then he always talked about his home. But when well he never mentioned it.
It is notable that Mary is writing this letter 3 months after the death of her husband and she is still able to recount such specific details and relay them to her in-laws. A 19-year-old widow, caring for her newborn son and toddler daughter, just after Texas had become a state of the United States (Mary's 3rd country all while living within the same 60 miles her whole life). She must have replayed events in her mind on repeat, while also wondering what the future would hold for little family. Very big thoughts and weight for such a young lady.
Mary's second letter comes 24 years later. In this letter, she is writing to the same father and mother-in-law from her first marriage. On this occasion, the letter is to report more tragedy, this time being the death of her father, Joseph Henry Polley and her sister, Sarah Adel Polley, just two month apart from each other in the spring of 1869.
Sutherland Springs, May 27, 1869
Dear Uncle and Aunt,
It is with a sad heart I take my pen to inform you of the death of a dear Father and sister. Father died the 26th of March and my sister Adel died the 22nd of May of consumption. Father’s disease was neuralgia of the stomach. Has had the disease 8 or nine years. He was not sick long after being taken down. Knew us all to the last but could not talk any. Only to answer a question. Passed off peacefully. Did not suffer as many do.
Adel suffered so much. I never saw anything like it. She had other diseases which caused her suffering. Egbert carried her for two or three weeks before her death, from one bed to another or up and down stairs or out on the gallery. She prayed to go and her last words were, “she saw Father and greeted him.” She asked mother where she was going to bury her. Mother told her, “By Father.” She said, “You will lay on one side and me on the other.”
It is strange; my Mother’s only sister, as soon as she heard of Joseph’s (your son) being sick, she came right away to see him. She thought as much of him as any of our family. Just before he died, my Aunt, my sister Emeline and Adel were standing at the foot of his bed. He looked at them and said, “You will all go next.” And as he said, My Aunt died the next year. My sister Emeline died a few years afterwards; and now, my sister Adel next. It was strange he spoke of it.
He loved Aunt Betsy as his own Aunt and her family all thought so much of him. In fact, everybody liked him that knew him. It will not be long before we will all follow and be with the loved ones gone before.
I would like to visit you and may some day. I send you my likeness, also Adelia’s, Egbert’s; names written on the backs. They are the first that I have ever had taken. Egbert tired to go see you this summer. He says that he feels he wants to see his Father’s relations. Write to him, me and Adelia. They say they do not know how to write never having seen any of you. I tell them often to write.
All send love and accept my best love.
Yours Affectionately,
Mary Augusta Baylor
At this point in life, Mary had grown up very much. She had moved west to the Cibolo Valley with her family and gotten married to Walker Keith Baylor. Together, they had seven children, losing one in infancy and one in toddlerhood. Mary's two older children from her first marriage, Eleanor Adelia and Joseph Egbert, were treated as equal with the Polley children, and fit right in line with their ages, so the whole family was very close to both their patriarch, Joseph, and sister Sarah. To lose both of them within two months of each other would have been heartbreaking.
The Polley Association aims to record the legacy of the Polley and Bailey families of Texas as accurately as possible. If you have information that can help us tell this story, we would love to hear from you. Please email us if you have corrections or additional information about this story.
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