The Bombshell in Jane's Last Letter

Julia Esalina Palmer Barnes saved four letters written by her sister, Caroline Jane Palmer Alderman, from Ohio to her in New York where she was visiting their grandfather, Zephaniah Platt Palmer, and other relatives. These are the third and fourth letters. They mention their grandfather’s sister Lydia DeKalb and husband and youngest daughter, Betsy, who lived with her parents until their deaths. I may write more about Betsy another time.

Jane expected Julia’s visit to last a year, but it was nearly two years before Julia came home. Apparently Julia was persuaded by her relatives in New York to stay, and her final extension of the visit was to take a job teaching school in the fall of 1848. By that time Jane was nearly frantic for her sister to come home.

Did Jane Alderman have a premonition that her life would be cut short by illness? She died only a year later. After that time, Julia talked of herself to relatives and friends as a “child of sorrows”; she had lost all of her immediate family before she married.

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Windsor July 17^th [1848]

                                                                   Beloved sister I guess you have forgoten that you have a sister away in the Ohio that wants to see you or hear from you or else you would come or write I have looked for you every day for 3 weeks and no Julia yet not even a letter I am heart sick and tired and discouregd it seemes as if I should go crazy when I think of you some times I think we never shall see each other again but that is a painfull thought you and I know that sickness and death is severing the dearest ties that nature hath bound and we are as liable to be the victim as anbody still it is my prayer that we may live to see each other again I hope you are not so taken up a visating with the relatives that you cant come home and see your sister we used to think when we were both to gether that we were lonley as to relatives and how do you think I feel now I will tell you were it not for a kind husband and two sweet children I should be verry lonley indeed I thought you would certianly come before independence [day] but it has pased by and you have not returned summer is almost gone fall is aproaching and I fear you will not come this season the young people say that you will get married before you come if you do I shall give up all hopes of ever seeing you I never expect to move away from windsor and it has been my greatest anxiety that you would settle here some where and you know you might if you would and get the best man except mine that there is TB [Truman Barnes] has been here twice since you wrote the last time he was here he told me when I wrote to you to give you his best love and tell you that he was the same old chicken that he ever was

I think he is a verry worthy young man sis I hope you think as much of him as he does of you      I want you to write if you are not coming soon and tell me every particular about your self how your health is and how you are getting along what you are doing for a livelyhood  write all about Grandpa what the reason is that dont come with you and what his buisness that he cant come now as well as ever and if he is willing to have you come and if he helps you much if he cant come this summer dont you stay there any longer if you have the means to come with S  I know it is a great journey for one alone especialy a girl I want you to find out when you will come and be sur and come if your health is good  Jerome says he want to know when you are coming that he may know when to look for you he is discouregd as well as myself last fall when you wrote you should stay till spring I thought I could not wait till then to see you but the winter and spring and summer is almost gone and no Julia yet I do hope you will come before fall if you are not coming soon write immediatly and let me know every particular I want you to fill a large sheet full give my best love to Uncle and Aunt DeKalb and to cousin Betsy and all the rest tell them still I think verry much of my relatives and should be very happy to see them

I want to write to grandpa but I have not time now give my best love and esteem tell him to be sure and come with you I have always thought if i could see my dear grampa I should be made up       my self and children are well    Jeromes health is poor I shall have to close I have not wrote half I want to
         minna died since I commenced writing
         please excuse this poor letter  it was wrote in great haste
         this from your afectionate sister
                            C J Alderman
this makes /2 letters

since I had any from you                                 

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                                                                                                Windsor Nov 26 [1848]

 Dear and affectionate sister I have taken this oportunity to answer your kind letter that I received Nov 21 you cannot immagin what a welcome messenger it was to me I was discouraged and allmost afraid that I should never see or hear from you again but I am happily disapointed and verry glad to hear that you are safe under the roof of that kind uncles house and an ascociate with that dear family I often think of them and wish I could see them and git acquainted with them all but this fancie I never expect hopeing dear sister you will do this for me through your own acquaintance – dear Julia I am happy by my own fire side this evening \while I write my little Lucy is verry busy at play trotting about making a noise now and then Jostling the table where I am writing Jerome seems to be verry happy and comfortable sitting in the rocking chair eating chesnuts Marcellus lives at his grandpa [Alderman] the most of the time I dont know but they will get him away from us entirley you know how much they think of him dear child I am afraid they will spoil him they are so tender of him as to myself I should be satisfied with my situation so far as this world is concerned if youre were here I had dotted so much on your company this [unintelligible words on this line along the fold] long and that this world is full of disapointments well I will try to be peaceable and wait untill spring and if you do not come then I shall have to give up I have troubled myself considerable lateley on your acount I have immagined all that was disagreable some times I thought your health was so poor you could not come home then again I would think you had started to come alone and some thing had befell you and I thought it would be imposible to gain any inteligence of you again I say I am happily disapointed I had much rather you would stay where you are then to have such a thing take place dear sister I entreat of you to be careful of your health it will be verry much exposed if you keep at school this winter you will be verry liable to get sick be verry cautious and prudent / I cannot write any more now it is verry late but time the rest are a bed and a sleep and I shall have to wait a more conveienent time to finish

Dec 3

My ever dear sister I have again sit down to finish my letter I supose you will think strange of me because I have not finished this before and sent it to you I will try to excuse myself this time I have so much work to do I have no time to write on a week day I hardley know what to write or what to say I want to say so much I do wish I could come and spend only one evening with you I could take more satisfaction and tell you more than I could write in a week still I esteem even this a privelige hopeing your own dear eyes will peruse this I supose you would like to hear from the people hear I think if you was hear you would say that a great change had taken place since you went away I think I have given you an count of all the deaths there has been I have intended to / now I will send you a list of the Mariges in short Mr J wiswell to Mis phila Wodworth of Morgan / Mr Nehemiah Parker to Mis Zilpha fenton/ Mr Ancil Hill to Mis Clarisa Marsh / I was mistaken little George Alderman as we used to call him was buried the first day of October he died of the consumtion / also Mis Zliga Alderman the 14 of the same month she died in a fit  Loeisa is verry sick she has been sick 9 weeks I cannot tell you what what ails her the doctters say that her liver and stomack and digestion organs are verry badly infected she is verry weak and low at present still he incourages thim abitt she is under the care of the doctter Judd    I supose you would like to hear from the Orwell friends they are well so far as I know
 . . . . I have not seen [Trumun] lateley he has been here several times this fall expecting everry time to see you the last tim he was here he wanted us to send word to him as soon as you come I think he will be disapointed when he hears you are not coming till spring   I forgot to tell you that the money you sent came safe the letter was kept in the post ofice some time although we caled there every mail thier excuse was they had overelooked it

I want to write a few lines to my own ever dear Grandfather inded he seems nearer to me than a grandfather and when I think of the happy days I have spent in his own dear family when they were all together and the care and anxity they had over my tender infancy my heart overflows with gratitude to him and to my dearest grandmother who has long since pased to that bourn from whence no traveler has ever returned I shall never forget her good instructions she have me and the prayers she has oferd up in my behalf  Others to have died and the rest scatterd to diferent parts of the world and none there but grandfather to corespond with it sims almost incridible that so few years has brought about so great a change  I feel verry anxious to see him give my best love to him tell him I want to have him come with you in the spring
Dear Julia I shall have to bring my letter to a close hopeing you wil not forget your sister this winter  I feel rather suspisous of you I am afraid there is a load stone there some where I want to have you remember me  and think how much I want your company my best love and well wishes for you my dear sister this from your loving sister            C J Alderman

Dear Sister Julia what can I find to write to you if you were here you would find what I could say to you I had hoped to have what such a chance long before this I realy believe if I could get hold of you I should squeece you as the dutch say [word?] but do come and see / Julia I never believed you to be a liar nor will I now if you come in the Spring dont talk of taxing my generosity with regard to the money I am happy to have accommodated you it is getting late Jane has said something of a load stone I cant hardly believe such a thing – if you can find a better one there than you can here I have nothing to say provided you bring him along with you there now I have called a thing excuse your friend and well wisher  T J Alderman

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Did you notice I put an ellipse in the transcription of the last letter? Here is the bombshell out of that last letter of Jane’s to Julia:

Mis Eliza Barns I think is doing well they say she has a child 4 weeks old she swore it on Mr Henry Budell her sisters husband he setteled with her and gave his Note for 3 hundred dollars    I feel verry sorry for Trumun  

That news must have been distressing to Julia; Harriet Barnes Bedell, Henry’s wife and Eliza’s elder sister, was one of Julia’s close friends. At this time a scandal in a family reflected badly on all the relatives and could even make a prospective suitor look elsewhere. Jane’s feeling sorry for Truman might have been on that account, or it might simply have been sympathy for his sorrow over the situation.

It is impossible to know what the situation was—whether Eliza was the victim of her brother-in-law, or whether she was infatuated with him, or whether it was something else. Harriet stayed with her husband and her own letters sound pleasant, even happy, so this probably did not ruin her home life. Harriet had no children and died young, just before Julia married Truman.

Eliza and her baby, Olivia, lived with her parents for the next twelve years, and then Eliza married a Mr. Charles Peck, who informally adopted Olivia.

It seems that Henry Bedell wanted nothing more to do with his sister-in-law and his natural daughter—the $300 sounds somewhat harsh to me as a trade for fatherhood, but again, it is impossible to know the circumstances and feelings of everyone involved. After his wife, Harriet, died in 1852, Henry Bedell disappears from the area and I cannot find him on any record anywhere in the United States after that.

Eliza had a long married life with Charles; they had a son, and in old age died one day apart. Olivia married and had four children of her own. I “met” a cousin online a few weeks ago who is a descendant of Olivia. Their family tradition was that Olivia’s father had died before her birth and thus had been unable to marry the mother. They were both glad to know the truth and sad to find it sordid. Family history can be a mixed blessing when the skeletons come out of the closet.