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Louisa's Letters

After Dad passed away on July 2, 2000, I discovered 10 letters in his desk that were written by his mother, Louisa, while she was confined to a tuberculosis clinic in Scotch Plains, NJ from 1919 to 1920. The clinic was 50 miles away from her home in Morganville. Each letter is written in pencil on a single page of notebook paper, folded in two sections on each side. For the most part, I have transcribed the letters as she wrote them, with misspellings and run-on sentences.

The first letter is written to her 75-year-old mother-in-law (“Mother”), Petronilla, and is dated June 18, 1919. Louisa was 34 years old at the time and I have no idea when she first entered the clinic.

She wrote 2 letters to Petronilla, 2 to her husband, Ciro (Gene), 4 to her son Joseph, and 2 to “My Dear Son”, who may have been Joseph or Lawrence. They were all living on the farm in Morganville where they had moved to from Brooklyn in 1914.

Whenever she mentions Gene in her letters, she is referring to her husband (Ciro). She also mentions the baby Frankie, who was born June 7, 1918, a year before Louisa’s first letter. She also mentions Tootsie, Catello and Lawrence.

My father is never referred to as Gene or Eugene, but rather as Francie. According to Joe LaMura, everyone in the family called Dad Francie when he was a boy. He was 6 years old when Louisa’s first letter was written.

Two other children were born between my father and Frankie, and they were both named Salvatore. The first was born in Morganville on February 6, 1915, but he died on Christmas Day, 1916 from head injuries sustained when his highchair toppled over backward.

The second Salvatore was born on March 19, 1917, three months after the first Salvatore died, but he too died, six months later from “Summer Complaint”, a form of infant cholera caused by spoiled milk or food.

Letter # 1 -         June 18, 1919
Letter # 2 -          July 17, 1919
Letter # 3 -          July 30, 1919
Letter # 4 -      August 14, 1919
Letter # 5 -   September 3, 1919
Letter # 6 - September 10, 1919
Letter # 7 - November 12, 1919
Letter # 8 -     January 21, 1920
Letter # 9 -       March 18, 1920
Letter # 10 -       June 12, 1920

LEIER/NOWASKY FAMILY WEBPAGE