Susan Stafford to Walt Whitman, 31 January 1877

About This Item

Title: Susan Stafford to Walt Whitman, 31 January 1877
Date: January 31, 1877
Creator(s): Susan Stafford
Whitman Archive ID: loc.03894
Source: The Charles E. Feinberg Collection of the Papers of Walt Whitman, 1839–1919, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Transcribed from digital images or a microfilm reproduction of the original item. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the correspondence, see our statement of editorial policy.
Contributors to digital file: Alicia Bones Eder Jaramillo Vince Moran Kevin McMullen Nicole Gray Kenneth Price
Cite this page: Stafford, Susan. "Susan Stafford to Walt Whitman, 31 January 1877." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 15 February 2026. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
Source File: loc.03894.xml (TEI)

loc_jc.00475_large.jpg Home Wednsday Evening Jan 31/77 Dear friend

we recieved your wellcome Letter last evenigng & was glad to hear from you & to know that you are well & happy with your friends in the City.1 we are all well as usual I have just returned home from Red Bank where I w[damage]illed to se of my Dear Mother who is at this time to all appearences near Death to day when I left her I felt that it would be the last time that I should se her alive. Dear frend you can judge of my feelings better than I cn discribe them. we shall look fore you down with us Teusday but please do not think of loc_jc.00476_large.jpg loc_jc.00477_large.jpg going back in one day I shoul not get go to se you at all

surely you can give us more Than one day from your friends I know they can make you more comefortable than we can but they do not care fore you more than we [damage]tions

ever your friend S M. Stafford

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Notes

1. Susan M. Lamb Stafford (1833–1910) was the mother of Harry Stafford (1858–1918), who, in 1876, became a close friend of Whitman while working at the printing office of the Camden New Republic. Whitman regularly visited the Staffords at their family farm near Kirkwood, New Jersey. Whitman enjoyed the atmosphere and tranquility that the farm provided and would often stay for weeks at a time (see David G. Miller, "Stafford, George and Susan M.," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings [New York: Garland Publishing, 1998], 685). [back]