Hurley Family Emigrant Letters (Ref. U170)

U170/

16 October 1892 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada, to ‘Dear Sister’. He received the photograph in the post and his wife will be sending on two. He is sorry that so many of Kate’s children die ‘…but it is a great consolation…that they live long enough to receive the cleansing waters of Baptism.’ He believes Tim to be foolish to postpone marriage so long, and ‘as dairy farming is the most profitable he should get a…wife that would make first-class butter’. 2pp 7 December 1892 Letter from Michael Hurley, Union Depot, Spokane Falls, Washington, to ‘Dear Mother’. He is in good health and in the same occupation. Requests a picture of John and wife. He is ‘well pleased’ with the election results in the USA and England, but does not see how land is so expensive in Ireland with the price of crops so low. Encloses £5 ‘hoping you will live to enjoy it’. 1p 14 September 1893 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada, to ‘Dear Mother’. He is surprised Tim cannot get her a helper, and refers to the fact that Tim is still unmarried, ‘He is better [to] make a trade with me, as I have secured a life partner, he to come here and take my place & I go home and manage the farm’. He has not recently heard from his brother Michael, who travelled 1700 miles last summer. His pay is still $3.50, but he is one of only ‘a handfull of men employed around here now’. Notes that the Home Rule Bill for Ireland ‘received but short favor from the Lords’ (House of Lords). 2pp 12 March 1894 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada, to ‘Dear Mother’. He hopes to hear that his nephew Tidy (Thady) is again well. Notes that the Donovan brothers are ‘living to a good old age’. He has not heard from Michael recently. Times are ‘very bad’ in the United States, ‘everything low with a great scarcity of money and work’, in particular the price of silver is very low. He is still at work but ‘retaining it [is] very insecure’. Provides advice to brother Tim on choosing a wife, ‘Some girls are better for a man to marry , even without a shilling than others with a good fortune…do not postpone…as you are not getting young.’ 2pp