Mary Beckley Bristow
Aunt Polly, about 1861
Editor's note:
In 1996 I published selections from the writings of my several-times-great aunt, Mary Beckley Bristow, as a book with the title of Aunt Mary's Diary. The growth of the World Wide Web led me to make this fascinating material available to a wider audience. In adapting it from the printed page to the Web, I have made a few changes, mostly in format. Also, almost five years of further research has cleared up a few puzzles and allowed me to make some corrections. I hope that those who read Aunt Polly's letters and diaries in electronic form can help me fill in a few more blanks.
~ Neil Allen Bristow, San Diego
Table of Contents
Introduction:
- About Mary and her family
- About Mary's times
- About the documents and my editing
- Places in Mary's writings
Mary's writings:
Letters, Notes and Verses:
- 1840-1848: Conversing with absent friends
- 1850-1855: Your deeply interesting letter
- 1855-1857: My Very Dear Father
A Relation of My Experience
The Record
- 1858: Spent the day agreeably with my nieces
- 1859: An age seldom alloted to mortals
- 1860: It is a busy time with me
- 1861: This once happy country
- 1862: The war has but commenced
- 1863: O, what an awful curse and scourge
- 1863: The armies of heaven
- 1864: Tyranny of the deepest dye
- 1865: The whole world seems to be changed
- 1866-1871: Death has been a busy messenger
- Accounts, 1865-1870
- Mary's Obituary, 1890
Supporting material
- Index of Persons Those whom Mary mentions and some of their kinfolk and neighbors.
- 7 Jul 2005
- Genealogical Information Brief descendancy tables for some of the families.
- Places in Mary's writings
- Database of Aunt Polly's Kin
- Select Bibliography Sources used in preparing the material.
