Mantor Library, University of Maine Farmington

Letter writing was as much an art as a mode of communication in the early 1900s. Normal School students kept in touch by writing to one another, often detailing their lives away from school, providing a peek into everyday life during those years.

Elizabeth ("Lizzie") Conant was a student at Farmington Normal School from 1916 to 1918. She received a lovely rhyming letter from her friend and schoolmate, Mildred, in 1916. In the letter, Mildred reminisced about the Normal School and friends they shared, and updated her friend on her work caring for patients at a health facility in Lewiston.

The letter does not include a last name and there were several girls named Mildred during Lizzie's time as a F.S.N.S. student. However, it may have been Mildred Wright of Farmington, who graduated from the Normal School in June 1916 and would have begun working later that year.

Lewiston, Me.,
Sept. 19, 1916.

Dearest Liz, -- As I sit here, my fond fancies stray
To a lively young miss I once knew, --
And I wonder how go things up Farmington way,
So I am writing to say, “How d’ye do?”

Well, Lizzie, how are you? And if Vina’s there –
And I’ll wager she’s not far away –
Don’t let her get jealous and tear down her hair, --
Share with her this short message, I pray.

To Harry and Maurice you’ve bade fond adieu,
The pathway of knowledge to seek,
But do have a heart, girls, and squeeze out the time
To write them at least once a week.

You’re studying hard, I suppose. That’s the place, --
At least, that is what I have heard, --
Which for study and labor sure does set the pace;
As for fellows – sh! sh! – Mum’s the word!

For there “ain’t no sure creature” permitted up there,
And if one toward your pathway should stray,
Just pass him right by with a dignified air
Which will help keep him from getting too gay.

Who’s your room-mate, dear Lizzie, and Vina, the same?
Tell their names, and describe them to me.
And Vina, the girls whom last winter smit, --
Do they chance there this autumn to be?

There was Celia and Jennie and Phyllis, you know,
Edith Chase and sweet Dorothy P.,
And Alma and Myrtie, and the girl who likes “eats”,
Clara Bacon and fair Charlotte G.

Give my love to them all if they chance to be there, --
They have, likely, forgot about me, --
But I hope that sometime I may see them again,
Tho’ land know when that ‘sometime’ will be.

For vacations in this place are precious and few,
And they surely are quite far between, --
I never quite realized before I came here
How much a vacation can mean.

I’m now working nights, and I’ve been on three weeks;
Every night I’m sole ‘boss’ of this ward,
But just now I’ve five patients, who are all getting well,
So I’m not working awfully hard.

The night matron’s lovely, - so kind and so good,
That you don’t feel so scared, on alone,
For if anything happens which troubles my mind,
I can just call her up on the ‘phone.

What troubled me mostly when first I arrived,
Strange to say, (knowing me), was the food,
But I guess it’s like nearly all boarding-house fare,
And makes food at home taste more good.

But eating in this place is fearsome, you know,
With bread-puddings and eggs far from new,--
And when doctors cut off some poor sinner’s limbs,
They are served us next day in a stew!

So, since I don’t spring from a cannibal tribe,
And consider such diet a sin,
Just take it from me, I let all meat alone, --
Consequently, I’m getting quite thin.

Well, Angie and Wallace, and Annie and Stan
Have felt Cupid’s arrow, it seems,
And each little maiden has taken her man
And set forth down the path way of dreams.

May they ever be happy, and may fortune smile
On their home life, and may it be fair
With much of God’s blessing and little of ill,
Till time shall have silvered their hair.

And, oh Lord, pray have pity, and send me a man,
As so often before I have prayed.
Send me one tall and slender, with beautiful eyes, --
Oh, don’t let me die an old maid!

Well, girls, this is foolish, and I guess it would be wise
To shut up my mouth, for tonight.
This night work’s inspiring to poetic brains,
But I don’t wish to murder you quite.

Write me now, won’t you girls, and if not in rhyme,
Plain prose I’ll accept with a smile.
This message bears witness that, tho far away,
I think of you once in a while.

Your very loving friend & classmate,
Mildred

Sources: Admissions Record Book, 1891-1928, Farmington State Normal School; Attendance Record Book, 1911-1922, Farmington State Normal School; Catalogue and Annual Circular for the Year Ending June 15, 1916, State Normal and Training School, Farmington, Maine; Catalogue and Annual Circular for the Year Ending June 21, 1917, State Normal and Training School, Farmington, Maine; Farmington Normal (various dates); Class Will of the Graduating Class of 1917; Alumni records, Class of 1917.