love notes

George and Marion - classmates and churchmates for years in New Haven - grew close during George's Yale years, while Marion was living in Brooklyn. In the summer of 1905 their relationship deepened, as seen in a letter from George:
 

"My dearest little girl: --- I hope that you are reading this on the anniversary of the date, now twenty-two years past, when you came to bless this world and make glad the hearts of those who love you. In both things I am sure you have succeeded and, dear, the only regret I have today is that I am not more worthy of the love and trust you have given me. The thought of your sweet and pure affection for one who can do so little for you at present, is ever with me night and day. It gives me love, hope, and courage for the present and inspiration for the future.   Marian, dear, I wish you every joy, not only today but every day through the coming years. However, we both know only too well that all our days can not be happy ones. Let us then renew, today, as we think of one another; the sweet, simple but enduring pledges of love first

breathed during the summer now passed. Nothing can make us more happy than those confessions, lived in just the same sweet way and guided by the never dying flame of love.
 
How quickly the days seem to fly. Nearly three months ago, now, since we joined hearts. But the time can not go any too quickly now, that brings nearer the still more happy days. I told you Sunday how I longed to be with you again. I was never home-sick in my life but have been told it is an undescribable disease of the heart and head which only one remedy can stop in its ravages, until the fever has run its course. That one remedy is said to be 'home', taken at close range.
 
If that philosophy is true I fear I have a disease somewhat akin to homesickness. It is more severe however and the coldy critical physicians of the world would call it love sickness, I presume. I feel as if it was high time for another dose of love at short range. I belive it is the only cure.
 
The little remembrance that I send will in a way repay you for some of the hard work [NOTE: one page ends here. On the flip side, the letter concludes - but we have apparently missed something.] up in the code written on the postal. This is Monday afternoon and I am expecting your lovely letter before I leave at four o'clock for my last recitation of today. You are so good to write me when you are such a busy girl."

 
We also have the final portion of a letter from Marion to George as 1905 faded into 1906:
 
"... so many faults in me as to disappoint you.
In just a few hours the new year will be here. I hope this will be the ??? and happiest and most successful year you have ever yet known. If it will help you any..."

family ties

The Armstead and Gorham families clearly knew each other, and Marian established close ties with George's mother. Here is a letter Louise Matilda (Brooks) Armstead wrote to Marion as 1907 got underway, as Louise still struggled to cope with the death of her husband (George's father) less than three months earlier [Geek note: Jan 4, 1907 was actually a Friday, not a Thursday.]:
 

"I have tried in vain to bring myself to write to my friends the thanks I have felt for their kind Christmas remembrances. I am resolved to do it now and I am going to write you first. We had a very sad, quick Christmas and yet I coul not fail to be cheered and helped by the remembrances sent me by so many friends. I know the loving sympathy that prompted the gifts. I would be ungrateful indeed had I not, but it was so sad, so lonely, not to be able to show and talk them over as I had always done with my dear husband.
I shall enjoy the Home Journal very much, I presume more even than last year because I shall have more time alone - I thank you for it. I thank you also for the dainty gift that came on New Year's morning, a surprise and pleasure. It is so white and sweet - and it was so kind in you to think of me when you have so many others to think of. So I thank you not only for the gifts but for the loving, generous thought that prompted it. I wish I could put my arms around you and tell you so. Please thank that dear mother of yours for that beautiful leaflet she sent me - it helped me. I shall read it often and try to rise above my present depression until I can have the loving faith it expresses.
George is so busy day and night, I feel as if I did not see him at all. I think perhaps just now it is as well as it takes up his mind but I am afraid he will overwork.
With love for your mother, for those dear sisters of yours, for your own dear self,
from your true friend, L.M. Armstead"
 
The story continues here. Here are the previous George and Marion pages.

References

Source material for the above

• The Armsteads Look Back in 1940 (unpublished), by Geroge Broks Armstead
• Letters handed down to James Gorham Armstead