Karl Keating's E-Letter of January 8, 2008

[Joe Kelley]

I have a love letter from my great-great-grandfather to his wife to be that is very moving. Less than a year after their marriage she died, possibly in child-birth, if so the child died too and was not recorded. He resigned himself to a single life.

A few years later his brother jilted the girl he was to marry and married widow. She and my great-great-grandfather decided since neither had prospects they should try to make some kind of a life together. It worked well; they had eight children and there are a lot of us descendents scattered all over the country today.

I also have her diary for the year he died. It doesn't say much in words, but there is much between the lines.