Extract from a letter of
Fanny Phelps to her brother Arthur.
Transcribed from a scan of the original in
November 2013 by Penelope Forrest, born Phelps, great granddaughter of Arthur.
............
A. H.1
8th
September [1854]
I
should have written to you last week by Southampton but I was so busy I really
hadn't time to tell you of something that will grieve tho' it can't much
distress you as it is the news of dear Grandma's death. She died very peacefully
& painlessly on the 27th
of August. She had refused food for two or three days before, & she had grown so
very thin this summer that there was really no flesh left on her bones, & she
had nothing to support life with. Aunt Fanny had Anne Evans with her, & Mr
Douglass the Dr
who had looked after Grandma ever since she has been at Thurloe Square. It was a
Sunday so John was at A. H. George came down in the evening with the news. Poor
Aunt Fanny was a long time before she could get over it at all, & even now she
cries a good deal; poor thing she misses the constant care & attention that she
was obliged to give her mother. She & John mean to go on living in the house if
they can possibly between them manage to afford it – but she will hardly have
£200 a year of her own, & you know that isn't much to keep a house in London, &
John is always poor now. However they mean to try & rub on together.
I hope you will write
to Aunt Fanny. I am sure she deserves all the little attentions her nephews &
nieces can pay her. Grandma was buried in the same vault with her husband at
Plumstead on 1st
September. I am sorry that there was no Phelps present at the Funeral; the Col,
Sib & Willie, my dear old man, & John, Jack Evans & Aunts Fanny & Grover were
the only people present.