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.

Abbots Hill, Hertfordshire

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