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Phillips, Wis., June, '86. Dear Brother and Sister: Our correspondence seems rather limited. It should not be so much
so, seems to me. Since Annie has been with you I have known and heard much more of you as a family, which I have greatly enjoyed,
I assure you, and I trust that such acquaintance and knowledge of each other will increase in the future. We cannot make you
a visit this summer, but if all goes well we fully intend to do so sometime. John, I shall always regret your not seeing
us in our own home last summer. Only a week or two before starting on our trip a letter came to us from Portage, I think,
saying that it was very doubtful if you could leave your home. I wanted to give you a picture, and might have taken one for
you, only I hardly expected to see you. I have finished a water-color of Father's face for you, and knowyou will like it much
better than the rough one you saw. I have put very little color in it, as you will see, for I did not wish to give full flesh
tones - Father's face was so clear and his hair so white that I think you will like the picture better as it is. I should
so much like to be with you when you criticise and make improvements according to your suggestion, but please write me of
changes you see necessary, and maybe I shall be able to improve on mine. I cannot help thinking that it looks very much as
he often did when well, and shall be impatient to hear your opinion. However I will wait sending it until I make a water-lily
piece for jtou, Louie, and send both together. The lilies do not open here until sometime in July. Annie writes me that you
would enjoy seeing some of our Phillips flowers, but it would be difficult for me to get much at present that would interest
you, and it is rather late for some of our most pleasing flowers. But I will send you clippings from one of our weekly papers
of flowers collected, and analyzed here last year by the editor. The date will show the order of their appearance. I think
none were printed after July. I will inclose two little blossoms from a plant I rooted a year ago last spring and ask you
what it is. The slip was one you sent with the first box of flowers. You sent one like it this time too, and I should like
to know the name. It blossomed for me last year and this year too, and has been greatly admired by all who saw it. It is so
different from anything we have here. I am trying to root two or three little woody slips that you sent me lately. I return
you many thanks for the grand box full you sent me, and wish they had come looking better. Mr. Hand sent for a lot of new
roses not long ago, named varieties, some very choice. They are all doing very well, and some have nice buds already. We have
not had them two months yet. We are all very fond of roses. What grand large roses you have John, you did forget to send me
the photo of little Wanda. I should like to hear from you sometime. We are all well. Willis sends love - Love to all. Affectionately,
Sister Mary Muir Hand