Jacksonville
Wednesday Night 22nd

My Dear Sweetheart,

Didn’t write to you last night as it was quite late when we came in and we were damp from the rain. I usually write to you from downstairs and when I had removed the damp clothes, there was a temptation to go to sleep, rather than to dress and come down again.

It has not rained very much since we arrived and from the standpoint of the clinic I am mighty glad that we started the 10th rather than the 20th. However, I did hate to leave Uvalde and it seems like ages since I have seen you Dear. It would have been equally as difficult to have left there at any other time, and as you said, the sooner I left the sooner I would get back.

July 22, 1925

The letter from Mr. & Mrs. Lewis came today and, Sweetheart, you don’t know how much I appreciate it. They were mighty nice and I sincerely hope that I will never give them or yourself an occasion to regret your marriage. I am going to try mighty hard to make you happy and I hope we can have your folks with us enough so that they will know how we get along. I am sure that we are going to get along fine. There isn’t anything to prevent it. I’ll be the happiest man in the world when I have you and a home of our own. I often think of how you would like it down here and I wonder if you will be homesick etc., and while I know it will be trying to be away from your folks yet I can’t help but believe that you will like it here. No doubt the work I will have will be of such a nature that we can go to Uvalde about once a year and I hope that on such visits some of your folks can come back with us and spend a while with us. I am especially anxious that your mother will do this, for it is most difficult for her to be separated from you and I know that she will miss you so much. Of course I want the others to come too, but I believe your Mother will miss you more than either Claudelle or your Daddy.

Tonight, Dr. White and I met the train for Mr. and Mrs. Garrison of Washington. They are a young couple, and he is in our Bureau in Wash. He had been in Quincy on some work and she was down here with him. They are on their way to Washington now, but stopped over to do some sight seeing. He had noticed in the papers that Dr. White and I were here on C.E. so he dropped me a letter. They were especially nice to me last winter and I ate Christmas dinner at their apartment. Mrs. Garrison went to Wash. from Waco and during the winter her sister was with them. I was invited to see them while the sister was there, but I didn’t become interested. I couldn’t help but think of you and wish that I could see you instead.

11:30 PM. They came downstairs for a walk and I have just returned with them. They are going to St. Augustine tomorrow and will probably leave for Wash tomorrow night. You will probably meet them in Wash when we go there and I believe you will like them.

Sweetheart, I did not keep copies of the Kodak pictures as I have others of yourself which I like so much better. I haven’t finished the roll of films in my camera and so have not had the ones of the house developed. As soon as they are finished I’ll send some.

I note what you said about Mrs. H. and E. I haven’t heard anything more from them. When I left Dallas I mailed a Masonic sabre which had belonged to Mr. H and which I sometimes used in lodge. I did not write anything. My mother forwarded a letter which E had written to her, telling how coldly I had treated them and that I did not even see them. She quoted my telegram advising them not to come to Uvalde. There was no other way to do it, and I believe I did the right thing. I know them well enough to know that I couldn’t be courteous. I do not correspond with any one in Aberdeen but I’ll drop some of my friends a line before long, and without mentioning them I am sure that I’ll find out what the story was when they returned.

I love you, Dear, and I often wish for you. Many times everyday. I’ll write Mother Lewis and Daddy in a few days, though I can’t begin to tell them how grateful I am for their consent, good wishes and blessing.

With all my love, Sweetheart, and then some,

Your,
Walter.

A note on the envelope in what appears to be an older Ina’s handwriting says: “Soon after our engagement. Repetition of Mrs. Hulett & Evalyn story.”