Below is a transcript of a letter that found in a box of family items. It also contains a small piece of paper with a ribbon and some very fine hair, which is from Herbert Easton, written about in the letter. At bottom is information about the family. It took a long time to determine who the Easton’s were, who the letter was written to, and why we have it. Spelling errors have been retained. 

Lodomillo Oct the 8 1863 

Write as soon as you get this. 

Dear Sister 

It is with a sad hart that I seat myself to write to you to let know that our Dear little Herbert is dead. He died the 7 of October he had the dysentery and he was a getting a very little better and the typhoid fever set in and he lived five days and died. If you could have been here how glad I would have been no tongue could tell how the little thing did suffer he was taken worse Tuesday at 11 o’clock sand died Wednesday at 5 minites past 7 we buried him that day at one o’clock you do not know what it is to part with one that is so Dear it don’t seem as though I would ever endure it if it wont that I knew that he is better of than any of us he has left a world of trouble he has gone to rest no sickness nor sorrow can enter there I could not wish him back he was so much comfort to us I think that he was taken away for us to have in our mind on something else besid things here on earth. It is dreadful sickly here this fall there was a funeral wendsday and 2 a Thursday and one to day. Mr Blanchard was buried yesterday and his wife was taken very sick in the meeting house and had to have the doles [?] and she is very sick now. Mina I will send you a lock our little Herberts hair. Tell Lydia when she comes out here I will give something of herberts to remember him by 

I wish you would come out here as quick as you could for you don’t know how lonesome our home is without our little Herbert come do and see us for you don’t know how soon it will be before you will have to follow your little one tor the grave. It has almost set me crazy but he is gone home he is in heaven and that I could go him but he can never come to me. When he was laid in his little coffin o how innocent he did look if you could have been here to have took the last look of our sweet little angel you would have thought he was the handsomest little thing you ever see in your life. O Dear it does seem as though my heart would burst when I think that our dear little baby is gone. I wish you would come out here for I cant express my feelings in a letter my health isn’t very good this fall I have had the dysentery to but have got better. I shall look for you next Saturday. No more at present so good by from your sister. 

Ethel C Easton 

This letter appears to have been written by Alice C. Osborne Easton, the sister of Elmina/Mina Osborne Nelings. Findagrave has an Alice Osborne Easton who died in 1919 and is buried in Strawberry Point Cemetery, Clayton County Iowa. Her husband, Lorenzo Easton, is also buried in Strawberry Point. There is no grave for Herbert that is clearly linked to this boy.  Lorenzo and Alice had two children after Herbert died who lived to adulthood. An interesting side-note, Lorenzo Easton took part of the California Gold Rush in 1848, going to California on overland trails and returning by sail around the Cape of Good Hope (Algona Upper Des Moines, March 3, 1949) 

Alice was born in Vermont, in 1844. In the 1850 census, the family of father Henry Osborne, wife Caroline Osborne, and sisters Elmina and Alice, is found in Genoa, DeKalb County Illinois. This is different from Elmina’s obituary, which has their mother dying in 1854, before the family moved to Illinois. In 1860 Alice was living with the DeWoodey family in Honey Creek, Delaware County Iowa. Honey Creek is just south of Lodomillo, where her future husband Lorenza Easton was living with his children after his first wife died.