1870 July 10 . Ann M. Dibble ALS to Josephine [Buel]; Bellville, Texas.
4 pages
Box 5
Writing to family in Connecticut, offering news of family health, land dealings, weather, cotton crops, and the gardens. Comments on recent murders in the area, one stemming from a dispute among cattle drivers that included a Mexican man and another between African American men. Dibble uses racial epithets, dismisses the murdered African American man, disparages their labor, and accuses them of theft. Believes her uncle provides too much support for African Americans and not enough for his family. Busy with work and entertaining people who came for a stray horse that an African American man working with Uncle Caleb claimed without appropriately advertising it. Visited a purportedly haunted house, noting it is being sold cheaply and she wouldn't mind the ghosts if she could afford it. Comments on people returning north for education, marriages, local flowers, watermelons, and her belief that African Americans are stealing her chickens.