Name/Title
LetterEntry/Object ID
2020.005.0003Scope and Content
This is a letter from Emma at the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia to her cousin at the California Military Academy in Oakland. Her cousin is Mr. William H. Sharp of The Dalles Oregon. Emma mentions how letters they write have to be left open for inspection and how much she hates that. She talks of the girls from the fourth prepatory class inviting them to a "sheet or pillow case party. She and Laura Gross used rags as masks with eye, nose and mouth holes cut in them. They painted their faces and wore horns on their head. The teachers tried to identify the girls but Miss Richards mistook her and Laura for two other girls.
Emma tells of her Mother saying that Ellen had a fit and luckily Dr. S was having dinner at their house when it happened. The doctor was there because he had been called to the John Blakenship house because John's wife had taken poison to kill herself. Mrs. Blakenship said she tried to kill herself because the Blakenship family treated her so badly. The cause of Ellen's "fit" was a tape worm.
I Believe this to be a letter from Emma Rhoda Sharp Wood (1867 - 1943) from Castoria, San Joaquin, CA. in the 1880 census. Her parents are Peter George Sharp and Elizabeth A. Wood from Ohio. She is writing to her cousin William Henry Sharp (1863 - 1943) who was at school at the California Military Academy in Oakland but living in The Dalles, Oregon at the time. His father was Phillip Thomas Sharp. Peter and Phillip plus another brother came to California in 04/1849 as part of a mining company for the Gold Rush. Emma's older sister Sophia Wood Sharp (1865 - 1903) was also a student at the YLS. Note that she died in 1903 and is buried at the Stockton Rural Cemetery. Can't find her death certificate so not sure what the cause of death was.Collection
Benicia School Collection
