Washington Aug 26/68
My dear Mrs Gibbons
I have for the last
two or three weeks been waiting
for a response to a letter
of mine [addressed] to you at [?].
I now learn by Willie
who around here or [sends?] that
that you were in the neighborhood
of Philadelphia & so conclude
that my letter, written two
or three weeks ago, did not reach
you. I know you must be much
engrossed with Hospital duties but I
know too that you will not forget
that the Home here has a claim
upon you as one of its managers
& I know too that you can appreciate
the want of water, how impossible
it is for a large formerly to be [?]
on cleanly, on [?] or in any degree
of good health without it and that
their is an indispensable necessity
now for our institutions. Now my dear
friend what can you do to [?]
the means for supplying this great
want. By the estimate just made
by competent men, we find it
will cost at the lowers price $800.
Who will give us this sum for
this object? We must know
now what can be done about
it as it will be difficult to get it
done at all when the [?]
[?] comes. We have, I am
happy to say, just the right kind
of women for matron Mrs Ostman,
a lady of high attainments, good sense
warm sympathies, broad & elevated
views in regard to education
& training, kind & motherly & enters
into the business with heart and
soul determined to success &
make the institution what we
all deigned it to be a model Home
I hope you will now take courage
as we do, & go to work with
renewed energy to interest the friend
of the negro race in sustaining this
institution as one destined to do
much good in elevating & [getting?]
for usefulness & respectability
such as come within its influence.
We have a great deal
to do to supply all the needs of the
coming winter. We have now
$130, for [?], which will not
last long in supplying the household
at current prices, [our?] [form?] has been burnt up
[sideways along right margin]
By the [?] so we have not so much from that [?] as we had expected
so write soon & freely. [?] your [?] [column?]
