Lyng, May 24, 1888

Goodbye, God bless you all.

My dear sister and brother, after such a long delay I now write with our kind love to you all, hoping you will excuse [me] for not writing before. When I thought of writing, there always seems something to prevent me, but I was glad to hear from you by my daughter. [I] was glad to hear you were alive, sorry to hear your husband has been so ill, glad to hear he is better. I began to think you were all dead, sorry to hear the sad accident of your grandson. It was a sad shock for his wife and for you all. Well now, I must tell you that my grandchildren keep increasing yet. My oldest son has only 11 at home except 2 girls at service. 2 boys work with their father. The youngest is about 10 weeks old. My youngest daughter has 6, the youngest is 3 weeks old. Your sister Charlotte is quite well [and] sends her love to you all. Her son and daughter are both married. The son lives with his mother and father. Hannah I don’t know anything about where she is now. She came to see me the latter part of last summer. They were out of situation, but they have wrote to Charlotte to say they had got a situation. But Charlotte has lost the address and she could not remember a bit about it, so she could not answer her letter. So she has not heard since. We have had a very long cold winter, a great deal of snow quite into April, and it is cold now for the time of year. It has been a trying winter for us. Times go very queer with us. Everything is so very slow about here. There has been so many out of employ [for the] chief of the winter, and so there is now my Hannah. The widow has been at Middlesbrough, at the brother Charles's all winter. She had been very poorly for a long time. The doctor told her that she wanted a change of air and good living and rest, so Charles sent for her to go. She came home about a fortnight ago. She is looking herself again. She has gained a stone in weight. [The] time she was there she felt better as soon as she got there. The air was quite different. Now dear sister, I conclude with our kind love to all. Thank God we are all well, hope you are the same. From your loving sister, Mary and Joseph Burton. Hoping we shall all meet in heaven.