Letter from Nettie Thompson to Zella Landes December 3, 1918 Parsons, WVa December 3 '' 1918 Miss Zella S. Landes, My dear Sister I ? you are surely glad that the war is over so that Isom* wont have to go. O, how I wish I could see you and talk to you instead of writing it makes me home-sick to write or I would write oftener. We got Grandmas letter wherein she said she was so uneasy about us as we had failed write last wk. But we are still all well and as I had not heard of many cases of Influenza I thought it had about died down But ma said in her letter that Anna Hiser and her children were poorly with it We sometimes hear of a new cas of it here or of some one taking a back0set. I tell you it seems to take people a long time to get over it if they get over it at all. jake Thompsons children all had it they look like little skeletons. Wilse and Silas and Nellie and I were all up to the Parsons Cemetery last Sunday, I tell you it is wonderful to see the new graves that have been dug there this fall. Well Zella I sent to Sears & Roebuck and got me a black serge jacket suit it is made nice and fils [sic] nice since [2] I took the sleeves out and paid $1.00 for half yard of serge to cut new underneath parts to the sleeves they were entirely too small for my big fat arms. I tried to get me a coat here in parsons they were only priced $27.00 - $37.00 and $4200 I thought I would ty and wait till I found a gold mine before I bought one. O these pitty? days it seems like I must just start home the Depot is not any further than from your house to the Barn but it has got so late in the season that I am afraid to cross the mountain. Well Silas and Nellie** will soon be here for dinner and I just got my work done up. Wilse takes his dinner But he comes home about 2 or 3 oclock. There is the cutest little girl still runs in to see me about 40 times a day she said last evening I want you to tell Nellie** to come over she says I have been over here 5 times and Nellie** has never been over. Nellie said yes I think she has been here near 500 times. Well Zella please write soon and tell me how you and Billy made it about the turkeys. I owe Minnie a great long letter and Grandma one too. Your Sister Nettie ------------------- * Isom could have been Isom Bland. Isom lived with his Mother and Father, Enoch Bland, in the Bland hills near Zella and helped Daniel a lot with work on the farm. It's not unreasonable to think that there was a romantic interest between Zella and Isom. You can see Isom's WWI draft registration card on Ancestry.com ** Nellie Ruth was Nettie and Wilse's daughter, born in 1906. Unfortunately she died on December 21, 1919, one year after this letter was written, probably from the Spanish Flu or Diphtheria. Daniel does not mention anything about Nellie's death in his 1919 diary about this. Also, Nettie had a son, Paul Wilson Thompson, who was born on June 26, 1918 and only lived 1 month. Death was August 5, 1918.