1879 crossed letter transcription problem.

[Peter L. Mitchell]

Good morning everyone.

I am transcribing a crossed letter written on March 25th., 1879, and I am having great difficulty working out one sentence.

Background: This was a letter of sympathy written by my great-great grandfather (John) to my great grandmother (Mary) the day after the death of her eight-month-old daughter. The screenshot of the sentence is below, and the format had to be split because they covered two lines but they are in the correct order.

The three sentences before read: “Did you get a photo at all. Tell me if you feel able by & by. Do you think of being at Annie’s wedding?”

I think that the first two words are, “How sad” but I’m prepared to be wrong. I have been unable to work out what the next three words (second screenshot) are, although I think the first word starts with “p”.

In the following three sentences John appears to change the subject: “I hope dear old JL will get on all well. He felt so anxious about her. She expects to be laid up for about 3 months or so.”

All help gratefully received.

Many thanks,
                    Peter

[maddys52]

A bit difficult with such a small snip. Would it be possible to upload a bit more of the letter so that we can see the rest of the handwriting to compare letter formations? 

[Peter L. Mitchell]

Hi Maddy.

Thank you for your reply. The page in question is below, with the last two horizontal lines being the focus of the question. I've had another look at it and I wonder whether the full sentence should read something like, "Do you think of being at Annie's wedding & now/so let past woes go." I think that what I initially thought was a question mark is actually an ampersand.

Peter

[goldie61]

The last word of the sentence, (the third word in on the last line), is 'too'
You can see the word 'to' on the second line "It was not to her", and this one has another 'o'.

Still mulling over the other words!

[maddys52]

Thanks for the bigger page.

The first two words could be "how sad", not sure.    On the next line, I think the first letter is not a "p", you can see other "p"s on the page have a long up stroke (if that makes sense). I'm wondering if it is "just ... too". You can see another "just" a few lines up under the crossed part.  Can't quite make out the middle word, does it end with an "r". Like goldie, I'll  keep mulling too!

[Zefiro]

How sad just now too.

Compare the last letters with the word 'allow' on line 1 (antepenultimate word)
Compare the first letters with 'not' on line 9 (6th word)

[goldie61]

Well done Zefiro! 

That word 'not' is really unrecognisable as it stands without finding letters to compare it to.

Good code breaking!

[maddys52]

Yes, well done Zefiro!