Frances to John, February 23, 1917

Postmarked Feb 23, 1917
708 Spruce Street
Philadelphia Penna

Mr John M Wells
Riverside Club House
Pennsgrove, New Jersey

Dear John,

Your letter came a couple of days ago and I was sure 'nough happy to get it. You ask so very many questions that I hardly know where to begin!

First and foremost I must tell you that I too am anxious to see your Deaconess. I have inquired of her here but she must be from out of the Western or the New York Training Schools. Remember me to her the next time the subject turns up and I'll hope to see her some time before I leave for Alaska.

We have just had a letter from "Happy" Burke requesting that we come up on the first boat up the Yukon in May but our sailing orders from this end are dated July. We now expect to spend June at a rest house above New York City on the Jersey side and then cross the continent via the Canadian Pacific in time to get a boat from either Seattle or Vancouver about the middle of July. We are both crazy to start at once but Deaconess Carter insists that we need the rest & I guess she is right as usual. You know Fort Yukon is a 1000 miles up the Yukon and the Artic Circle is said to pass right through the chapel there! But in spite of the northern zone they raise pretty nearly all kinds of fresh vegetables so you see it is a place of many diversions besides it is the high way and on the trail of all main trails and the central town of inland Alaskan native Eskimo & Indian. The last named especially congregate there so while there are only between 150 - 200 permanent residents (due to the Indian's wandering nature) we do have an unusual number coming & going all the time and they can carry all that Fort Yukon stands for far & wide. For instance there is an average of 15 patients per day treated at the Dispensary and the church services are well attended and those people are fervent and distance is nothing to them. Doesn't it all sound wonderful? and then the "out of door" of Alaska far superceeds any other country. I could rave about it I love it all so now from just hearing about it but wait until I get there & you will come out by wireless & haul me back to Morristown!

Here have I been going fourty miles an hour and I haven't mentioned what was uppermost in my heart when I started to write. Your own plans. You have written as if you had talked them over quite extensively with me well I guess you have in a certain way but wont you tell me more. The reason I ask is that you know I am due to get $10,000 sometime this year and I want to let you have the use of the interest while I am in Alaska if it will help you out any. Write to me perfectly frankly and that right soon as I have to make arrangements about my moneys before very long for as yet they are in the hands of the New York people and there is a heap of red tape to be gone through with. So far as the home people are concerned I feel more strongly than ever as I wrote to you no so very long ago.

Now hustle up and write soon. I must stop as this is all the paper I have down here.

Heaps of love "Fanny"

note in margin: "Happy" Burke is my crazy nut of a medical missionary with whom we will live. Ft Yukon is also Archdeacon Stuck's Headquarters.
 

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