Letters from Lon & Ellie

The Family

Alonzo Howard McCollough (1852–1933) grew up with the Arbogast family in Clark County, Ohio, while his mother Anna Belle McCollough (1832–1911) worked as a housekeeper and dressmaker in Cincinnati. From the age of nine, Lon wrote to his distant mother about school and spelling bees, church at Pleasant Hill, corn husking, neighbors marrying and dying, and the slow turn of seasons in rural Ohio.

In December 1873, Lon married Rebecca Ellen Morris — Ellie — and her voice joined the letters. She wrote about killing hawks, making soap, canning forty cans of tomatoes, raising 125 chickens, and learning to bake chicken pot pie. They had two daughters: Elva and Cora Elizabeth.

Ellie's heart disease was first mentioned in January 1876. She died April 15, 1883, at age 33.

The Collection

62 letters spanning twenty years — from a grandmother's note in 1857 to a son's sore-handed scrawl in November 1877. The collection includes letters from Lon's grandmother Mary McCollough, three letters from his niece Katie Maxwell, a stark Western Union telegram, and the joint letters that Lon and Ellie wrote together after their marriage.

Every letter ends the same way: "Write soon."