Wilson Family - Roy Wilson letter from J. Vale Downie

This is a letter that was written to Dr. Roy Wilson fr0m an acquaintance in Beaver Falls, Pa., dated Jan 5 1922. This letter reads:

Dear Roy,

          We have been trying vainly to adjust our minds to the reality that your Mary has met the malign fate that seems to pursue and destroy beautiful things in this troubling world. The good, the useful and joyous lives are out short, while an army of futile beings live on to cumber the earth.

   Do you remember the visit I made to Blanchard years ago, while you were at the University in Chicago/ Mary drove into the village in a buggy to meet me and brought me back to the station the next day. I think you had written her that I was coming. Her father and mother received me with a cordiality that I could not forget and Mary was, of course, her kind, beautiful, and joyous self. John was a boy of 14 or 15 and Helen was young enough

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and small enough to sit on my knee when we rode over to Copeland's in the surrey. I suppose she would hardly thank me for recalling the occurrence now. I spent two delightful days at the farm and I shall never forget them nor my fair hostess. On our way to the stations, - it was a warm July day - we passed a bank covered with eglantine, or sweet-briar roses, as they are called in western Pennsylvania. I got out of the buggy and cut a handful of blossoms for Mary but the petals had all blown away by the time I had gotten into the buggy again. She loved flowers and was really saddened for the moment by the destruction of the fragile wild roses.

     Sweet girl - dear lady - what a lot of gladness she gave the world just by living in  it! Do you remember Longfellow's line about Evangeline "when she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music."

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Well, that is the way I feel about Mary. A sweet song has come to its close. There is some comfort in the thought that when a song is sung or the vibrant strings have died into silence that is not the end. The melody sings on in loving and remembering hearts forever and beyond.

     I trust Mary knew how much we all loved and esteemed her and I believe she did; but she can hardly have realized for frequently she and you and your children were in our thoughts. I have been hoping that you all could come and spend enough time with us to get really acquainted. I wanted to see her little girl - which is still possible - and I wanted her to see our small Theo.

     Nothing that anybody can say to you will soften the poignancy of your grief. Only time can do that. But an idea that helped me to accept philosophically the tragic taking off of my brother John, who went down with the San Saba when she struck a German mine off the Jersey Coast in Oct. 1918, is that the

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first 25 or 30 years of life usually give the average person about 90% of the total enjoyment that he is to get out of his entire existence, even though he lives to 90. Life after 30 is toil, service, trouble, ill health, decay - a burden that grows heavier as the years advance. A quick, clean honorable finish between 30 and 40 is not, it seems to me, to be regretted, if  you look at the matter from a selfish stand point. Old age, helplessness, ill health and decay of mind and body are a thousand times more to be dreaded. All that, and  wh9o knows what else. Mary has escaped.

     The babies will suffer most; but I have no doubt her love will surround them and come back to them through countless invisible channels and gentle influences that you and they will constantly feel but hardly understand.

     Will you please when you have an opportunity to do so, tell Mary's father and mother, her brother John and sister Helen how deeply and sympathetically we feel your loss. And I hope you will believe me, now and always.

Your friend and Mary's,

J. Vale Downie

[Private Collection]

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