15 Autograph Letters sent from Bangalore and other locations in India to her sister (Mrs. M. Jennie Pike) in Creston, Ohio
Envelopes present (minus stamps) for 9 letters. Written in a neat hand. Most cover four pages or more on personal sized pages (generally about 120 x 13 cm.). Additionally, the lot includes two brief 189l letters from Roy, Nina's 8 year-old son and one letter from M. A. Vasbinder, who appears to be another sister who was serving as a Methodist missionary in Chile. Nena's husband Ira, a Methodist missionary, was Principal of the Baldwin Boys High School in Bangalore from 1881-1885 when several of these letters were written. Nena's letters have much about home and family as well as some missionary content. In her last letter, dated July 21, 1891 at Kolar, Mysore Province, India, Richards mentions her efforts to learn to ride a bicycle and worries that the lack of rain might lead to another famine about which she opines, "... if we do it will make much work for us and a chance to bring in hundreds of orphan children and teach them christianity. That was the way this mission was started. I do not think there can ever be such a severe famine as there has been before because the railways are built so that the grain can be taken so much easier from one place to another than when there was only one or two railways in India. Still ... it will be hard enough for when people can not get enough to eat when prices are low what are they to do when prices are high. I think we will need all the increase in the missionary collection that can be made for next year." Item #88802
Price: $600.00