Letter from Sabra Stevens Lewis

One of our most enjoyable finds has been a collection of letters held by the Connecticut State Library as part of its Civil War Collection. The collection is titled Letters to Daniel Stevens of Killingworth. The time frame is the Civil War years. The letters were written to Daniel Stevens by his children. Their importance is that they give us a more personalized view of our ancestry apart from the dry records containing births, deaths and marriages. The letters paint a portrait of a very close family relationship. I think that they would be pleased to know that the sense of family still exists. They, like you, enjoyed being part of a family. One of the more poignant letters is written by Sabra Stevens Lewis. In the letter Sabra had been discussing the number of funerals in town including a women who “left a babe two days old". She then writes “Death is all around us. The new year seems eager to fill its numbers……Our time will come ere long and if we are ready it will not be an unwelcome messenger to us. We shall be glad to lay this weary body to rest and be free from care and sin. We have the promise that if we are truly his we shall be at rest. I hope we all shall meet in heaven. The departed ones that have left us, which I trust, are those waiting to welcome us home. I do feel very sad today. I am thinking where I was three years ago. Life very different than the scene I witnesses then and Friday it will be three years since my mother one the best of mothers died. She is gone never to return but we may one day go to her. This is a comfort to think that we may meet if we are faithful to the end and since God is we ought”. (Sabra/Mercy/Worden/Samuel/Samuel)