This collection (182 items) is made up of letters that friends and family members wrote to Addie Pitts and James Kent before and during the couple's courtship and marriage. The correspondence pertains to everyday life in the Midwest in the 1870s and 1880s.
Addie Pitts and James Kent received letters from their parents, siblings, and friends, who provided news of their lives in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, and Ohio. Male and female correspondents discussed mutual acquaintances, their families, farming, and other subjects. Addie's mother routinely requested that she return home from Colorado, and some letters reflect a rift between Addie's mother and Addie's sister, referred to as "Toot." Other female correspondents sometimes mentioned their jobs, including teaching and "chamber work." Some letters to James Kent were written on stationery from a nursery in Kyger, Ohio, near Gallipolis. Many writers mentioned health concerns and illnesses. Carrie Boice commented to James, her brother, on a death by burning (October 24, 1878).
Addie Pitts was born in New York in the late 1850s, the daughter of Perry C. and Mary Pitts; her siblings included Lucy and George. By the late 1870s, she lived in Colorado, where she married Ohio native James Kent on November 28, 1883. The Kent family, including their children Alfred, Birdie, Hazel, and Edward, lived in Denver, Colorado, into the 20th century. In the 1870s and 1880s, Perry and Mary Pitts lived in Hopkins, Michigan; Moville, Iowa; and Whitesville, Missouri. Members of James Kent's family lived in Kyger, Ohio, during the same period.
