May 12 /16
My dear little Daughter
I think I promised to write you a few lines this week and I will do so now as heavy rain precludes my getting into the garden after tea. I expect you have found it difficult to settle down to work, as we all found that, but I am already feeling a little more energy and am sleeping pretty well again. Ethel is lending me her room till the other is ready, Fowler’s people fetched the carpet today so now they can get on with the spring cleaning. Ethel was glad to have your note this afternoon. I am so glad everyone at school is so nice with you, I felt sure Miss Lacey would be kind. I have had a second letter from Arthur enclosing me a few nice lines he wrote after receipt of the sad news. I am sending you a copy, poor boy he feels having no real intimate friend he cares to talk to but is glad to have a tent to himself in which he spent a couple of hours quietly on that Thursday afternoon which we shall always remember, so sad and yet so comforting. Arthur thinks the hymns were so nicely chosen.
Ada is better and has gone over to Fladbury to see her sailor brother. I hope you will be able to write on Sunday as usual.
Your loving Father
Julius Sladden
Lines by Arthur on receiving news of his Mother’s death
ENS April 30th 1916
The fragile body died, not reached the span
Of life though full of years
Not as a bolt untamed came Death
Nor yet with agony and pain long drawn
Gently He led her gentle soul to Heaven
She died e’er Easter –tide was past
One Sunday eve, such as she loved;
Around, kind Nature made display of flowers
And leaf, bursting anew to life,
So, full of faith, shall she rise again
To God the praise for this good life well spent.
AFS
