This is an overflow letter from my lovely one just sealed. I fear I wrote so rapidly that you may find my writing difficult to read. But you must realize what a lusty young man I am — leaping on and off planes, visiting dear old ladies, being hugged, as well as hugging, less than hundreds of grandchildren, kissing great grandchildren, as well as a barn full of horses and jumping Yo-Yos. No wonder I write poorly.
I just wanted to ask if you have any record of my first visit to Beecher's Island. I know it was before 1926, when the great flood swept away the cottonwood at the point of the island. When I was there, the monument stood where the bridge now stands — about the center of same and on the east side of the road. The flood of 1926 washed away the shaft of the momument, leaving the base which was used in the present monument on the north side of the river. The present shaft is new, the other being lost in the sand downstream.
When I was there first the landscape was much easier to see in detail and as a whole. So many trees have grown up in 35 years. Ninety three years ago there were very few and small ones.
This is especially interesting: A man is now living close to the battlefield, who was not there when I was first there. I learned that Morton often visited at the home of this man in living over the old experience. I was told that the skin had grown over his eye so that no vestige of the eye was visible. When I knew Morton, he wore a patch over the eye.
John
US AIR MAIL 7¢