We spent Thursday night, Friday, and Friday night at Homer's, leaving there on Saturday morning. He accompanaied us to Elmira, where we spent Saturday, and called on his brother-in-las, Mr. Trescott, with whom we took dinner and had a pleasant retrospective chat. Years ago, in company with my beloved wife and my mother, I had visited the Trescotts, and since then Mrs. Lydia Trescott and daughter, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Homer Waid, had also called on us when paying their friends a visit in Crawford County. We also went out to the Guinnip farm near the city. This name to me and my family has an attraction, inasmuch as my second son, Guinnip, was named in honor of merchants of that name who carried on business in Meadville before the Rebellion of 1861. Elmira is a city of about 30,000 inhabitants, and has places of interest, which we visited, such as Park Church, W.K. Beecher, pastor, where there was a Christmas tree, etc. Before leaving we called on and had supper with our cousin, Clarence Simmons, and then took the night train for Jamestown. Sunday we spent with relatives in Frewsburgh, five miles from Jamestown, and to us it was an unusually pleasant Sabbath. We found Mr. and Mrs. Burns and their daughter, Clara, at home, and with them we went to church. To enjoy two good sermons and attend Sunday-school was enough for one Christian Sabbath to bring peace and rest to my soul, and I always thank the Lord for these privileges. On the morning of Monday, the last day of the year 1888, Mr. Burns drove us to Busti, a town about eight miles distant, where we passed the day very pleasantly with our relative, Adelbert Simmons, who is in the mercantile business. After a profitable visit with him and his family, we were driven by his son to the farm of Henry Simmons, about two and one-half miles from Busti. These two cousins my brother had never visited. Henry Simmons' wife October 11, 1886, leaving him with the care of three boys and three girls. My wife and I had enjoyed the social friendship of their domestic home ere it had been broken up; and now I fully realized the bereavement and the empty place in the family circle, for I thought of my own loved home. I knew what it was to have a wife and mother taken away. Yet we should not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that's gone. Mr. Simmons had gone to Jamestown, and was not yet returned, so we sat there in the evening chatting with the children; and as I mused on the scene of the motherless little ones grouped in the room, I thought there was still some happiness left under the roof. All the girls were occupied at something, even the youngest, little Bernice, only eight or nine years old, sat there quite lady-like, knitting just as girls used to do in olden times. After the eldest, Katie, had played the organ, we retired to rest, and when midnight came we knew that the old year in dying had fiven birth to the new. The early morning of the first day of the year 1889 saw us up and dressed, and who should be the first one to hail me with a "Happy New Year," as I entered the sitting room, but Henry Simmons himself, and glad we were to meet. Soon after breakfast we took the stage for Jamestown, about eight miles off, and on our arrival we proceeded to the residence of Mr. Frank Simmons, where we were met at the door by Mrs. Simmons, who extended to us the usual greeting, with the announcement that we "were just in time for a New Year's dinner" at the home of her brother, Hezekiah Williams, who lived near by. Of course it came as a surprise to us, and as it was a family gathering purely among the Williamses, held by them for years on such occasions, I hesitated in accepting the generous invitation. Mrs. Simmons, however, observing my hesitancy, said: "Yes, you are going, and here is Frank just coming in." So there was no refusal; we had to go when they put the crucial question, "Don't you want to go>" "Yes, I at once said, "I know your folks so well, and have been acquainted so long, you can regard us as members of the family. Just before leaving for Mr. Williams' a gentleman from Dakota came in, and he also accepted a similar invitiation. (Skipping down a little) As the day had not yet closed, we found we had time to visit other relatives, so directing our steps toward Harvy Simmons', some distance off but yet within the city limits, on Foot's Avenue, we called on Mrs. Simmons andher daughter, who were both sick, the mother's health having been very indifferent for several years. Then after yet another call we proceeded to Frank Colt's (where we stopped December 24), telling him we thought it was time he was visited again by us, as we "had not bben there since last year!" At this he laughed, at the same time, in his usual cheery manner, inviting us to "come in," which we did, and were glad to find Aunt Mary Ann Simmons "quite well." In the morning we left their hospitable roof, and after visiting Mr. Cobb, and my friend William Bowen, also attending to some business we left Jamestown, stopping, during the day at Ashville, to see our cousins, the family of the late Leander Simmons, also our enterprising friend, F. Fleek, who is engaged in mercantile business, and whom we were glad to find prospering. In the evening we came to Union City, Erie Co., Penn., where we tarried with Augustus Underholt, G. N. Waid's son-in-law, and after breakfast the following morning, Mr. Underholt took me to my friend, Mr. Wesley Davidson, who formerly lived in Blooming Valley; thence we proceeded to the chair factory where we found some old acquaintances. With Mr. Davidson I remained and took dinner, and afterward, while my brother chose to prolong his visit with his daughter, I returned home after a ten day's remarkably pleasant, instsructive and invigorating trip. Sandy Schroeder slschroe@intrepid.net