This is a letter from George Schenk to Mary dated April 29, 1897, while he was living in Belt, Montana – several years before they married.  Spelling, punctuation and capitalization are as seen in the original letter, except for edits I made as necessary to clarify meaning.

Belt   Apr. 29/97

My Dearest Mary,

I received your kind and loving letter Tuesday and was glad to hear from you.  It is not as it used to be sence I am down here.  I can’t see you every day now.  But that sweet face I never shall forget. 

Mary, I guess you think I am having a great old time down here with the girls the way you rote that letter but you are mistaken if you think I am.  Thair are a lot of girls in the Coulee and the same in Belt[1].  But there is none of them for me.  I met a few girls that I know before and that all I care to know.  I am not looking for fun.  Now days I know a few marryed women that comes over to see Edith[2] and one of them told me I was an awful quiet boy.  If I was like the rest of the kids in this town, I would be run [illegible] it.  There is a lot of them drunk every day. 

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So let me set the stage.

George is 19 and Mary is 18.  Apparently they’ve already passed a few notes back and forth and have been caught on at least one occasion by Mary’s mother, who disapproves.  Nevertheless, things are clearly heating up between the two of them.

Feb 9 1897

Dear Mary,

I see you are going to write.  Just the same, so am I.  But if your Mother gets a holt of another note, she may go hard with us and then what.  So don’t let her know it at all.

Well Mary, when you were up here the other night you came in the front door and I did not know you were in the house at all.  So when your Mother came, she ask me if you was here yet and I said no.  So I told her to go in to the other room and she saw your muff or hat on the bed and she said Mary is here.  So I said I didn’t see her come in, she must of come in the front door.  Maybe she thought I knowed you were here.

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