MySource:Mksmith/Letter from Lucas Nebeker (Battle Ground, IN) to John Nebeker Massey (Monroe County, IA), 9 Apr 1888.

Battle Ground [Tippecanoe County, Indiana]
April 9 1888

My Dear Coz. John N.

Yours of the 3d inst. is recd. Always glad to hear from you though sometimes neglectful in answering promtly

I am not sure as to who wrote last, any way whenever the spirit of writing strikes you why write. I am always glad too hear from the Rowles family. I was down to Covington the forepart of March and wandered over some of the old 'stomping grounds' where I roamed in lifes early day. Among others the grave yard where Matilda's grandmother [Rebecca Clark's mother?] was buried when I was a smal child though I remember it very well [i.e., c1830 or before?]. A number of persons were afterward buried there though none now for a long time and the young timber has grown up and the under brush gives it quite a wild and neglected appearance.

Oliver and Anson [Rowles] I take it live in the vicinity where you do. Well we are all growing old. I would not know either of them or Matilda, I presume, and they would not know me. I am now 69 past [i.e., born c1819], Oliver is some two or three years younger and Anson several years our junior.

My health this past winter and Spring so far has not been very firm and I am not as strong as I usually have been. Wife and youngest child, Anna, constitute our family now at home. They are in fair health. Nelson lives in the Bend [of the Wabash River, in Fountain County?] not far from the old Rowles homestead owns a part of the east 80 [acre section] of the Isaac Shelby place and is farming -- married and has one child.

Clara, next oldest living, is married to a methodist preacher now of the Ill. Con. [Illinois Convention] (William Crapp) they have two children living.

Asbury C. is also married and is a telegrapher and working for the I.D.&S. Ry at Decatur Ill. now. They have one child living two dead. Mattie J. Married a man by the name of Brugh and became the mother of three children 2 living; her husband died the first day of last May. She now lives near us in B.G. [Battle Ground]. J. Lucas is the next, and is also a telegrapher, married has one child and is in Chicago and works for the CB&O Ry. Well that is a pretty good resume of the family history.

Our winter was cold and but little snow and the wheat will be almost a failur. The corn crop last year was very short on account of the drouth.

As to a visit out there I can promise nothing now.

I have been wondering whether the Springer in Congress from Ill. was not the young man that visited John Steham at the Bend then just out of college. Do you know? He was a relation from Delaware---

We my self and family are trying to live for a grand reunion with friends on the other shore.

Very kind regards to yourself and wife as also to Oliver & Anson.

Fraternally Yours
L. Nebeker