[No envelope. The address was handwritten twice in the letter. Robert and Aunt Janie, referred to near the end of the letter, would be John Andrew Cairns’s younger brother Robert Cairns and his second wife, Janet (Janie) MacCallum.]
Vancouver
2090 – 44th Av West
2090 – 44 Av. – West
Dec. 29th
Dear Janet & the rest & Susan
After Geof left us at Langbank, & after we waited for over 2 hours the train came & out in the wind we went to get on the train – Papa’s hat blew off, & went under the car, to the horror of bystanders, Papa wildly started to go under the train after it; I said oh don’t, don’t. Papa said it’s my seven dollar hat! However, the train men stopped him & one of them went on top of the [sic – appears to be a word missing] & over the other side & the 7 dollar hat was restored. We stayed in the day coach all day till Saskatoon then we had a standard sleeper, quite comfortable. Next morning Sinclair Gillis was waiting for us & took us to the Gillis establishment, where I stayed all day. Mrs. Gillis is quite fat & quite feeble. She had a stroke about three years ago. She seemed very pleased to see us. Her daughter Ella teaches about a block or two away, so can board at home, for which she pays $2.50 a week. She seems to me to be a very nice girl & handsome too. They have a girl working for her board & going to school, but of course she was not there in holidays. Such a comfortable house, & all things so nice. We had three meals there, red river cereal & toast for breakfast, fish cakes & Xmas cake & a corncake for lunch, beefsteak & potatoes & Xmas pudding for dinner. Sinclair took us to the station & we were stuffed into a tourist sleeper, so hot, I complained loudly about the heat, so the heat was turned off & next night there was little or none, & very comfortable and then we were here & Robert met us, we had breakfast here. Everything nice here.
We have been to church this evening, it is warm raining & foggy. I wonder, Susan, if you could send me a square of that knobby quilt I am crocheting? The squares are in a long pasteboard box where I keep the fancy work books, needles, etc. in the little room going in our bedroom. I have forgotten how to make them.
Janie – your Aunt Janie – has a wonderful dinner set, handpainted. I wish Mrs. Graves could see it; it was painted long ago in England by a lady who came out here, & who had to sell out. Even the gravy ladles have their bowls painted. Wreaths of roses around all the edges & bunches of roses in the centre of every dish. I am writing in a half blind manner. I hope Bob will be home soon. I have to get a new coat, I’ll tell you when I do. I keep forgetting we only got here this morning. The turkey was thawed, but quite good. We had turkey & Christmas pudding for dinner. We had lots of lunch, plenty for Robert’s dog “Peter”, it was getting mouldy.
Altogether we had a very good trip, and I hope the family were no worse for their trip to Cairnbank. There is a full length mirror in the bedroom here, I was surprised to see how stout I was, Mrs. Gillis is the same size, & I thought well, I am not as stout as that! but when I saw myself I was astonished. Susan is giving me such a rest, that I believe I am getting stouter.
Your loving fat mother
Alice Cairns