Jonathan Feltham 1478
NFLD Overseas Foresters
Timber Supply
Edinburgh, Scotland
Dear Mother,
Just a few lines to tell you that I am enjoying good health. Well Mom, I haven't got much good news to (tell) you, but we had a pleasant trip across and we are here in the camps, but it is not where we are going to work. But mother, don't worry about me. I am safe. Well mother, we are seeing life we would not have seen if we were at home, and Mom, I wasn't sea sick coming over. Uncle Henry were in the bunk from the time we left port til he arrived and we used to bring meals to him. I never missed a meal while I was aboard the ship.
Well Mom, we sent a message today. Well Mom, tell Pop not to work too hard. Tell (him) I am still helping him now as if I were at home. Tell Les to be a good boy and help Pop. Tell the rest of the children I still loves them. Tell Ivy and Annie to write to me when you write.
Well Mom, look after my dog and see that ...... ........ ........ for my sake.
Well Mom, I think that I must close, so goodbye from your loving son
Jonnie
Duthil Free Manse
Carrbridge
Invernes-shire, Scotland
13-4-40
Dear Mrs. Feltham,
I meant to have written you ere now, but have been kept tremendously busy!
I just wish to write to express my sympathy with you in the loss you have sustained by the death of your dear boy. It must indeed have been a tremendous heartbreak for you when you heard the sad news and I know that what makes it more difficult still is the fact of his being so far from home.
I had to perform the sad duty of conducting his funeral service. It was held in my church and was attended by about 200 of his comrades many of whom seemed to be sadly touched by his death. The coffin was carried from the church by some of his friends and then borne in a hearse to Carrbridge Cemetery, a beautiful peaceful spot surrounded by pine trees, and there the remains of your dear boy were laid in the grave to rest until the resurrection.
At the service we remembered the sorrowing home across the seas and commended you all to the Lord of all grace with the prayer that the Heavenly Father Himself might draw near to you in your hour of sorrow and reveal Himself as the Friend Who stickest closer than a brother.
Now Mrs. Feltham I know how sorely you must miss your boy and it must indeed be hard for you to realize that he will never come home again. It may afford some little consolation to you, however, to know that he received the very best of medical attention and everything possible was done for him. Truly, God's ways are not our ways and the Heavenly Father has seen fit to remove him from this fretful world, and hard though it may be for you to do, yet I pray that you may be given strength to say "Thy will be done". "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord"
Kindly convey to your husband and the sorrowing members of your home my heartfelt sympathy, and accept the same for yourself.
Yours, with deepest sympathy
(Rev.) Wm. R. MacKay