Dear Sister,
There is nothing on earth but I would rather do, than to have to sit down & write you a letter like this. I have pictured you trying to read it, & you can imagine what I feel like trying to write it.
I said to Harry when I found out I had to work in the cook house, now I want Johnnie in the cook house with me, so that I can look after him & see that he don't work too hard, because I know how he would work if he went in the woods. He worked in the cook house ever since he came over, and he seem(ed) to be feeling all right. He never complained about being sick, but the boy must have been sick and wouldn't let on. I think now that the poor boy was even dying before he left home, because he wasn't (looking) or feeling so good when he was up with Briffets.He worked away until one Thursday he got a headache & went & turned in. He stayed in (his) bunk all day Friday and Saturday morning he got up & said he was feeling No.1, but I wouldn't let him go to work and that evening when the doctor came in to see all the fellows that was sick in the camp, Johnnie was worse again, so he sent him over to a little hospital place that got built up. Sunday night I was over there when the doctor came. He rushed him away to hospital in Inverness, that is a big city 24 miles from Carrbridge where we stay.
So they took me out there too, and put me in a big hotel as near to the hospital as they could. I spent ten days in my bedroom & the hospital. I used to go up to see him twice every day, but he was unconscious all the time. He never knew me after we took him from Carrbridge.
He was very (easy?) while he was there in the hospital, & he (passed) out just like as if he was going to sleep. I wasn't there in the hospital just at the time he died, but the nurses was telling me about his Passing.
I am quite sure everything that could be done for him, was done. But there wasn't much that could be done that was for the saving of him, it was an hopeless case. They say the hospital that he was in they can almost bring the dead alive, & his doctors told me there was no medicine or treatment known for that case. There has never been a person known to pull through. He died of tubercular meningitis.
No one will ever know what I went through there watching him dying. Sometimes I would make myself believe that he wasn't going to die, that I couldn't let it happen, still there was nothing I could do to prevent it. It's pretty tough for us all, myself as well as you to have him die away over here, it's going to take me a long time to get over it. But then, the poor boy is far better off, he is finished with the troubles and worries and hard work of this world, and maybe has got clear of a worse death, because God alone knows what is in store for us over here.
I would like to be able to express in this letter to you how everybody felt about it, but it is too much to do. He had the most decent and respected funeral that I have ever been to. There was 200 Newfoundland boys alone at his funeral, every man that is here working at Carrbridge. He had as nice a casket that ever was seen, and I daresay there was $40.00 worth of wreaths on him. The one I put on cost $5.00, and I know that was the cheapest one. Captain Jack Turner put one on him that was anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars, then there was one from the staff, one from Joe Curran, and all the boys from the bay another one. All the people living here at Carrbridge said they never saw the like of it before, the respect and feeling that was shown by the Newfoundland boys.
They had the photographer there to take snapshots of the funeral, you will get a set of three with one enlargemant. I told them what I think is the best one to have enlarged.
I asked them if it was possible to have his body sent home, but they told me it was an impossible thing to start doing, but it seems like they don't know what to be doing now since you have asked for him to be sent home. Certainly the board of health may not allow him to be taken up, now it may be too late. I went out to wire about the funeral, and to ask you to write me the wording for his headstone, I am going to give him one supposing it takes me while I am over here to pay for it, but I don't think that will happen according to the talk of the men.
All the boys are talking about giving him a headstone. You would almost think that he was a brother to every man here in Carrbridge, the way they have acted, and when I went to send the message Mr. Curran told me about the message they had about sending him home. So, I didn't see any use in wiring until I'd seen what would happen.
I am putting in a piece I cut out of one of the papers about his death & funeral, but there is one mistake about us being separated, we were together all the time. They have a different form of burial over here, the nearest relatives are supposed to be the bearers, and the nearest mourner takes the cord at the head of the casket when it is lowered in to the grave. There is a cord with each handle, and there is eight handles, one at the head, one at the foot, and three at each side.
I hope that will explain my being one of the bearers, and still I wasn't in a way, I walked behind until we got to the grave, and than I just held the cord at the head of the casket.
I think I have told you just about everything, don't take it too hard, try to bear it as well as you can, there will be thousands like you before this war is over. Johnnie died for his country just the same as the men that get killed on the battlefield. It was God's will and he knows the best.
I must close now. Take care of yourself, and keep up your spirit. Goodbye, you will be hearing from me again next week I will be writing mother next Sunday
Letter to Jonathan's mother from her brother Henry Feltham