Love Letters and Marriage Proposals


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The following letter is a love letter and marriage proposal written by my Great great grandfather, Rev. Alfred Cuthbert Sims to Miss Fannie Allen. It is the sweetest and most eloquent love letter that I have read of the 1800's. I hope you, who are descendants of A. C. Sims, will cherish it as much as I have. Candie Sims Witherspoon"
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Beech Grove
Jasper County Texas
August 8th, 1884

Miss Fannie Allen,

I trust that you will forgive my presumption in thus addressing you without having obtained your permission to do so. Though I am a stranger to you yet your bright smiles haunts me still so that you no longer seem as a stranger to me and I cannot forbear the temptation longer that I have to make known to you some of my thoughts, affections and wishes and fearing lest I should not have such an opportunity as I would desire to express my sentiments, were I to visit you, I have concluded to adopt this medium of expression. Affection is sometimes of slow growth and again it springs up in a moment and I hope you will pardon me for confessing the truth by declaring to you my love for you at first sight and you will not, I trust think it so strange of it when you shall learn of the favorable reports which I have received of you which taken in connection with your personal beauty I think sifficient cause to engage the affections of even the most fastidious.

I of course cannot hope to have made so favorable an impression on your mind on so short an acquantance but I do not know what is in your heart or what might be hereafter and I therefore desire to give expression to my feelings and learn my fate before it is too late. I wish that you may therefore after serious consideration of this letter to inform me whether or not I shall cherish this feeling or shall I smother it at once. I fully believe that when two like hearts meet that it is no difficult task for them to determine that fact and I cannot help entertaining a hope that yours are one that I am in search of and in further testimony there of I will relate to you a strange circumstance. Before arriving at your house last Sunday, I asked a sign of the Lord that if either of the three ladies that were there should be the one that she might show it by asking me if I had not been to dinner. I hope that the answer is from the Lord and that he may awaken in your bosom the same feeling that I now experience for you. If you should see fit to answer this letter direct to me at Town Bluff, Texas, if you should wish to send it by hand you need not be afraid to deposit it with your Cousin Dug as she is aware that I have written this to you but no one else.

Respectfully,

A. C. Sims