The Will Case

Letter from Daniel Willard Fiske to his Mother, Caroline Willard Fiske, 7 July 1880.

Although Fiske enjoyed a close relationship with his mother Caroline Willard Fiske throughout his life, he did not advise her of his intention to marry Jennie McGraw until one week before the ceremony.

Selected transcription:

The news which I have to communicate to you will not, I fancy, seem so surprising to you as it will to a good many other people. . . . I am to be married next week to Miss Jennie McGraw, whose high qualities, whose kindness of heart and whose loveable disposition you already know something about and will more fully appreciate when you come to know her better. I have loved her for a long while, without ever dreaming that that she could be brought to love me.