Unknown woman holding dead child*
July 24 Sat have been to work to day on
a number of things setting a stich here
& there Julia has been here to fix my
skirt and I believe my dress is done at
last I have made a robe for Mrs
Shepherds child who died this morning
Abby Savage came after me to watch but
I am not well and did not go. Rachel came
to Edwins after Julia & called here and I went
in there an hour or two
Dressmaker Julia Mahoney was at Evelina’s finishing up the barege dress that had taken so long to make. The traveling dress was put to one side, as Evelina was called upon to sew a shroud for a two-year old boy who had died just a few hours earlier. John T. Shepherd was the only child of a young shoemaker named John and his even younger wife, Elvira. The toddler was the first youngster that we hear of to die during the hot summer. Unfortunately, there would be others.
Hannah Savage, right in the neighborhood, was ill with consumption and would never get better. Her daughter Abby Savage “came after” Evelina to help keep vigil in the night, but Evelina didn’t feel up to the task. She felt well enough, however, to receive a call from her niece Rachel Gilmore Pool and to visit Edwin and Augusta Pool Gilmore across the street.
Old Oliver sounded another concern about the lack of rain: “it is extreemly dry now.”**
*Daguerrotype, 1850
** Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection
evelinaames 