Cleveland, Ohio, July 5th 1885,
257 Sibling St.

My dear Man;

I am sorry to learn from other sources that you are not looking well, and to learn from your letter that your looks correspond with your feelings. I think you had better take a trip out West and make me a visit en route. Certainly the West seems to agree with you better than New York, whether it be the air, or the total change of life, which is responsible for the improvement. Why not take your vacation this year in the hot weather instead of waiting for the Fall? I should be delighted to see you, and at present am doing nothing more laborious than wording a little German and French. I have not come but out my "Shingh", through forced by [?] to in this or form [?].

Poor grandmama is at last laid to rest beside my family. I cannot say that her death was a surprise, though it came rather sooner too than I anticipated. I do not wonder that you feel some superstitious dread of taking care of her. No one seems to know just what ailed her, but I expect she had at last an insidious [?]. Her death seems to break my last tie to New York, and it is very somberly that I shall ever return there save as a visitor.

I cannot say that I am enthusiastic over Cleveland, through it is one of the loveliest of cities, and I am in a delightful neighborhood. It is hard to break off at once the ties and associations of twenty years. But I am not one of the kind to reprieve at the [?] of dirty and happily my books are to me delightful companions. In September I shall probably resume practice, the slavery of which is by no means to my taste, but I think it wise for me to keep myself busy and to have some outdoor occupation.

We are all well here. Ettie is as brown as a [?], and often times as dirty as a little pig. How [??] would stare and hold up her hands should she see her! But as long as she thrives I am not very particular about an inch or two of Mother Earth. She seems pretty well over her homesickness, and undoubtedly misses her playmates in New York. I sincerely wish I had another child to be company for her.

Have you yet received your book on skin diseases from Wood? I wrote to him a week or ten days ago, enclosing my [?] and asking him to forward the work with the Index of [?], but have heard nothing from him. Rosenberg has [?] an offer of $13.00 for the honor, which I again declined. Otherwise things then are in [??]. I had a letter from [Haws?] too a few days ago.

Remember me very kindly to Mrs. Brodhead & Miss Mortson; tell Frank to [??] and females, attend strictly to business and makes his fortune. Then marry and enjoy his [???]. Write as often as you can find or make leisure.

Your Friend,
[Dr. Henry E.] Handerson ¹

¹ Handerson was a fellow-student with Dr. Calvin Brooks McQuesten in medical school. More of his letters are available at (W1370), (W1373), (W1449), (W1453), (W1490), (W1541), (W9021), (W9024), (W9027), (W1474).