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here and there. I am getting my studio ready for cold weather putting up Mames Franklin. John Weirs brother is buried today at West Point. If I had been well I think I would have gone down. He was killed by Indians while hunting and John went out after his body the night before I arrived in New York from Boston. I wrote to Mrs. Weir from N.Y. Sara told me today that Mrs. Forsyth was dead, and she had a letter from Cornelia Ellis in a very critical condition. Maurice after having abstained from drinking for more than two years, fell back into his old ways before I returned but recovered himself partially. Now he is going the old way, not home at supper and no one knows what time at night he comes in. I have not the heart to think of the future in connection with him. Yesterday was election day. The Republican Governor elected but the State ticket in doubt. Not as sweeping a vote as I would like to have seen. Wrote to Eastman and received a letter from Lucy.   

[[newspaper clipping]]
ARRIVAL OF LIEUTENANT WEIR'S REMAINS
The remains of Lieutenant William B. Weir, who was killed by the Utes at the recent battle of Milk River, reached Poughkeepsie last evening in charge of Lieutenant F. Baker, appointed by the Ordnance Department as an escort, and Charles G. Weir, a brother of the dead soldier. The relatives of Lieutenant Weir in this city were
informed by telegram of the arrival at Poughkeepsie of his body, and will attend the funeral to-day at 3 o'clock, at West Point. The funeral will be a military one and will be attended by the members of the post, at the West Point Military Chapel. The sermon will be preached by the Rev. W. H. Thomas, rector of the Church of the Holy Innocents at Highland Falls. The pall-bearers are selected from the members of the class of 1870, the year in which Lieutenant Weir was graduated. They will be Lieutenants Michler, Rockwell, Reed, Ives, Turner, McClernand, Randolph, Schofield, Townsend and Wood. A military salute will be fired over the grave in the cemetery near the chapel.
Lieutenant Weir was in his thirtieth year at the time of his death. He entered the Military Academy in 1866. He was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant of the 5th Artillery, and was stationed successively at Fort Warren, Mass., Fortress Monroe, Fort Sullivan, Maine, and Fort Whipple, Va. In 1874 he was made a first lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps. He served at the Watervliet Arsenal in this State until 1878, when he was sent to Fort D. A. Russell to take charge of the Cheyenne ordnance depot. He was at his post when called by General Merritt to assist in fighting the Utes. Lieutenant Weir bore the reputation of a good and brave solider. 
[[/newspaper clipping]]

Thursday Nov. 6. 1879. A couple of inches of snow on the ground this morning and a gloomy day. I have had an unhappy day from several causes and the lack of dear Gertrudes love has been all that I could bear. After dinner I went down town and got a man to come up and put up my Franklin for me in my studio and after it was all done my father and I built a fire in it. Maurice did not come home to dinner nor to tea and the terrible shadow of his degradation is falling across us again

Friday 1. Went over to my studio and built a fire in the Franklin which burned nicely and spent the day there mostly in painting on Gertrudes portrait. It looks like her but still is not satisfactory. Painting on it all my thought and memories are with her and over and over again through the day thinking of her and our married life was there in that little house it seemed to me that I could not go on living without her. I am always waiting and