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Friday June 11" 1886. Tom has had to replant the beets in the lot behind Girards house. Another year I think I will not plant them so early as they fail every year. I fixed the dining room blind and picked the peas. Went over and looked at my picture which disgusted me. After dinner my father, Sara, Mannie, and Daphne and I rode out. It was a perfect day with a racing north wind. We went to Kingston and then out on the Flat bush road and came home by the Roa-Tina. A Telegram came from Eastman saying it was impossible for them to come Saturday. A man came to me about buying our cherries on the trees and is to come again in about a week. We have only a few this year. Sara and I sat out on the porch and talked of our visit to Fort Hallick. The moon was shining and we compared the quiet and loneliness of the place with what it was a few years ago when there were so many of us and so many young people always here to enliven the house. We talked of poor Mannie and could not but be thankful that he was released from his sorrowful life. I always think of dear Gertrude as we sit alone here and wonder if she is conscious of us and of our love and longing for her. What a change in our lives and how brief seem the companionships which once seemed as though they were to last  always. This place is sad to me with all its cares and burdens. I know it would not be if we could be relieved of these, for last year I was as happy and contented as I ever expect to be on this earth.

Saturday 12”. Went down town after breakfast to do some errands. Took my father along. We drove out to where Terry’s house stood before the slide and came back by the Point road. The wind was from the north, a cool and racing air. Calvert came while we were at dinner. Directly after dinner my father, Sara and I drove to Eddyville where Sara went to see a couple of patients. We waited for here near three quarters of an hour then drove over the bridge and she called to see Mrs. Lonnsberg[[guess]] another patient and then home, stopping in Wilbur to see Miss Booth. She and her father were in her little store. She had the look of a careworn, struggling woman and I fancied he had been drinking. Twenty five years ago I knew him as a flourishing and successful man. We came home up Wurts St. and over at Cuykendalls there seemed some building going on- what I could not see, but it gave me a discouraged feeling as though he had perhaps  decided to stay there and given up all thoughts of buying our place. For that is uppermost in my mind now all the time, in my anxiety and distress. Calvert and I sat on the porch and he told me of his hopes in connection with the park. There seems now a probability that he and Olmstead will have a joint appointment as consulting authorities, the Niagara Park promises rather in his favor and he has several causes for encouragement. We talked over our affairs here but came back, as we always do to the same point. I explained my discouragement and told him that I could not go on much longer in this way. I feel utterly disheartened and wish I had the wisdom to act in some decisive manner. A letter came from Eastman regretting they could not come and an insurance policy from wood on the pictures of the Artists Mutual Aid Society for me to take care of. I cut this notice of Barry Gray's death from the Tribune today. He used to be in our set twenty years ago but I have not seen him for a long time. It gave me a feeling of sadness to know that another of my friends was gone.

Transcription Notes:
In 1886 Olmsted finally had the opportunity to design the state reservation around Niagara Falls, working in collaboration with his old partner, the architect Calvert Vaux. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-09 18:15:13