Tuesday morning, Oct 11/98, La Fayette, Indiana, USA.
Today Albion completes his 4 years’ apprenticeship on board the “Andorinha” & I am hoping soon to hear of their arrival at N. York.
Yesterday, after finishing my diary, it drew on to dinner time, & after dinner was interested in the development & printing by Minor & Herbert the views I had taken at Niagara, & I am pleased to say they make splendid pictures. Towards half past 3, Minor, his mother, Sarah, & I drove in the buggy to view West La Fayette across the Wabash river, a beautiful residential locality, lovely gardens & avenues of pretty trees. The university, national & state, occupies a large area & it embraces every art & science, & theoretical & practical, & presently there are 800 students, all more or less sons of well to do citizens, a small fee for admission, & the term is 9 months. These young men occupy apartments near the university, hence the pretty houses & grounds, the owners or tennants [sic] of which I suppose earn their living from the students. We saw only through the engineering dept. It was so large in dimensions & so interesting that it occupied all the time up to closing, 5 p.m. Every department was fully at work, smiths, lathes, moulding foundry, pattern making, machinery department &c. &c., & they have a monster locomotive complete stationary, but which they drive, & the driving wheels rotate on wheels below these & rotate simultaneously, & they drive it at speeds not possible to accomplish on the rails, & thus test every movement & item of economy known in mechanics, even to the drawing power, this by a wonderful arrangement. The departments contain machinery of every description & chiefly made by the students. We were sorry not to have seen other sections, such as art, agriculture &c. &c. A catalogue I have procured through the kindness of Mr. R.S. Miller, a friend of Minor’s, & it gives full & up to date 1897-8! “The Purdue University”. It came on rain just as were about to leave the university grounds, & soon thunder & lightening [7:72] storm burst over us, & the rain fell heavily, however, we were well protected by the buggy top & water proof side sheets, & after driving around the outside of the grounds, we made for home & reached there nothing the worse. Matt had been home some time & before the rain commenced. After supper, we rested, rain falling heavily all the while, & we were due at 7:30 to spend the night with great friends of all the family, Mr. & Mrs. Morrison, & two daughters, Miss Mabel Lavon, the cleaver [sic] pianist, & who has secured the gold medals & diploma from the Chicago Musical College. She & Minor are very sweet, & I suppose may some day be one. She is a very fine looking girl & has very charming ways, & so genial & amiable. Miss Bernice Pearl, the younger, is also a very sweet girl & plays the violin delightfully. She is a pupil of the solo violinist who played on the Sunday afternoon at the mass meeting, Miss Burlson Smith. The rain came down heavily as we went, but we suffered nothing, & a very happy night till after 11. We spent quite a musical evening, secular, piano & violin only, sacred, all joining. I was telling Miss Mabel on our way home from the church on Sunday morning (they attend Trinity, we “clashed” just as we got out of the porch, may be they had seen us there), however, I was delighted with the praise service & the fine choir, & how I appreciated the beautiful hymn, “Beautiful Isle”. I referred to it, you’ll have noted, but I had not gathered the words correctly. She said she would get me the hymn & give it me before I left, & last night she kindly presented me with the book containing it, “songs for the Sunday school & church for young people”, & we sung it last night with many others. “Some where the sun is shining”, is the first line, maybe Mary knows it. I told Miss Mabel you & I would enjoy many of the songs it contains.
Before we parted, she took 2 flash light snap shots of us all, & we maybe someday will get a copy. Minor took one of us all one night last week & it has come out splendidly. It’s a simple process & novel to me, but as you know, I am practically ignorant of the science of photography. The rain had ceased for a while & we got home during a [7:73] dry interval & was soon all off to roost.
This Tuesday morning, October 11th, it was raining till nearly 8. However, it cleared up & a most delightful, sweet, fresh, airy morning it has turned out. This is our last day at La Fayette, & a very happy time I’ve had. It has flewn [sic] away like the clouds. Sarah, Matt, & I start for Chicago tomorrow morning. Sarah will go on during the afternoon to Detroit to stay with Mrs. Fetterley. Father Matthews knows who she is. Then I purpose staying till Saturday afternoon & maybe Matt will stay all the while, then I go on to Detroit & stay with Sarah till Tuesday & both return to Simcoe.