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| Letter from the past |
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 | | CHAD RICHINS/CENTRAL OREGONIAN | | Jean Weaver (left) delivers the letter to Shirley McCullough (right) at the McCullough family reunion held recently in Prineville. |
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By Chad Richins
When Jean Weaver bought an old picture frame at a yard sale in Susanville, Calif., she had noticed that an old letter was folded inside it but she had no idea that the letter would eventually take her to a small town in Oregon to someone else's family reunion where she would be welcomed as part of the family.
The letter, dated Aug. 18 and Nov. 1, 1854, interested Weaver and when she got it home she began to decipher the cursive script that was scrawled on the brittle, yellowed paper.
The letter is personal. The mix of desperation and optimism tells much of the times and the situation the people were facing. Written by a sister, Dimeus Williams, and a father, Nehemiah Williams, in a time of hardship to a beloved, prodigal son, Enos Ellis Williams, the first part of the letter is from the sister.
"It is with pleasure that I sit down to let you know that we are getting along. I'm not very sickly...I have had the flu. I ain't able to sit up more than half the time."
Dimeus goes on to tell her brother about marriages and deaths in the family and makes an appeal for Enos to write.
"Josiah has lost his youngest daughter...Alexander is married. This is the fourth letter I have written you and have had no answer, Enos. I want you to write as soon as you get this letter. I would be glad to see you. It seems as if I must see you...you should come home in a hurry."
The second part of the letter is written by Nehemiah Williams to his son.
"We can inform you that the prospect of crops in this country is very poor. The yellow winter destroyed the wheat crops..it is very dry."
Enos' father goes on to speak about other-worldly matters.
"Now as it respects the things of this world. We have not much place for them in this letter but we wish to remind you of...our eternal everlasting destiny. It may be the last time that I may have to address you in this world. I wish you to remember the command of our blessed saviour, 'Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you.'
Your dear brother, George, wished very much to see you when he was on his death bed [to tell you] not to live in the ways of sin and vanity..."
Records found by Jean Weaver indicate that George died Jan. 8 of the same year. The tone of the letter is desperate and it is clear that the father and sister missed Enos and took solace in their religion.
Weaver discovered much about the history of Enos Williams when she dug into the family tree in order to find who the family the letter truly belonged to.
Enos Ellis Williams was born Oct. 14, 1833 in Guernsey County, Ohio. His father had received a grant of land for serving in the war of 1812 as a substitute for his neighbor, Thomas Whittier.
When he was twenty, he visited his mother's family in Indiana and later had a brief and unpopular marriage to a first cousin, Hannah Pickering, from his mother's side of the family. The family eventually insisted on divorce.
After Enos finally returned to his family about 1857, he was married a second time to a widow who had inherited land from her husband, Dorothea Schmardebeck Lichtenberg. Dorothea died in 1870, leaving Enos the farm.
Enos went on to marry a civil war widow, Eliza Melissa Root Saddoris in the same year. Enos finally had children, five of them, and three lived to maturity, Eugene, Nina and Maurice.
When Enos died, the farm went to his heirs, not those of Melissa by her previous marriage, a fact that raised some controversy. Melissa was sickly by then and insisted that Nina Williams stay home to nurse her and not marry, so Nina paid dearly for her inheritance.
Enos' other sister Sarah Jane, daughter of Nehemiah, married Silas McCullough, the family name that eventually led to Prineville and to the family reunion where Jean Weaver was given a certificate that named her an honorary McCullough for her donation of the letter to the family.
Shirley McCullough got a call out of the blue from Weaver, who had called the Central Oregonian to inquire about living McCulloughs after reaching a dead-end in her research. McCullough didn't know what to think at first. "It surprised me," McCullough said,"You know we are so conscious of phone scams today. My first reaction was 'Oh, no what is someone trying to sell me here.'"
McCullough's family is proud of their heritage and very appreciative of a stranger from far away that has found a part of that heritage and helped them to preserve it.
The McCulloghs recently celebrated a family reunion at Ochoco Creek Park. As the relatives mingled, catching up on their recent family events and eating home-cooked food piled high on paper plates, old photographs were circulated and histories told. And then there was the letter. Jean Weaver and her husband had brought the letter all the way up from California to present it to the McCUllough's, thinking it too brittle to mail and wanting to see the family she felt like she knew, in a way.
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