Condolence letters re: death of Leland Stanford: O - P includes Palo Alto Stock Farm Employees, Alma A. Park, Geo. C. Perkins, Mary Pittenger, Amelia V.R. Pixley, Edith Taylor Pope, and Wm. H. Pratt

Through the thoughtful kindness of Mr Sprowl, I have been enabled to {compass, compress} distance & absence & lay a garland upon the Bier of your distinguished husband

Los Angeles, Cal. June 27th 93

Mrs Jane L. Stanford, Menlo Park, Cal.

Dear Madam:

You will please to pardon the liberty that I, a stranger, take in writing to you. I feel sure for it is from a sincere wish to comfort you that I write, tho' I'm my

bereavement, have said, "there is no consolation. They are gone and I am here."

First, I belong to no church, creed or ism, I believe in the Bible and God as, a most gracious and kind father to us, who know so little of his great goodness. I believe that death means not change of place and identity, but change of vision. "But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him and to every seed his own body," (I Corinthians Chapter XV 38th verse) When our natural sight is in its

full vigor we see only the earthly condition; but when that sight becomes dim the spirit's sight is called into exercise and we see the heavenly state in our Father's house.

"There is no death, what seems so is transition. This life of mortal breath is but the suburb of the life Elysian, whose portal we call death."

I believe your dear

husband is with you now, as before, only that you "see as thro' a glass darkly". By and by, you will see him face to face. He is not dead, he has only laid aside that wornout garment, the body, for a newer and more comfortable one. You and I shall do the same soon.

You, no doubt, have read "Haunted Houses," one of Longfellow's Poems. I believe it all and in these things, have found the consolation that I once thought could not be found.