Condolence letters re: death of Leland Stanford: St - Sw includes Stanford family (Jane E. Stanford, Thomas Welton Stanford, and others), Stanford Faculty, Horatio Stebbin (Tel.), John N. Stewart, Clara Stoltenberg, and Joseph Swain

F. A. SWANGER, MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, KIRKSVILLE, MO. June 22, 1893

Mrs. Leland Stanford, Palo Alto, Cal.

Dear Madame, We have heard of the sad bereavement which has befallen you & us all in the death of your husband and our friend. Every since I was a boy [combing] the newspapers for the weekly news, have I known and revered your husband. I learned to watch his career; I learned to love him for his benevolent spirit and kind heart. When he wrote his name imperishable on the scroll of all time by founding the University which became the name of his & your son, my heart rejoiced in his success and in his greatness & goodness. Now that he is dead my heart is wrapped in sadness & sorrow for it seems we've lost a true & tried friend. When a

great and good man dies the world stands in sorrow and anguish by his tomb; today the whole world weeps & sympathizes with you who has perhaps lost more than we outside of your household. Please accept the condolations of an admirer of your husband - a poor, insignificant Missourian who has done the best he could to get an education, but whose ambitions have far {out ?} his financial ability. I have worked my way from the farm at 21 to the position I hold at 34. My ambition led me by a hard fight to graduate here in 1884; taught one year, attended University one year, taught another year in Graded Schools at Lancaster, Mo. & in 1887 became an Asst. in English in my Alma Mater. My ambition is to go on, if possible, to the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. My heart carries me stricken with its ambitions and hopes, its prayers & its fears. I have always felt that I have a destiny to work out; that I can make success

the remainder of my life, if I can but take that one or two more years in Leland Stanford Jr.

Now, dear Madame, I am no beggar; I have always depended upon my own brawn & brain, they have been my only resources but someway I am moved to lay my case before you & I can't tell why I should. I know if I can but be helped for a year or two that I can reflect honor upon such a friend & can repay everything, giving security or life insurance policies for a sort of collateral. I love study; I love the friends of liberal & higher education; I am no crank & shall give you reference further on, but I have followed my feelings and impulses in this. I am not one

-sided unless I lean toward Mathematics, which line I have chosen to follow, if I ever get ready fo Ph.D. work.

As to my standing & sanity, I refer you to Pres. W. D. Dobson of this Normal; W.T. Baird, cash. 1st National Bank here, Maj. Wm Warner, Kansas City, Mo; Col. John B. Hale Carrollton, Mo; Hon. S. G. Brock, exchief Bureau of Statistics; Prof J. F. Chandler, Prin of Schools, San Francisco, Dr Byron DeWitt, San Franisco; Dr. Joseph Baldwin, Austin, Texas; Dr. W. B. Smith & Prof W. C. Tindall & Prof J. S. Blackwell of University Faculty, Columbia, Mo. I could give you more references. I hope I may not pass as a crank, tho' this, I acknowledge, is a strange letter. I would not have my friends see it, for it is so unlike me. I am anxious not to fail if I am honored by any recognition. The world shall bless you whatever my fate. Heaven guard you.

Yours truly & respectfully F. A. {Swanser, Swansen ?}

824 Valencia St San Francisco July 2nd 1893

My dear friend

What can I say to you in this your hour of greatest sorrow. I have not written you before, knowing there would be so many letters and telegrams coming to you that you would have neither the time or the heart to read, and not because