Correspondence (outgoing)

[negative image of letter on p23, already transcribed]

Copy-

Attorney General Olney Kind friend

To day I start on my homeward journey with the burden on my heart lightened for you were more than kind, you did all that I asked with feeling and sympathy that was unexpected.

You can never appreciate the trial it was to come across the continent alone with a load on my heart

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to you for what you did to hasten the ending of the case.

Always gratefully Your friend

Mrs Leland Stanford May 9th 1895 Fifth Ave Hotel New York City, N.Y.

almost too great for a human being to bear and live and to seek for an audience with the highest Executives of the Land to press upon them a sad story and to have to appeal to them for help. It was a trial almost overpowering to my womanly reserve. After it was over it did make me ill. Towards you I owe a debt of gratitude I am not able to express. You put me at ease by your most respectful courtesy and kindness of heart. It left with me

the impression that you meant as far as it was consistent with duty to be a helper and friend.

I shall keep the doors of the University open this year however hard the struggle may be Putting my trust in an All Wise merciful Father, for the final decision of the Government suit against my husband's estate. I pray that it may come this year & against whichever way the ending may be I shall never forget to be grateful

[left page] am assured that my wishes will be granted for a speedy ending of the suit.

It cheered me more than I can express in simple words that the Governor of our state had given utterance to such cheering helpful sentiments. I have so needed the outspoken words of friends and citizens who have received and kindly accepted the gift and into whose posession it has passed absolutely. They do not know how my heart has ached and bled and how I have prayed for the felt but unspoken sympathy. You have nobly taken the lead in the cause

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Hon Games Budd Honored and kind friend: (copy) would be untrue to my better self were I to neglect acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe you for your very kind and outspoken sentiments in regard to the work commenced during my husband's life here in this his first existence in mortality. I learned incidentally yesterday of your able and sympathetic words on the occasion when addressing the Berkeley students. It was during my absence at Washington having returned as late as

Monday.

The University was the mission that took me East. I felt it a sacred duty to my husband, my son and the blessed work to lay before the President and the Attorney General the desperate struggle I had made to keep the doors of the Institution open, trusting to a loving Heavenly Father's help for support in my hour of need. I was not utterly disheartened until I learned the Government suit might be prolonged for years. Under such adverse circumstances I was unable to reengage the President and faculty for another year, for

[right page] I have no private fortune and had, as far as possible, reduced all my personal expenses, sold all I could, and given all the courts allowed me, for its maintenance the past two years. This has cost me a struggle far beyond the world's conception, and to fail now meant giving up all I lived for.

I saw these distinguished and highest Executives, told my struggles and desires to have a speedy trial and decision that I might know within the year of my fate. I think they feel a deep interest in the future of this work and I