Margaret C. Osgood to Hamilton Osgood, December 1905. IE TCD MS 7867/16

Digitised version of IE TCD MS 7867/16, a letter written by Margaret C. Osgood, [London, England] to her husband Dr. Hamilton Osgood, M.D., 165 Woodstock Road, Oxford, England, December 1905 (date based on postmark on envelope) updating him on his daughter Mary's condition during her labour: "Dr Champneys came & made an examination. The rubber thing had gone so Molly says (the end of it). The Dr couldn't get hold of it... I suppose he can drag it out when he chooses. He told Molly the baby would not arrive before tomorrow night in all probability. Molly is walking about now... I think it was discouraging to hear the pains were only beginning. The work is slow & tiresome. I wish you were here to help her but she is as brave as her father whom I love & adore for it. I think Robin was dear in his thought of you... I wish you would give him my note. I appreciate a young person thinking of us old ones..." A possible addenda to the letter begins as follows: "Gretchen is braiding Molly's hair. She looks so pretty in bed, her pink bow on her head and she is as jolly and bright as if it were a real tea party. The pains come now & then. The rubber catheter is in the womb doing its work...The baby may come to night at midnight..." Margaret Cushing Pearmain Osgood (1847-1941), was an American writer and poet, mother to writer and nationalist Mary ('Molly') Alden Childers who was married to Erskine Childers, and the maternal grandmother of Erskine Hamilton Childers (1905-1974) who became the fourth President of Ireland 1973-1974.