As has been mentioned before, Henry and Mary called each other "Harry" and "May." This is a letter Mary wrote two days after Henry gave her a letter as she mentioned in her diary entry on December 31, 1890. The watch shown above was given by Henry to Mary on her birthday in 1890.
Salt Lake City
January 2nd, 1891
Dear Harry
It is with pleasure, which I cannot express on paper, or with words, that I attempt to respond to your welcome and affectionate letter. It causes me to reflect and call back many incidents that are sweet to be remembered. We have spent a great deal of time together and have found out each others dispositions to a great extent. In reviewing the past year I do so with pride and joy and satisfaction. We have not been so energetic and done as much good as we might have done, but in the future we must do better.
We have much to be thankful for, and are greatly indebted to God for the blessings which have been poured out upon us. He had dealt with us kindly, we have dealt with each other kindly, but have we always dealt with others kindly? I am afraid not, as we must learn to do. I can truly say I have not had an unkind feeling toward you, if I did speak unkindly. Another year has passed with out angry words, and I hope at the end of the many years we will pass together, we can say as truthfully as we do now. That we have not caused each other sorrow through our angry words or passions. The past year has been as a dream. But one that will not be forgotten by me. It has been one of the times in life which can in many years to come be looked back to, with fond remembrance. O if it could only be thus always as the years roll by. But as we cause it, so it will be. We have tried to make each other happy and in this we have succeeded. But have we tried to make our selves equally useful. If we love, honor, and respect others, we will certainly receive the same.
One great object we have in view, is to be worthy to meet our Maker, and to do this we must keep ourselves pure and unspotted from the sins of the world, and to live honest, true, upright and virtuous lives, and set examples that are worthy of imitation.
Let our love for each other lead us to this end. The love for each other lead us to this end. The love you have expressed towards me has been of a true and pure nature, and has proven to me twas from a true and noble heart, one which any woman who once posessed it, could only feel that with out it, life would be a burden. It has caused me to place all the confidence in you, whch is possible for woman to place in man. And that confidence has caused me to do and say many things which I could not otherwise have done.
I sincerely hope we will always feel as we do now in this respect.
That our affections will not be blighted in our early life.
Our love did not grow in an hour, a month, or a year. It began with attraction, lead to intrest expanded in to respect and deepened in to tenderness. It illuminates the darkest pathway and has blended to hearts together in inseperable unity. Such love I think is true love, and that we must cherish. We have all ready entered up on the new year, which may prove to be a very eventful one with us. May God helps us to fit and prepare our selves. And when we take up on ourselves the greatest and most important step in life we will be prepared for it. For I realize that it is a great responsibility. If we should enter up on an other year as we have this, may our expectations and anticipations be as bright before us as they are today. And that I will be worthy to bear the honored name of wife and prove my self to you to be all that is required.
I feel that I am rather leangthy in expressing my thoughts. Wishing that this may be a happy and prosperous New Year for you, and that you may live to enjoy many of them. May we continue in the good cause which we have commenced remember our prayers and not neglect our duties. Again Harry I wish you a Happy New Year and that God will ever be with you through life.
I remain
Fondly and Affectionately Yours
May Pettit
Henry and Mary married on December 9, 1891. They lived together happily until Mary died suddenly in April 1905 following the birth of their sixth child.
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