Overview
A child's letter, folded into family papers. Elsie Everhart is two days into a stay at The Elms in the summer of 1892, writing to her cousin Charlotte with the solemn precision of someone who has been trained to write properly and has not yet learned which details adults would prefer she leave out.
Near the end, she mentions that Aunt Martha received a letter from a man named John Truman. Her aunt says it is nothing of particular note. Elsie records it and moves on.
I write from the parlour of The Elms Hotel, Excelsior Springs, Missouri, where Aunt Martha and I arrived by rail on Thursday afternoon after a journey of considerable duration and one significant delay outside of Kansas City for which I was given no explanation. The hotel is very large and smells of flowers and of something underneath the flowers, which I have decided is probably the mineral spring and not the building itself.
The healing waters, which are the reason we have come, are dispensed from a pump at the bath house near the hotel, and the guests drink them regularly and with great conviction. The water tastes of iron. The guests say this is the point. I have drunk it twice and feel no different, but I have been told it takes several days and I am prepared to be patient about this.
Aunt Martha is better in her spirits than she has been at home, which I think she would say is the water and which I think has more to do with the distance. She received a letter this morning at the breakfast table from Mr. John Truman, a family acquaintance, which she read quite carefully and then placed in the pocket of her jacket without comment. She said afterward that it was nothing of particular note. She has not mentioned it since.
The other guests are various. There is an elderly couple from St. Louis who take every meal together and have not, in two days, spoken to one another that I have observed. There is a large party of younger people who are very gay and rather loud, and about whom Aunt Martha has already formed several opinions she has not shared with me but has conveyed through other means. A boy of perhaps six fell from the front steps this afternoon and appeared entirely recovered by supper, which I found encouraging as evidence of the restorative properties of the air, if not the water.
The hotel itself is very fine. There is a staircase in the lobby that rises with great confidence, and the dining room has more silverware than any meal requires. My room — I am sharing with Aunt Martha — has a window that looks onto the garden and curtains that moved this afternoon when there was no wind I could account for. I have decided this is the spring air and I am nearly certain of it.
I will write again when there is more to report. As yet I have been here two days and drunk four glasses of iron water and attended one supper and one breakfast, which does not seem a sufficient basis for conclusions.
Your affectionate cousin,
Excelsior Springs, Missouri
Still Waters is a narrative series inspired by the history of The Elms Hotel & Spa in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Each story blends documented history, local lore, and original storytelling. While many places, people, and events are rooted in the historical record, the letters, journals, conversations, and personal accounts are works of historical fiction created to bring the past to life.
Our goal is not to recreate history exactly as it happened, but to honor the people, places, and moments that shaped The Elms and the community surrounding it through stories that could have been told by those who lived them.
