Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston Page: 182
xv, 432 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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STAR OF DESTINY
such as sugar, coffee, syrup, lard, pork, hams, apples, and pre-
serves, and had them sent to Margaret. One letter asked her to
search for some important missing papers and instructed her to
take care of his "Big Book," or as it was officially called, "Journal of
my Administration."' Margaret would later reply that she had not
been able to find his papers.2
Houston was back in the capital by the first week in December.
He immediately sent Margaret a draft,3 but warned her not to let
anyone but her mother know she had received it. He also described
for her his difficult journey, saying that for seven days he never
took his clothes off and he was able to lie down only once.
Consequently, he arrived with a bad headache.4
In Huntsville things were off to a good start. Margaret was
optimistic about Thomas Gott's abilities as resident farm manager.
She wrote her husband that it had rained for a week, and the
children had been confined as "noisy prisoners." She had decided
the house would be more pleasant if she added two "shed rooms"
to the south side of the house, with an entry between. One would
be used as a dining room and the other would be a bedroom for
Nancy Lea. As cheerful as the letter was, it still expressed her
feelings about the separation:
When I think of the waste of months between us, I feel as if I had
a dreary pilgrimage to perform, but when I compare it with our
last seperation [sic], the time seems to diminish, and I feel as if
we would soon meet.5
When the next letter she received from Houston was cheerful,
she felt guilty for even that little bit of melancholy. The next day
she apologized:
. . there are times my Love, when I write under such great
depression of spirits owing to my separation from you, that I can
not say any thing cheerful and the very effort to conceal my
feelings seems to chill every thing I write. So if I should be so
unfortunate again as to write in a melancholy mood, you must182
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Roberts, Madge Thornall, 1929-. Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston, book, 1993; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28332/m1/200/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.