Series 3 - Lough sisters letters

5 sub-series

Eilish O'Mahony, descendant of the Lough/Locke family, provided copies of the Lough sisters letters to Kerby A. Miller on 16 February 1978 and gave Miller permission to publish the letters. Miller had previously created transcripts of some of the letters from copies provided by O'Mahony's aunt Kate Tynan to Miller's collaborator, Dr. Arnold Schrier, on 5 March 1955.

The Lough sisters letters are a set of 118 letters pertaining to the Lough/Locke family written between 1859 and 1928, 86 of which were written by four sisters, Elizabeth, Alice, Annie, and Julia, who emigrated to Connecticut and Massachusetts between 1870 and 1884.
Per Dr. Arnold Schrier: ‘The originals of the Lough letters that I collected were in the possession of Mrs. Kate Tynan, Meelick, Portlaoise, Co. Laoighise. I borrowed the letters on March 5, 1955, made photostats, and then returned the originals to Mrs. Tynan. In our visit with the Tynans, I obtained some background information. According to the notes I made, the woman to whom the letters were addressed lived with her husband on a small farm in Meelick, just outside of Portlaoise, Co. Laois (then Queen's Co.). She had six daughters, four of whom emigrated to the United States in the late 1870s. The woman was not of the lowest class because she herself could write and so could all her daughters. The daughters all got married in the States, three settled in Winsted, Conn. and one in Westfield, Mass. The letters are from the daughters to their mother. One of the daughters, Julia, became a dressmaker and did homesewing as well. The mother died in 1893 but the sisters in America continued to write to the sister who had remained on the old homestead, Mary Fitzpatrick.
Julia Lough, although married and a mother of several children, contined her dressmaking, eventually setting up a shop of her own on Main Street and employing three girls. Apparently the first of the four sisters to emigrate was Lizzie in 1870. Lizzie went originally to her Aunt (her mother's sister) in Conn. and worked as a seamstress. She saved her money and helped bring out her other sisters. Lizzie eventually married a Walsh. This Lizzie Walsh was the eldest sister of Mrs. Kate Tynan's mother.’
Per Emma Moreton: ‘Annie Lough, the third sister to emigrate in 1878, appears to have written the most letters of the four sisters - a total of 38 letters between 1890 and 1928, nine of which were to her mother and 26 to her sister Mary, both of whom remained in the Lough's home town - Meelick, Queen's County, Ireland - until their deaths. Julia Lough, the last sister to emigrate in 1884, also wrote regularly - mainly to her mother (23 letters) and also her sister (10 letters) - a total of 33 letters between 1884 and 1927. Elizabeth and Alice were the first sisters to emigrate in around 1870 - 1871, yet they write the fewest number of letters. Elizabeth writes five letters to her mother, father and sisters between 1876 and 1877, when she first emigrates to the US; and Alice writes 10 letters to her sister and mother between 1888 and 1914 (two when she first emigrates and then another three at roughly five year intervals - five of the letters are not dated, but the content would suggest they were written several years after emigrating).’
The series consists of reproductions, transcripts, abstracts, and fragments of the Lough letters, along with research on the Lough/Locke family, Kerby A. Miller’s correspondence with family members while researching the family, photographs and information provided by Lough family members, and secondary source research pertaining to the Loughs.

Sub-series 4 and 5 are physically housed in Box 55 due to space limitations.