Proposal of Marriage from Arno Preston Stanley to Mabel Estelle Stanley, later Mrs. Arno Preston Stanley

Identifier:
11938  
Title:
Proposal of Marriage from Arno Preston Stanley to Mabel Estelle Stanley, later Mrs. Arno Preston Stanley
Subject:
Description:
In 1894 Arno Preston Stanley (1865-1937) wrote a letter to his fourth cousin, Mabelle Estelle Stanley (1868-1955), daughter of Robert S. Stanley and Phoebe Jane (Gilley) Stanley, [both descended from Sans Stanley (1702-) and Mary (Charder) Stanley (1706-1748)] and asked for her hand in marriage:

"Dear Mabel

I love you with all my heart and I am willing to part with all on earth for your presents if you will join with me now at the present time but after you read this, and don’t see fit to join with me I will say no more about it and give up and die in despair I shall feel as if I have not a friend on earth if you say no if you choose others ways I hope you will be happy Through life and when I die I hope to meet with you in heaven if god is willing for me to please write on this peper and give me ether way you choose

This is the way I feel I trust in god that we may be happy through life if you ascept

please answer yes or no and give me this piece of peper back

Yours
Truly
Arno. P. Stanley

Live or die I shall think of you as a friend and one that love you well and you may think as you please"

Mabelle added a penciled note, “Yes Dear,” in the space provided in his letter. They filed their intention to marry on October 25, 1894 and were married on November 3, 1894 at Cranberry Isles.

Mabelle died on March 24, 1955, at the age of 86, at the Bay View Nursing Home in South Portland, Maine. She had saved the hopeful, loving letter Arno had written to her 61 years before. Her family buried her near Arno in the Stanley Cemetery No. 3 (Map 6 – Lot 1), Great Cranberry Island, Maine.

Arno would have been living at his father, Enoch Boynton Stanley's house at Great Cranberry Island when he wrote the letter.

Mabel's name was spelled Mabelle on her gravestone and curators use that spelling, but have left Arno's Mabel as it appears in his letter. Arno and Mabel's grandson, Ralph Warren Stanley, surmises that she was known as Mabel and that her relatives put on airs when they changed it to Mabelle on her gravestone.
Place:
Cranberry Isles, Great Cranberry Island
State:
ME
Country:
USA
Date:
1894
Source:
Great Cranberry Island Historical Society

Citation

“Proposal of Marriage from Arno Preston Stanley to Mabel Estelle Stanley, later Mrs. Arno Preston Stanley,” Southwest Harbor Public Library, accessed November 25, 2024, https://demo.digitalarchive.us/items/show/7365.Item 11938

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