Alexander Graham Bell to John Adams Kingsbury - 1922-04-18

1922 April 18 Mr. John Kingsbury 49 Wall Street New York City

Dear Mr. Kingsbury:

I was very glad indeed to receive your letter on Saturday, and note with pleasure your attitude toward the children of Balf Ker. I sent you a telegram yesterday suggesting that you might run down to Newark in their interests.

I have had some correspondence with Miss Condit, Executive Secretary of the Children’s Aid and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in Newark, where the children have been living, and have sent copies of all letters to the various members of the Ker family whom I could reach in the hope of arousing interest in the ultimate fate of the children. I have not heard from Balfour’s brothers,–who live at some distance, one in the State of Washington and the other in Venezuela,–but the other members of his family do not seem able or willing to do anything for the permanent support of the children. I have been anxious from the first to assist in any way that I could, but without the cooperation of the Ker family have not felt that I could become in any way responsible for their future. Mrs Fischer has written very generously of her interest in the children, and it occurs to me that with your long experience in such cases you might be willing to outline some arrangement in which those of us interested could cooperate. I enclose a copy of latest letter from Miss Condit, written to Mrs Bell, which is self-explanatory.

I wish very much that we could meet here, where we could confer with Balfour's Washington relatives, but I expect to leave for my Nova Scotia home at the end of the month and am making no engagements for May.