The Mary Bacon collection contains 21 letters Mary wrote to her husband George and to her adopted daughter Lula in Bellows Falls, Vermont, while she visited Albuquerque, New Mexico, for health reasons in 1894. Bacon arrived in the Southwest with Blanche, her younger daughter, in early April 1894, and wrote her family in detail about all aspects of local everyday life, including the weather, scenery, people, and social events. Though she greatly missed her family, she quickly found a circle of acquaintances in Albuquerque, and often accompanied them on shopping trips to the Old Town area or on rides around the countryside and across the Rio Grande River. Her health, and that of Blanche, were also frequent topics of discussion, and though she saw general improvement, she remained somewhat weak. She also commented on her companions, and noted the occasional racial prejudice of Mrs. Nowlin, a fellow boarder at the Algers'. She focused mainly on her daily life in New Mexico, but also devoted significant portions of her letters to the effects of the Pullman railroad strike on her correspondence with George and on the local availability of certain goods (July 1, 1894); she also described the living conditions of Mexican women in Albuquerque (May 27, 1894), and everyday life in the town.
Mary J. Bacon was born in Canada in April 1851. She and her husband, George Bacon (b. Jan 1848), had two daughters, Blanche and Lulu, and lived in Bellows Falls, Vermont; Lulu was adopted. In 1894, Mary spent several months in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in an attempt to restore her ailing health, and roomed in a boarding house run by the Alger family.
