From a letter by Julie to Morris, she in Hartford with the girls and he in New Orleans:

‘I took a carriage Saturday, or a sleigh rather, and took the four young off shoots out sleighing upon which the ‘flambergasted’ young ladies took the opportunity to acquire the snuffles….

Lucy grows every minute, she looks like you I think….I hope you will enjoy member four (Lucy) next summer. Nellie (Helen)’s last mode of computation is ‘fourteen, nineteen, eleventeen!’..

The children have just come in from school wet above the knees, every article of dress saturated. They have been elegantly amusing themselves sliding, now they must be Redressed for school this afternoon, but by whom am I to be redressed for all this botheration. Verily I need patience.

I feel perfectly twisted out of my senses trying to write with so many children around me and talking in my ears, and I have to hurry lest Mr. King be gone….But good bye now My Boy. God keep you safely till May.”

Julie and Morris had four children: Fannie, Carlotta, Helen, and Lucy.  Lucy had been born in late 1858, Morris had stayed late that year but had had to leave for New Orleans when she was barely a week or two old.  Between late fall (anything from September to November) and May of every year, Julie had charge of all four children while Morris was in New Orleans overseeing the company’s branch there.  At the same time she was beginning to write short stories for publication.  Most of her letters to Morris naturally describe the daily small details of their lives in Hartford.