Mainly letters from Mary Olivia Hurd Arno to her mother, 1886-1897, with six letters of Augusta Jaquins Hurd to her father and brother, 1858-1866, and seventeen miscellaneous letters either to her or retained by her.

Along with domestic matters and family relationships, topics include: pioneer settlement in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakota Territory, land speculation, taxes, insurance costs, salaries, and the hard financial times of the 1890s. Marital problems and divorce, the daily lives of frontier women, farmers and carpenters, the weather, including a 1896 Midwest tornado, problem of obesity, small pox vaccination, and local camp meetings are also discussed in the letters.

This collection has been published, see: The Letters of Ann Augusta Jaquins Hurd and Mary Olivia Hurd Arno, 1858-1897, edited by Helen Hazen Cooperman (Chicago: Cooperman, 1988).