Mainly letters from a New England woman, Emily Elliot Daland, to a friend in Italy, Helen Gerard, whose young daughter had inherited a small estate for which Daland was guardian. The letters touch on many subjects that concerned typical Americans during World War I, the 1920s and then the Depression, such as the shortages and hardships, the influenza epidemic, the League of Nations, Prohibition, Hoover’s presidency, labor strikes, and so on. Daland offers much advice to Gerard, who was always in need of money and clothes, and to her daughter who was becoming an unsuccessful artist. Included in the collection is a fragment of a letter from Tucker Daland announcing Emily’s death in 1933, three letters from Gerard to Daland, a small group of family snapshots, and a newspaper clipping regarding an apparent Elliot relative.