The importance of these letters is that they give an insight into the life at Glenmere, Bolton Township in the 1930's when the estate was occupied summertimes, at least, by Kenneth Erskine and family. This property was the home of Colonel George Harold Baker, Member of Parliament for Brome before he went Overseas and was killed in 1916. His life is well documented in the Brome County histories but we do not learn he had three sisters, one of whom was, Harriet, who wrote these fifteen letters.
The letters are written from places in France as she spent most of the 1930's travelling in France or England, but they are filled with details of what she hoped would get done at Glenmere by her tenant and friend, Mr. Erskine. Kenneth Erskine was manager of the Bank of Montreal in Knowlton in 1920's but he probably had retired by 1930's and probably spent winters in south. This home of the Bakers on Baker's Pond was very dear to her because it had been her brother's home. Perhaps, she felt closer to him when in France as he was buried at Poperinghe near Ypres.
Col. Baker's cavalry horse, Morning Glory, is mentioned and some discussions about where it was buried when it died in 1937 at 26 years of age.
She mentions a few times meeting Col. W. Rhoades, a personal friend of her brother, who had served in the War with Col. Baker and was with him when he was killed. The 1939 and 1940 letters from Cannes tell how "the catastrophe has fallen... but there is a great sustaining force in the Unity of the Nation". The story went around here in Brome that she just got out of France in time before the Germans took over there in World War II.
