"Dear Mrs. Keller,
I am just in receipt of your letter. Yes, Dr. McAlister did call last spring and I told him I would write you in a few days, which I fully intended to do, but it so turned out that I went to France with a friend, where I spent the summer; I have been home about three weeks. My going away was entirely unexpected, and I had but a few hours to get in readiness; left everything at loose ends, and one vexatious oversight was I forgot my address book. I thought about you many times, and would have written to you from over there had I had your address. I was delighted to hear from you—will write to you in a few days. I am wrestling with a bad cold. Hope you are well.
"Lovingly,
"M. O. Davis."
Mrs. Davis had always wished to see Niagara Falls, and Mrs. Keller, whose home was near that city, hoped that the long looked-for and talked-of visit was at last near at hand; would take place in the following summer. Instead, at the expiration of a month she received a black-edged envelope, the contents reading:
"Yourself and family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Mary O. Davis on Monday, November 23, at 3 P. M., from the son's residence—H. M. Fritzinger, 810 State Street, Camden, N. J. Interment at Evergreen Cemetery."
On November 20, 1908, the following notice appeared in several papers.
WHITMAN'S LAST NURSE DEAD
Woman Who Cared for Poet Succumbs Too.
Mrs. Mary L. Davis, who nursed Walt Whitman, the "Good Gray Poet," during his last illness, and was with him at his death, at No. 328 Mickle street, Camden, died last night in Cooper Hospital of intestinal troubles. She was the widow of Levin J. Davis.