Handwritten letter from Dr. George R. Starkey in Washington, D. C. to his daughter, Gertrude Starkey Pitcairn. Embossed seal with the word “Extra” in the center pressed into the upper left corner of the first page.

While some of Gertrude’s letters remain unanswered, Starkey feels compelled to respond to her Sunday letter because she seems unnecessarily troubled. Examining her letter in the “highest light,” he identifies and explains in spiritual terms the three main symptoms of her dis-ease. These symptoms are: 1) A longing for the enjoyment of childhood and a suffering in breaking away from this state 2) A changed feeling (i.e. resentment) towards Mamma 3) A newfound love for her father He believes the root cause of these symptoms is her “full-blossomed womanhood.” He explains that natural birth corresponds to the spiritual process that accompanies the different stages of human development, and he notes that birth is both irreversible and violent- hence Gertrude’s suffering. Leaving childhood, the former mother-child relationship she has had with Mamma is destroyed, replaced by a relationship of equality. Once the “violence” of this period subsides, the two will be brought closer together in companionship, especially if Gertude becomes a mother herself. Additionally, she may feel resentment towards Mamma because her “newly blossoming womanhood importunately demands what no woman can give.” This is also the reason for her new feeling towards her father. Starkey explains, “Your full fledged womanhood is moved to seek its other self with an urgency that will not brook denial. Reaching out in that direction it finds, - not yet the husband,- but does find the father. – What then! am I to be your husband? In a certain sense, yes. – ‘Thy maker is thy husband.’- In all the higher planes, it is right, proper & orderly that your father should be to you as a husband. By so doing, you will be a fuller & purer wife to your real husband upon the plane where he only can meet you.” He has only been able to say all this after “considerable travail of soul” and counsel from Dr. and Mrs. Hatch. He and Mamma both entered this stage in life without parents, and so their experience in this area is lacking. The Hatches agree that Gertrude has inherited “a tendency to hyper-consciousness” from her mother and that her state is not “dreadful” since, when one acts from a “sense of real duty, there may be more of spiritual life in it that if you acted from inclination.”

Names mentioned: “the elder Pitt.”, Dr. Hatch, Mrs. Hatch