Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection

Letter from L.O. Howard to Mabel H. Lazear, February 7, 1901

COSMOS CLUB,
WASHINGTON. DC.
Febr. 7, 1901
Dear M^rs Lazear:

I know you
will pardon a stranger for
writing to you, because it is
about that noble man your
late husband. Then too perhaps
I am not quite a stranger for
I had a little chat with you on
the dining car on the Pennsylvania
railroad between Philadelphia &
Baltimore last spring when you were
on your way home from Cuba &
I told you than that I know your
husband. I have often wanted
to write you since I heard of
your loss , but did not know
your address. I had talked about
your husband & about you with
D^r Carter, D^r Sternberg, D^r Reed,
D^r Carroll & others & had urged

some movement to induce Congress
to acknowledge D^r Lazear's
services & his death on the
fighting line of science -- a
glorious death! I failed to get
your address from D^r Thayer when
I saw him last June & have only
just harmed it from D^r Kean
of the army who called on me
today. Your husband was a martyr
in the noblest of causes & I am
proud to have known him. Perhaps
I do wrong to write you, but
I cannot refrain from [telling you] that no
one sympathizes with you more
deeply than I do and that
my admiration for the man knows
no bounds . His work contributed
towards one of the greatest discoveries
of the century the results of which
will be of invaluable benefit to
mankind.

Faithfully yours,

L.o. Howard
.