Letter #4

Wednesday 18 January 2012
To Cassandra, from Rowling, "Frank has turned a very nice little butter-churn for Fanny." - Jane Austen, Thursday 1 September 1796

Frank Austen, Jane Austen's brother, mentioned earlier in the letter and Fanny, Edward's wife. We discussed this subject earlier in the letter about wood turning. Frank must have been pretty good at it. It does not seem easy to make a butter-churn.

Perhaps it looked something like this.

The other day I was walking through the living room and my husband was watching a show on wood turning. I had never heard of wood turning before Jane Austen wrote about it in this letter. So, you see, I am learning from my hobby, or whatever you call this.

This is a link to Create TV and information about the show.

http://www.createtv.com/CreateProgram.nsf/vProgramsbyNOLA/WDWK#

And the wood turners have their own organization with 14,000 members. Where have I been? I live in a desert, maybe if I lived around trees I might have heard of this before.

http://woodturner.org/gaws/?gclid=CJqBw-aB2q0CFQduhwodNyU1mQ

I am very affectionately yours,
Terrie