Mariah Wike, the author of this letter, was born on December 6th, 1887 in North Carolina. Mariah relocated to Texas following her marriage to Galen Linwood Whitfield (who was born in Texas on April 26th, 1879) on November 19th, 1911. Mariah and Galen had 2 children, Theron and Hazel. Theron fought in WWII and eventually died on March 29th, 2003, in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Hazel died on Christmas day in 2012. Mariah died in Asheville, North Carolina on January 13th, 1962 after returning to North Carolina. Galen died on May 7th, 1974, in Hennepin County, Minnesota, having moved there after his wife’s death. Sallie Wike Haynie, the recipient of this letter and Mariah’s sister, was born on May 11th, 1884 in North Carolina. Sallie married William Victor Haynie, born on January 17th, 1874, in Jackson County, North Carolina on August 14th, 1902. Sallie and William had a total of 5 children together, all of which have since died. Sallie died in Jackson County, North Carolina on February 10th, 1945, just less than three years after William’s death in Jackson County, North Carolina on March 12th, 1942. Within Mariah’s letter to Sallie, Mariah addresses her health concerns and attempts to get caught up on family affairs. It is between these family affairs that she mentions John R. Brinkley II, the renowned fraudulent “goat gland doctor.” Mariah mentions how she recently read Brinkley’s life story in The Life of a Man: An Autobiography of Dr. John R. Brinkley by Clement Wood. This book was paid for by Brinkley himself and is regarded as a biased representation of his life.