In one melancholic poem about Lucrezia’s death, Speranza weeps for the “strange place, dark earth, and bitter stone” that “possess” her sister, and thus her own happiness. The poems traded between ...

The poem was written by Mrs. Gilbert H. (Helen) Lawrenz, formerly Helen Virginia Brecheisen, the soldier’s sister. At the bottom of the inscription it is signed “Mr. and Mrs. H.N. Brecheisen ...