Comments on: Letter Writers & Letter Keepers

By: marilyn

marilyn — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:57:16 +0000

I have my the letters my Dad wrote to Mama while he was in the Army during WWII. Some are very interesting but some are more black marks than words where they were edited by the Army before being mailed. I started once to type them but got side-tracked; hope to get back to doing that someday.

After my paternal grandmother died my aunt had a friend whose mother was widowed and they introduced their parents by mail. They wrote to each other for a while and she got on a train and rode to Oklahoma to marry him. They were both elderly but still had several years together. When he knew the end was coming for him and after she had already died, my grandfather had my Aunt take him back to his home for one last mission. He knew right where they were and he took all the letters they’d written to one another and took them out into the backyard, and burned them. No prying eyes to read their private thoughts! )

By: cwinwc

cwinwc — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:59:23 +0000

I’ll join the “not so much letters” crowd on this one. I do make notes in my Bible when I hear something that touches my heart about who is with me, who said it, and the date. I have numerous notes and cards folks have given me over the years as well stuffed in my Bible that Greg might call “my purse.”

They bless me everytime I open my Bible.

By: Patrick Mead

Patrick Mead — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:04:59 +0000

I’m with Greg — I fear our electronic age has killed the “letter as history” and “letter as relic” age. That’s sad, but it’s reality.

Kami kept all the cards and letters I sent her while dating. Scary.

I think what you’ve done with the letters is exceptionally sweet and cool. Wow.

I keep a treasure box — a file with papers from my kids as they grew up, drawings handed to me by little kids, valentines given to me by four and five year olds in our churches, etc. I love it.

By: Judy

Judy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:57:49 +0000

I’m pretty much a keeper. I have a cedar chest containing letters written to me by my mom and dad, one card I have left that I received from my sister-in-law with her handwriting on it, and notes and cards I’ve received from others. (There have been times I’ve destroyed some from one or two people, out of pain, amd have come to regret doing so.) These are a treasure trove, as you say. I also have a collection of church bulletins from my home town church, dating back to 1963. I’ve never gotten inventive enough to catalog them or make books out of any of them, though. What a great idea! I write quiet a few notes and send a lot of cards………..just not long letters.

By: Greg England

Greg England — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:29:10 +0000

Jan kept all the letters we exchanged while dating in both high school and college that we intend to some day go through and decide which ones our children might like to read and which ones certainly must be destroyed!

When my children were small, I kept a running diary of their shenanigans and cute-ness via letters to my mom. Later in my life, Mom would mention something one of them had done and I would have no memory of it. When she died, my sister found every letter I’d written, so I have a record of the kids growing up. Again, I have all intentions of going through them, ordering them by date, and then making a book for each of the kids … just haven’t found the time to follow through with my intentions. However, in the years since Mom’s death and my receiving the letters, we’ve been involved in two career moves, two housing moves, and three grandchildren! My intentions have been somewhat re-prioritized.

These days emails, blogs, and phone calls have more or less replaced handwritten correspondence … which is not a good thing, but it is reality.