Handwritten Treasures

A blog about the lost treasure of handwritten letters.

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Trading Emails for Handwritten Art

Maybe it is the extra time put into crafting the note, or the unique handwriting that covers the page. Whatever it is, there is just more meaning in a handwritten letter that has traveled from post office to post office than there is in an email that shoots across cyber space and arrives in one click.

Artist Ivan Cash understands this, and in 2011 he decided to start the project that reversed history by transforming emails into handwritten letters. It’s called Snail Mail My Email and for one week during November hundreds of volunteers and writers take part in it.

Here’s how it works: Anyone can submit an email that they want to be made into a creative letter and sent out to someone he or she knows. The volunteers then transform these emails into unique handwritten works of art. Finally, the letters are sent out to recipients all over the world at no charge to the author.

I recently spoke to one of the volunteers named Olesja. She was very passionate about this project and what it’s trying to do. “We live in today's world where personal communication has become cheap, instant and technology-driven: it's so easy to text or send an email, but what this project offers is the charm of a hand-written letter,” she said.

Once they receive the emails, the volunteers are given seven days to create their masterpieces, but Olesja diligently finished all of hers in 2 days. “I felt this strangely strong sense of responsibility to make a letter which will look exactly how the original author would want it to look, but also responsible to hurry up, because it really felt like you are sending out somebody's very important message,” she explained.

Olesja was excited to be part of this project that she supports, but didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as she did. She was personally touched by the emails that she received to handwrite: “It was so worth it. Every single message I received to write was so emotional and kind. There were secret love letters, eternal love letters, letters to best friends, or to parents to tell them how wonderful they are! There was even a letter to a soldier who was stationed far away from home. Is that not the verge of romanticism? It was all like in movies: sentimental, very human and beautiful,” she said.

Here are a couple of Olesja's cards below: 

It is interesting how Olesja describes these messages to be so meaningful when the handwritten element of these letters seems to be a big part of what makes them so special. I found a few of the messages online to share. Read them just as plain text, as if they were emails and then see the letter that they were each transformed into. This exercise demonstrates the transition that communication has made from letters to email, and what we’ve lost from that shift. 

CINNAMON,

(read this letter when you are at your lowest)

So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them. Any don’t look at your days like they’re a cup, calling them half empty of half full, when they’ve always been enough. They’ve always been enough.

    Dearest Momma,

“When everything falls apart the greatest strength you have is to be yourself. It is your grief, your journey, your decisions will make it right for you. Your true self will shine through.”
- Maureen Hunter

I love your true self.
xoxo
 Nikki

  Bethany,

I know you had a wonderful summer and I can’t wait to see you so that you can tell me all about it! I hope you’re not having trouble with getting settled in at school. Good luck with athletic training and I’ll see you when I get to Bridgewater! I miss you!

xoxo,
Jammy

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Top 5 Love Letters in Movies

As a hopeless romantic, I’ve watched a lot of ‘chic flicks’. This genre of film generally includes some kind of relationship struggle, a strong female lead and of course the cliché Disney ending.

These films may be predictable, but I, among many others, love them. I especially enjoy a deep, well-written love letter in a movie. The technique is usually the same: the main character reads the letter at some pivotal moment in the script, while the sound of the writer reciting the letter plays in the background. Although it is expected, this method is often successful in bringing viewers, like myself, to an emotional collapse. 

Having spent many Saturday nights scouring the Internet for cheesy movies like this, I am a qualified candidate to select the best, most heartfelt love letters that have been featured in films. Enjoy, 

1. PS. I love you

Dear Holly,

I don't have much time. I don't mean literally, I mean you're out buying ice cream and you'll be home soon. But I have a feeling this is the last letter, because there is only one thing left to tell you. It isn't to go down memory lane or make you buy a lamp, you can take care of yourself without any help from me. It's to tell you how much you move me, how you changed me. You made me a man, by loving me Holly. And for that, I am eternally grateful... literally. If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you're sad, or unsure, or you lose complete faith, that you'll try to see yourself through my eyes. Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I'm a man with no regrets. How lucky am I. You made my life, Holly. But I'm just one chapter in yours. There'll be more. I promise. So here it comes, the big one. Don't be afraid to fall in love again. Watch out for that signal, when life as you know it ends.

P.S. I will always love you.

2. Letters to Juliet

  Dear Claire,

What and if are two words as nonthreatening as words can be. But put them together, side by side, and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life.

What if?

What if?

What if?

I don’t know how your story ended but if what you felt then was true love then it’s never too late. If it was true then, why wouldn’t it be true now? You only need the courage to follow your heart.

I don’t know what a love like Juliet’s feels like, a love to leave loved ones for, a love to cross oceans for, but I’d like to believe, if ever I were to feel it, that I’d have the courage to seize it. And Claire if you didn’t, I hope one day that you will.

All my love,

Juliet

3. Dear John

Dear John,

Two weeks together, that's all it took. Two weeks for me to fall in love with you. Now we have one year apart. But what's one year apart after two weeks like that together. You made me a promise, a promise I know you'll keep. So I only want one more promise from you during this time we spend apart. Tell me everything, write it all down, John. Scribble it in a notebook, type it out, email it to me. That way, before we know it, I'll see you soon then.

4. The Notebook

My Dearest Allie,

I couldn’t sleep last night because I know that it’s over between us. I’m not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I’ll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give to you forever. I love you. I’ll be seeing you.

Noah

5. Message in a Bottle

Dear Catherine,

I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in so long.

I feel I’ve been lost…no bearings, no compass.

I kept crashing into things, a little crazy, I guess.

I’ve never been lost before.

You were my true North.

I could always steer for home when you were my home.

Forgive me for being so angry when you left.

I still think some mistake’s been made…

And I’m waiting for God to take it back.

But I’m doing better now.

The work helps.

Most of all, you help me.

You came into my dream last night with that smile…

That always held me like a lover… rocked me like a child.

All I remember from the dream…is a feeling of peace.

I woke up with that feeling….and tried to keep it alive as long as I could.

  I’m writing to tell you that I’m on a journey toward that peace.

And to tell you I’m sorry about so many things.

I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you…

So you never spent a minute being cold or scared or sick.

I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to find the words…to tell you what I was feeling.

I’m sorry I never fixed the screen door.

I fixed it now.

I’m sorry I ever fought with you.

I’m sorry I didn’t apologize more.

I was too proud.

I’m sorry I didn’t bring you more compliments…on everything you wore and every way you fixed your hair.

I’m sorry I didn’t hold on to you with so much strength that even God couldn’t pull you away.

All my love,

G

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The Letter Writer: A Movie Review

If you can get through the misleading cliché introduction to this film, the deep and relatable scenes that occur later will leave you in a state of compassionate self-reflection similar to what many people feel around Christmas time. In the first five minutes we are introduced to a female high school student named Maggy, who is the singer in a band with her attractive boyfriend. We quickly learn about her struggles with grades and her dysfunctional family, losing interest and beginning to predict the outcome of the entire movie.

However, just when we put the film in the category with other predictable teen movies like High School Musical, Mean Girls and every princess movie ever made, there’s a plot twist. Maggy receives a praising and encouraging letter from a man named Sam Worthington, whom she has never heard of. This is where the movie goes from being about petty high school problems, to relating to real life.

Maggy eventually finds ‘Sam Worthington’, which is really the pen name of an old, white haired man living in an retirement home. He captures the essence of a true letter-writing enthusiast, using a classic gold fountain pen to write a different letter to a randomly selected name in the phone book every single day.

Worthington soon becomes Maggy’s mentor and gets her to think about the more important parts of life. Through Worthington’s help, we watch her grow from the annoying high school student into a sound and caring woman with a completely different life perspective. Although seemingly unoriginal at first, the film warps into a refreshing portrayal of what really matters. 

The film was produced in 2011 and written and directed by Christian Vuissa. None of the characters in this movie are famous or well known, which adds an authentic feel to it. We have no preconceived notions of who these people are supposed to be and therefore they really become the character that they are acting out.

Although there are still portions of this film that remind us that it is focused around a young high school student, most of the time it goes beyond teenage problems and is easy to relate to. Part of what makes this film meaningful is that Worthington teaches Maggy lessons in an original way. Instead of simply telling her ‘be nice to people,’ he speaks to the audience with a wiser voice and says:

“Life is like a mirror, if someone steals or is dishonest, they'll invite people into their lives who also steal and are dishonest. The good thing is you can choose who and what enters your life. Within every human being there is a God given ability that if you find it and nurture it you'll be able to bless the lives of others.”

Worthington uses his gift of writing to inspire Maggy to discover her own talents. We then watch her put her singing to use in a more unique way than the predictable ending of her singing on a big stage with her band.   

If you’re in the mood for some light entertainment with a fairly expected plot and a happy ending, you should skip this film. Contradictory to the first impression that we get at the beginning of this film, it is packed with emotion and profound lessons that will leave you thinking about the flic long after the hour and 25 minutes. 

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If you find this letter, it's for you

In little nooks all over the world, whether it is in the girl’s bathroom at a large university or inside Of Mice and Men in an old antique bookshop, people are finding handwritten letters. These letters can be anywhere from one word of inspiration to nine pages full of heartfelt meaning. The only similarity among these letters is that each one is written for whoever happens to find the letter.

 This trend was started by 25-year-old Hannah Brencher, who used to leave letters in unique places for people to find.  After she realized the impact that she was having on other people’s lives, she decided that more people needed kind letters. In 2009 she created a blog, in which she told people that if they needed a love letter, she would write them one. The results were much bigger than Brencher expected.

She received hundreds of requests for letters, and she handwrote nearly 400 of them. Her project didn’t stop there though. She now owns and operates a nonprofit organization called The World Needs More Love Letters. This organization promotes the idea of uplifting, motivating and empowering people through the gift of love letters.

Here’s how to get involved:

Start writing a letter and introduce it with ‘Dear you’, or a similar opening. Then, write something— a favorite quote, a story, anything that is going to make the reader happy. That’s the hard part. The last step is to sign the envelope with ‘if you find this letter, it’s for you’ and leave it where someone else will find it.

Although only handwritten at first, this movement has now gone online. People are posting the letters that they find on social media and talking about what the unexpected note meant to them. Some trending hashtags include: #moreloveletters #MLL #snailmailrevolution #wordsofwisdom

These handwritten notes are having an impact on lives globally. One anonymous girl wrote about how she had gone into the bathroom to cry when she found the letter on top of the toilet paper. She was on a stress leave from work and undergoing depression treatment, and this note reminded her that, “there are people out there that are half decent,” she said. She now carries the letter with her everywhere.

Another girl, named Alex, was sitting atop a heater in the stairwell of the Stanley Hall dormitory of the University of Iowa when she found her letter. She said, “After a loss in the family, a diagnosis of depression, and only starting to get control of my life, this was a nice reminder that I’m not alone.” The letter for her was a much-needed push to make it through finals week.

Courtney Scheingraber was another letter finder who was struggling when she found her note. Working in retail, she often feels like crying because of how her customers treat her: "To the friend who wrote this: you have no idea how much this means to a nobody like me. Thank you for treating me like a person,” she said.  

You could have this same impact. All it takes is a pen, a piece of paper and some meaningful writing. 

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Digging up Handwritten Treasures in Antique Shops

If the time where postcards and letters were sent frequently is a nostalgic era for you, than a perhaps unexpected time machine back to that period is antique shops. I visited two stores — Witch City Thrift and Consignment Shop in Salem, MA and Howard’s Flying Dragon Antiques in Essex, MA.

After wading through piles of old clothes and furniture, I came to the small section that I had been searching for. In an unorganized fashion, both stores had boxes of a variety of postcards and some letters. Many post cards were left blank, but the ones that had writing on them were the ones that I was on the hunt for.  

I spent two hours in each store, lost in a time period where communication was simply very different than this age of technology and social media. Evident of the times, most of the notes were written in cursive. Today cursive writing is dying faster than handwritten letters. Having trouble reading cursive myself, I wondered how people will be able to read cursive when it stops being taught in schools. 

Now sitting on the floor with a pile of post cards in my lap, more realizations about how much communication is changing began to come to me. Reading through these messages it was clear how much less accessible communication was. People would spend the time to write a letter just to say things like 'going to the funeral today',  'had fun on vacation' and 'got a hair cut'.

Because of this lack of accessibility to communication, people seemed to have a bigger appreciation for it. Many letters ended with ‘write me when you can’ and ‘hope all is well’ because people didn’t have the same luxury of constantly knowing what others are up to through social media sites.

To get a message across, you had go to the post office to send a letter and the recipient had to wait days to receive it. When someone was writing to you, you knew that you were important to him or her. On Facebook and twitter, many people don’t even remember half of the users who they talk to.

Communication has transformed. One of the post cards for example was written in 1972, sent from Palm Beach Florida with a tropical picture of a beach on the front. In hard to decipher thick black cursive handwriting, the post card apologized to the recipient about the death of his or her mother. The rest of the post card was unreadable.

It may just be me, but I think to send condolences about death through a tropical postcard in todays age, would be both rude and inconsiderate. Apparently though in 1972, before it was easy to get in touch with people, a tropical postcard was a perfectly acceptable way to send sympathy about a death. 

Other post cards were not as controversial as this one. One said, “Hi pesty-pants, I’ve got so much stuff for you that I’ll need a trailer truck to come home with.”

The time required to pick out the post card, purchase the stamp and then bring it to the post office is at least ten minutes, just to send such a short message. Getting this short message to “Pesty-pants’ was obviously worth ten minutes of the senders time.

Mentally sitting in the age of handwritten communication, I looked forward to where we are now. Are we still worth ten minutes time to people? Or is social media driving us further apart than together?

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There’s an App for That: Mailing Letters from Your Phone

  In April 2013, an app called Lettrs was released that brought postal letters into the digital age. The app allows users to create and write letters on their phones using a variety of different fonts, colors and paper styles. If using a device with a touch screen, the user can even scrawl their signature at the bottom. Once finished, you have the choice on how to deliver it, either digitally or through a physical letter. 

For a cost generally ranging from $2 - $6, users no longer have to fill out an envelope, purchase a stamp and deliver their letter to the post office. Now all of this can be done in 90 seconds. Why 90 seconds?  

The company recently added a minimum-time rule, forcing writers to spend at least 90 seconds crafting their letter. This rule aims to promote and bring back the age of more meaningful communication when people usually spent 20 minutes writing a letter. In today’s generation with social media, texting and email, messages are sent in mere seconds.

Drew Bartkiewicz, 47, is the founder of this company. In an interview with Bloomberg he talked about how he grew an appreciation for letters while serving in the U.S Army. Then, in 2008 he scribbled his idea to start the company down on a napkin and it finally took off in 2012.

In this age of quick, thoughtless communication through social media, Bartkiewicz wants to bring back more meaningful and purposeful communication through writing letters. With this new app — lettrs — he hopes to make the process much more convenient for people, so they are more apt to actually take the time to write a letter. 

So far, Bartkiewicz’s business has had success in promoting the lost art of mailing letters. 30,000 physical letters were mailed through the service last year, which was just a quarter of the number of letters sent digitally. His company has also appeared in various media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, CBS and NPR. 

Staying true to the times before technology, these internationally sent letters are not just printed and mailed in the usual white envelope that’s sealed with a lick from the tongue. Beginning in Collinsville, CT every envelope is hand written with the address and can be sealed with wax and even scented for an additional cost.

The upgrades don’t stop there though. For $49 customer’s can purchase a letter written with calligraphy on rice paper. 

The main menu of the app also tries to take users away from technology and into the real world. Instead of the regular options such as notifications and messages, this menu features a unique list of places where one may find a letter – Fridge, Kitchen Counter, Shoebox and Desk Drawer. Each of these tabs has a different function. For example, the fridge allows users to publically display their letters with other subscribers, whereas the shoebox is a place to privately store your letters.

Bartkiewicz finished his interview with Bloomberg with stating how he hopes that Lettrs will help bring more revenue to USPS, which lost $5 billion in 2013. He wants to bring back the trend of writing long, meaningful messages to people. Bartkiewicz believes that technology doesn't have to be the death of letters. 

Do you agree with him? In this age of social media will people still take the time to write a personal letter? Will you download the app?

Leave your comments below. 

Sources: 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-30/youve-sent-mail-a-letter-writing-app-forces-users-to-slow-down

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/04/23/word-up-lettrs-launches-on-ios/

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How to Fill out an Envelope

This tutorial may seem pointless. Many readers may be thinking to themselves: everyone knows how to fill out an envelope. Well readers, I recently discovered that this is not true.

I spoke to a woman named Judy who has been working at a small local post office for 20 years. We were talking about the lost art of handwritten letters and she told me she is always surprised by how many people have no idea how to fill out an envelope. “Sometimes college students come in and they don’t even know where to put the stamp,” she said.

So for all of the people who fall into this category and don’t want to have to admit to it (I would be embarrassed too), I filled out a sample letter for your benefit. 

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Visit Original Link

Older generations like the G.I. Generation (1900-1924) and the Silent Generation (1925-1945) grew up in an age where long distance communication meant sending handwritten letters that take days to arrive in the mail. Now in a time where Facebook and texting allow instant connection, younger age groups tend to not see this same value in personal letters. This is a stereotype though that does not apply to everyone.

18-year-old Rebekah Machemer has been promoting handwritten letters since high school. At Timberlane High School in Plaistow, NH she singlehandedly ran workshops where students could come, write and design handwritten letters. This was part of a movement to leave love letters in random places for people to find and be inspired by. Now a college student at Boston University, Machemer is still just as passionate about bringing back this lost art.  

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Subscribing to Beautiful Stationery

In this electronic age, we mostly subscribe to email and social media updates. These services come directly to our computer screens, discouraging human contact and inviting us to spend hours staring at our electronics.

 A subscription service called Nicely Noted offers a new invitation. This service encourages communicating with others through handwritten letters. Subscribers receive a unique collection of letterpress cards and stamps every month. 

Perry Nelson, an avid letter writer, founded the company. “I love curating each collection. It is a joy to search for the perfect coordinating designs and stamps. I love getting to know the designers / printers and to understand their process of making the cards on their antique presses,” she said.

I found Nelson through reading an article about the rare commodity of handwritten notes. She had left a comment on the page that was particularly meaningful:

“Like so many others I cherish the notes I have from my grandmother. There is something magic about having a letter she held in her hands years ago. I started Nicely Noted out of my love for stationery and handwritten letters and to help keep the tradition alive,” she said.

This dying tradition that Nelson is trying to protect, is burying with it more than just decent handwriting and the ability to read cursive. Handwritten letters simply carry more meaning than electronic messages. In letters we see erase marks, smudges, and unique handwriting that easily stand out from the words that we receive electronically, which generally have the same font and the same text size.

There is also the personal touch of handpicked stationery that makes a note that much more thoughtful. Nelson explained her own experience with this: “I have spent hours in card stores searching for the perfect card for a birthday, or for the perfect set of note cards for general notes. It adds to the sense that you took the time to pick out the perfect card as well as write a well considered note,” she said.

Another personal element that we get with letters is particularly expressive words. When we talk to people through online communication, there is a certain separation between that person and us. The conversation does not regularly get very heartfelt. It is different when we write a handwritten letter. Nelson described this concept:

“I love that a note can make you feel like the person who wrote it is right there with you. The act of writing a note is sending a little piece of yourself to the recipient,” she said.

Although many people are losing their ability to deeply communicate with others to the world of social media, companies like Nicely Noted remind us that there are still people who believe in real communication. Some people subscribe to stationery for handwritten letters instead of Facebook and Twitter updates. 

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Visit Original Link

I visited multiple Facebook pages that support handwritten letters and requested that people call my google voicemail and answer the following question: How do you feel about the decline of handwritten letters? 

Mary Colborn was my first responder. As part of a project to revive the letter trend, she personally mailed about 60 postcards with handwritten notes to friends and family. The response was not as she had hoped.

A couple of people responded with emails, and others did not respond at all. This left Colborn questioning how important she is to those she reached out to. Here she discusses her disappointment with how handwritten letters are going into extinction. 

Got a story to tell about handwritten letters? I would love to hear it. Leave it on my voicemail. Here’s the number: [phone]

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Her (Coming sooner than we realize)

Written, directed, and produced by Spike Jonze. 

Set in 2025, Her is a scary prediction of where society may be headed because of this all-consuming technology age. In the film the main character Theodore works for a company of writers who create sentimental letters for people who don’t know how to express their feelings.

The forecast that this type of job could be in our future is not so hard to believe. Expressing emotions today has dwindled in thought from long, meaningful letters to purchasable Hallmark cards, edible arrangements and hackneyed clichés like I love you and I miss you. Now, Instead of spending a lot of time to create thoughtful messages, we are spending more money to pay others to do the work for us.

Her then takes a massive plot twist when Theodore purchases a female operating system, which he names Samantha. Soon after, the two begin dating and Theodore starts to fall in love with her. This predicts a future where technology does not just replace deep, personal interaction, but it replaces human connection all together. Is this really where we are headed?

 This film releases on DVD May 13th, 2014. Watch it to see a glimpse into the future that may await us if letters and others forms of deep expression go into extinction. 

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The Age of Online Communication: Are we Losing more than just Letters?

You know that I’ve never fostered my attentions on you. I’ve never demanded that you endure my presence. If you feel that I can be nothing more to you than just an average, run of the mine acquaintance, please tell me and I’d have a great deal of more respect for you for being honest with me and yourself.

I’ve never concealed my affection for you, and as far as I’m concerned you’re still NO. 1 with me. All you’ve got to do is tell me the feeling is not mutual and I promise I won’t commit suicide.

In 1939 a man who signed this letter as Ralph was up at 3:15 in the morning typewriting this outraged note to his ‘smug and self-satisfied’ date. He wrote three pages filled with ‘venom’ to this woman simply because of her ‘boorish conduct’ on the night of their date.

In today’s culture, it would be fairly normal to not have any communication after a boring date. Therefore, any woman who received a letter like this today would likely be perplexed. Ralph’s display of raw honesty and emotion was much more common in the era when writing letters was the only way to communicate.  

Ralph’s letter is one of many from the book Love Letters Lost. This book features an assortment of antique love letters that range from exceptionally long and dry to hilarious and heartwarming. The letters are photocopied on the page, so the reader can see their original condition complete with difficult to decipher cursive handwriting and browned paper. Many of the letters are then typed out so that readers with less-keen eyes can read the letters.

Babbette Hines created this book with the attempt of showing what we are losing in this digital era where communication primarily takes place through e-mail, texting and social media. In the introduction Hines describes the difference between our communication methods today and the old method of primarily letters:

"It is easy enough, in a moment of passion or in the face of someone else’s desire, to say something that you really don’t mean in an attempt to coerce or console. Even in an e-mail, which is easy to send (or delete) with a single touch, it is not that hard to invent or declare feelings that may not stand the rest of time. Letters, if those found here are any indication, are a different story altogether. Perhaps it is the act of putting pen to paper or the time required to distill thoughts into written words, but what emerges from the process is the truth. It is easier, after all, to den what you have said than what you have written; even if you are fairly certain of your reception, it takes an act of bravery to reveal what is truly happening in your heart. It seems that if you are going to be that brave, you might as well be honest," he said. 

What Hines seems to emphasize with the opening to his book is the courage and honesty that comes from writing and sending a letter. He hypothesizes that it is easier for us to lie and sound like whom we want to be, instead of who we actually are, with our new methods of communication. Is there any truth to this?

The bold and poetic statements made within these love letters are in agreement with Hines. The bravery and deep thought behind the words that were written in the letters within this book tend to be much more thoughtful than the shorter, conversational writings that one usually sees on Facebook or through e-mail.

Take for example when two people are in love. The way that we express our love today tends to be much less dramatic than it was in the past. Below is excerpt from a letter that a girl sent to her lover Alex:

Starring into your eyes in my car w/ tool playing was one of the most peaceful moments I have shared w/ you. All of my insanity was quieted. I felt a very real deep connection w/ you. Earlier today you said, “sometimes I feel you are too close to me.” I know I am, and I love it. I am so not afraid of this anymore.

We do not often hear poetic expressions of love like this today. More regularly, we hear hackneyed statements to express love. Hines describes how romantic communication has evolved in his book:

"There are many ways to express one’s love, as there are ways to feel it. And yet the vast majority of writers contain themselves to a few simple words and phrases: I love you, I miss you, I am lonely for you, I wish you were here, I wish I was there, I think about you ever single second of the day. They are clichés," he said. 

As Hines explained, many of us have become unoriginal with our expressions of love. From just reading one love letter in this book, it is easy to see the difference between the light and casual way that we communicate today and the deep, thoughtful way that many letters were written in the past.

So, are we losing more than just letters? Is this honest, thoughtful way of communicating something too sacred to let go of? For those interested in exploring this question further, I recommend this book. The reality that these letters are real and were actually mailed in the past makes Love Letters Lost especially unique and worth the exploration. 

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Found in the Bureau: The letter that mended a 10-year silence

When my 86-year-old grandfather Gordon Brown was a teenager, he and his father stopped speaking for over ten years. The two may never have spoken again, if it weren’t for a handwritten letter.

We sat about 2 feet away from each other on an emerald green couch as my grandfather recalled the story. From behind his glasses, I could see that he strained his eyes as he spoke, looking deeply into the corner of the room, as if he was searching for the memories there.

 “When I was a teenager my father tried to divorce my mother. In those days it was common for the other person to defend against it. So, my mother did.”

During the court hearing, my grandfather was only 15-years-old. He was standing alone in the kitchen when he received the subpoena from his father’s attorney, ordering him to appear in court to testify. He was surprised at this, having received no warning that anyone was even considering asking him to be a part of the divorce procedure.

Nonetheless, on December 9, 1943 Attorney Bancroft called my grandfather to the stand. The attorney asked him only one question: “Would you tell the court which one of your parents you would prefer to live with if your mother and father become divorced?”  

To this, my grandfather responded with tears welled in his eyes in a broken voice, “My mother.” Almost immediately, Attorney Bancroft had no further questions. With the help of my grandfather’s testimony, my great grandfather lost the trial…and so began the 10-year grudge of silence.

“They were still husband and wife, but they were legally separated.” Explained my grandfather, speaking as an esteemed author of multiple law books.

So, in a dark brown house on 67 Brook Street In Wellesley, MA my grandfather, his parents, his 2 brothers and his sister continued to live together. “It wasn’t a nice situation.”

My grandfather is grateful to have some happy memories of his father from before the attempted divorce. Sadly, his younger brothers and sister don’t have the same recollections. Their father wouldn’t talk to any of them after the court hearing. “He ate by himself. I think in the kitchen. My mother and the rest of us kids ate together in the dining room.”

Eventually, all of my great grandfather’s children and his wife moved out of that house on Brook Street and on with their lives. He however, stayed alone in that house for the remainder of his life.

My grandfather was drafted in the army at age 22, he attended Salem State College after that and found his wife Jane, my grandmother, in the process. They were married on June 28, 1958 and my great grandfather was invited, but he didn’t attend. 

            It was sometime after that when my grandfather decided to write the letter that ended the 10-year silence.  It is copied below, word-for-word as he wrote it.

MY GRANDFATHERS LETTER TO HIS FATHER

 Dear Father,

This is going to be a difficult letter to write, but there is an urge within me that forces me to write it.

For many years I have gone through life with the conviction that I have no father. I took it for granted. Other people go through life without parents. I could too!

A strange, difficult-to-describe feeling always came to me when I heard other people mentioning their fathers. I seemed to resent the fact that they had a father, and I didn’t.

Now, I realize that my thinking was wrong. It was warped. There were no facts to back it up. I have a father! The only trouble is that I have refused to recognize him. There has been an unseen and unexplainable force separating us.

When I think about it now, I cannot find a reason for us acting as we do. I believe that you can’t either.

Mistakes are made every minute of every day, some small, some large, but if everyone paid for their mistakes as we have, the world would not be fit to live in.

The knowledge that you have of me and I of you is shameful. It is hard to believe that a father and son can get as far apart as we have been.

The one thing that I want you to know about me is that within the last year or so, I have come to know God. My life has changed completely! The wonderful happenings that have come to my life since I found Him are so numerous that I could never count them. I have actually begun to live! Life has a meaning for me! I would never have had the courage to write this letter if it wasn’t for God.

There is a Bible passage that I have read many times, but I have tried to overlook it. I cannot by pass it any longer.

“Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first by reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer they gift.” (Matthew 5:23).

Every time I read this, I think of not being reconciled with you. The Lord has now given me the power to express myself. I could never have done it otherwise.

I hold nothing against you. Life is too short and too full of suffering to add unnecessary hatred and animosity to it.

Your life has been a bitter existence, and it is time for a change. You have suffered enough and have paid doubly for anything you may have done wrong.

With God’s help, you can find life again too, I’m sure of it!

It will not be easy to speak, even when I see you again, but time can sometimes do marvelous things.

I hope that this letter will be the beginning of a richer and fuller life for both of us and the rest of the family.

                                                                        Your son,

                                                                        Gordon

My grandfather received no response to this letter whatsoever and had no communication about it with either his father or mother. However, he found the hand-written letter in the top drawer of his father’s bureau after he died on May 10, 1980, at the 67 Brook Street house where he lived alone. He also found a typewritten copy of that letter among his mother’s belongings after she passed away on February 13, 1997. Neither his father nor his mother could typewrite.