The Lost Art of Letter-Writing.

The year was 1942 and my grandfather was three weeks away from leaving his hometown of Grand Rapids, MI to join the Navy. That’s when he met the woman who would become the love of his life. The night before he boarded the bus for the United States Navel Training Station, the two vowed to write each other a letter every day they were apart.

Fast-forward to the 21st century.

The lovebirds were married for 64 years before my grandmother passed away on Thanksgiving Day morning, 2010. When my grandfather followed her lead three years later, our family came together to sort through their belongings. That’s when I found them. In the bottom of my grandmother’s cedar chest, organized into two volumes, were their love letters from WWII.

I spent the next three days glued to the floor with the letters in my lap. I couldn’t stop reading the 500+ letters. I was moved to tears when they talked about their love for each other. I blushed when they talked about “necking.” I cried when he feared she forgot about him. At the same time, I learned what life was like on the USS Stockham. I learned what sailors did on liberty. I felt the intense loneliness during holidays spent apart from family.

Those letters document an important part of history.

Since the 1940’s, our world has seen a lot of changes, one of them being the digital revolution. And with the digital revolution, computers and smart phones, e-mail and texting, and ultimately, the destruction of the hand-written letter. In fact, many elementary schools across America have eliminated cursive from the curriculum altogether in order to make more time for the recently adopted Common Core State Standards (which do not require handwriting instruction) and keyboarding. Even passing notes in school has become a thing of the past as it’s not unusual for kids in K – 12th grade to carry cell phones.

It saddens me to think that my grand-kids probably won’t have a similar experience to the one I had when I discovered the war letters. My grandpa was 21 when he started writing those letters. When I was 21 I was using a college e-mail account that has since been deleted, letters to home and all.

I’m not naive enough to believe that hand-written letters will make a comeback. However, when (if) the time comes for me to have children, I hope to instill in them an appreciation for sending hand-written letters and notes to their friends and family. If not to become a time capsule of the past, then simply because receiving a hand-written note is much more meaningful than a text message that automatically deletes itself after 30 days.

 

United States Navel Training Station
Great Lakes, Illinois

9/24/42

Dear Minnie,

Well here I am in the good old Great Lakes and it’s colder than the dickens.  We got here about midnight Wednesday.  We got to bed about 3 o’clock A.M. but had to get up at five-thirty. – Well I’m back again only a day later.  I just got started writing last night and we got called out.  It’s 11 o’clock now and I have a few spare minutes.  What a night we put in last night.  We had hammocks to sleep in.  I was awake more than I slept and I don’t mean maybe.  In these darn hammocks if you move around in them you fall on the floor.  I mean deck.  They are about three and half feet from the deck.  Every now and then you could hear somebody bang against the floor in the middle of the night.

Say “Squirt” you ought to see these darn uniforms we got.  I look like –! We got to wash them every day and I sure ain’t used to that.  We got paid yesterday already.  We got the large amount of five dollars.  We held the five for about five seconds and then we had to give it to another guy.  He gave us a bag with soap and a bunch of other junk and we got one dollar back.  They pay us and then they spend it for us, how do you like that?  This life is sure different than civilian life.  I am not my own boss anymore.  We might get our haircut today, hot dawg.  The sooner we get it done the sooner it will be grown out again.

Well, Minnie, I have to sign off for now so be good and don’t forget about the big dipper at about nine o’clock every night.

Love,
Howie – “Gob”

P.S. Don’t mind my writing because I sat on the floor when I wrote this.

After receiving a picture of Howard’s beard, Minnie wrote to him saying if he didn’t shave it before he returned home, she would never kiss him again. In 1945, he shaved it.