SUNDAY THOUGHTS on
Memories from Handwritten Letters
I admit it. I am a bit of a pack rat. I keep things. Vintage finds are my favorite, and I particularly like old handwritten letters, postcards, and photos. Recently, I came across a small pile of old postcards that had been dropped somewhere long ago. I decided to take a moment and sift through them. Immediately, I was flooded with memories of friends, past work colleagues and best of all, my sweet Nana and Pop-pop who wrote me many postcards when I was a child. Truth be told, my Nana wrote almost all of the cards but I did find one that Pop-pop wrote while Nana was staying with us after the birth of my little sister. I guess he was missing Nana.
Do you still write letters or send cards to family and friends? I try but it is one of the things I would like to be more regular about. Before we had other means of communication, letter writing was the chief means of sharing news. My Grandparents were born at the turn of the century. The 20th century. Electric lights were not taken for granted. The telephone, once it was in most homes, was costly to use. I remember my Nana setting a timer when she would make a long distance call. Over three minutes and you paid more! Now we talk globally and email in the blink of an eye. My Mom was their only child and she lived 6 hours away. Written letters were my mom’s connection to her parents when my sister and I were small. These priceless postcards from my Nana were her way of letting me know they loved me and missed me. I don’t remember how I felt when I received these cards. I like to imagine that I felt happy and special, like I do today when I receive a letter from a friend. I do know that from an early age, my mom insisted that my sister and I respond to these postcards with a written note. I probably didn’t like that but now I am glad that I was taught proper letter writing etiquette. I passed this lesson on to our children although I do remember it being a hard task for some of them to get done.
In addition to letter writing being good for the soul, handwriting is good for your brain. Writing by hand engages the brain in a different way and there is preliminary evidence that it may help with early onset dementia type illness. (source : Wall Street Journal )
Another thought I had when looking through the cards, was that they were well made cards and my Nana must have had a good quality pen. The ink is still extremely clear and while aged, the cards are not faded. Did you know that people used to send post cards quite often? Letters cost more to mail and with the written message being the quickest way to share news, postcards were less expensive to mail. This saved the household budget quite a bit over the course of a year.
“Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Here’s a few more quotes on this subject that you may enjoy.
My vintage postcards hold many memories of time spent with my grandparents, both in person and through our correspondence. Nana would save every letter and postcard she received from her friends who were traveling and when we visited, I was allowed to enjoy the postcards too. They sat in a letter holder right by the kitchen table. Sweet memories. Do you have any handwritten letters or postcards that you treasure? Would love to hear about your treasures in the comments.
Until next time, Make a Memory!
Janet
Thanks for joining me for this week?s Sunday Thoughts
Sunday Thoughts are my posts that are not typical for this site. They came about because I wanted to share a more artistic photo with you and these photos usually bring about some thoughts that need to be shared too. I hope you enjoy this change from our normal posts and homesteading information.
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If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy The Right Mental Attitude
This reminds me it is time to organize myself to write the annual Christmas letter. I use the computer these days but tend to lean towards a handwriting style font, a kind of homage to the original concept. Friends and family always tell me how much they enjoy receiving and reading them. Alas that seldom translates into a return letter. I enjoy writing those letters but I like getting them too! And throughout the year I love getting “thinking of you” and “wish you were here” vacation postcards too. Send someone a snail mail surprize today!
Lovely comment Lisa. Thank you. I wish I was better at the snail mail but I am trying to send more and more all the time! Little by little we can bring this back!
Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was to write letters and send cards to my aunt Judy in Maine. She would send cards and letters back, and homemade baked goods for Christmas. Fast forward to the techno age, and so much is actually lost, like the art of letter writing. Last year I sent my first Christmas card in years. It was to a woman I befriended who lives in Ireland. She was visiting family, and I had a holiday lunch with her in the senior center near my office. We clicked and became friends. I picked out a beautiful card to send to her in Ireland for Christmas, and had the hardest time even starting to write anything. What had happened? I can easily click away on a computer, why the problem with putting pen to paper? I eventually wrote a brief note and sent the card. This year, thanks to your post reminding me of the old cards and letters, I think I will find my file filled with old ones I received and reread them. Maybe it too will help reconnect me with this form of communication I so l loved in the past. Thank you for your post!
AnnMarie this was such a beautiful comment. I think I know exactly what you are saying. Give me a keyboard and I am a writing fool. Birthday card to a friend? Yeah don’t know what to say. I think I am going to start writing cards to my granddaughter Hopefully one day she will think they are a treasure as I think my cards from Nana are.
This is post is so awesome. How wonderful that you can look back at cards and letters and enjoy the memories! Linda
Thank you Linda. As you can probably tell, this one was straight from my heart! Thanks for commenting
This is a lovely post you wrote about your loved ones. I too like the written word and today it seems that e-mail and text message have taken over. I’m sure you cherish the wonderful memories of your dear Nana. She will always be with you in the cards she left. Ii enjoyed your walk down memory lane.
Thank you. I appreciate the comment so much on these “from the heart posts” – Janet