Old letters have always made me uneasy. In the majority of cases we have no idea the intent of the original writer or if they cared that their personal writings would to be shared with others in the future. I imagine that some never considered that their personal thoughts and feelings would fall into strangers hands. I wonder if some of them are spinning in their graves?
Don
Which is why my wife calls my working on my collection "sorting dead people's mail".
and I love old letters for so many reasons: they are windows into time (events, literacy, how people spoke, even calligraphy or penmanship styles); into people (I still love the family history in 20 letters, part of a huge outpouring, I'm sure, that showed a many different aspects of this one family); and, if nothing else, they are often the only thing that keeps those people from the graveyards of our collective memory.
i suppose i can feel a little guilty at times purchasing and reading letters from people no longer with us..but they are gone yet their words live on. How else could we learn about the famous people who lived in our Hudson Valley 250 years ago without the letters they left behind ?
i go to a cover showing thinking along certain lines and always come home with something unexpected. i was looking for foreign covers but when i saw 2 older U.S. covers that obviously had letters inside i took them. The letters are from two brothers 12 years apart writing typewritten letters to their parents. Oddly both sons are suggesting they could use new suits. Sad because by 1937 the parents must be elderly.
re: Letters from the past
Old letters have always made me uneasy. In the majority of cases we have no idea the intent of the original writer or if they cared that their personal writings would to be shared with others in the future. I imagine that some never considered that their personal thoughts and feelings would fall into strangers hands. I wonder if some of them are spinning in their graves?
Don
re: Letters from the past
Which is why my wife calls my working on my collection "sorting dead people's mail".
re: Letters from the past
and I love old letters for so many reasons: they are windows into time (events, literacy, how people spoke, even calligraphy or penmanship styles); into people (I still love the family history in 20 letters, part of a huge outpouring, I'm sure, that showed a many different aspects of this one family); and, if nothing else, they are often the only thing that keeps those people from the graveyards of our collective memory.
re: Letters from the past
i suppose i can feel a little guilty at times purchasing and reading letters from people no longer with us..but they are gone yet their words live on. How else could we learn about the famous people who lived in our Hudson Valley 250 years ago without the letters they left behind ?