Quick Count

First year counted. Between June and December, 1933, (They graduated from the University of Missouri in late May or early June) between 150 and 160--hard to tell exactly since some envelopes are empty and some letters aren't in envelopes. Most are typed, single-spaced and two pages.

The Bag--finally--is empty

The bag--finally--is empty, as of this morning.

And

I’m back with the blog; so is the story. A couple of reasons for the absence. The one I’ll readily give is that I got busy, busy in a writing project and this fell by the wayside. That’s a reason, but the real reason is that I got overwhelmed.

So much! So many memories. More than just the letters, letters, letters. But notes and clipping from Mother’s high school days, my sister’s baby book, mine too, but come on! second child, not much stuff, and then suddenly a “young wife” letter from me, my family’s WWII ration books, a letter from my uncle away at war. What to do? How to sort?

            Mostly though, it was the youngish man who wrote those hundreds of letters full of hope and dreams. I feel like a peeping tom, and worse. I know what is going to happen. I fill with sadness that his life would be so short—barely 25 years left to live those dreams. I know. He doesn’t.

            I touch a letter written on my birthday—five years before the day I was born, and another sadness fills me. I, the grown-up me, never really knew this man. When he died, I was 19, just nibbling on the edges of being grown. I was always the little girl and he was Daddy, in charge. We never got to be friends. I didn’t know until my own children grew up and I watched them become friends and pals with their dad that I realized the gap in my life.

            These letters bring it back. I ached. I walked away.

           

            Now I’m back. But where to begin? It is my mother’s box. They are letters to her. But the story in the letters is Lewis’s.

           

            Then, that’s where I’ll start. That’s where I have started. I’ve pulled both 1933 files. I will count them; put them in order, and then, begin to read. My knees almost lock again. Do I want to do this?

Simple answer.

Yes.

This blog is going to go in three directions, all with the same final destination: what is in the letter, more about Lewis (and some about Dorothy), and some about me and my memories as I begin this adventure.I’m back

 And, now to work at the empty table on the newly vacuumed rug. (Oh! how it hurt to let those 80-year-old scraps of paper go! First, I'm going to count. How many letters in 1933?