Near Death

When Mother's cousin Joanne was here, Mom showed her some letters she has that their grandmother and grandfather wrote. Joanne asked for copies of the letters and I said I would take care of it. I finally got around to it last week...and it was almost a disaster.

I finished copying the letters and returned home with the two folders and a few other things in my arms. I set the folders down on my kitchen cabinet and continued through the kitchen to set down the other items. Only my elbow or something clipped a glass. Since my hands were full, all I could do was screech as water exploded out of the toppling glass and targeted the folders like a guided smart missile.

I was in a panic! Handwritten letters written by my great-grandmother, my great-grandfather and my grandfather! Screech! Try to empty arms of clutter! Try to grab the letters! Try to get Reggie away from my feet! Try to rescue the letters! Some of those letters are 79-years old! They've survived almost 80 years and one week in my possession and they were about to become soppy paper towels with running ink! Screech! Of course, they have no monetary value, but they are priceless. "My mother! My mother!" I kept thinking as I watched the water soak into the folders as I tried to rescue them.

I was in no pain, but I was near death.

Cause of death: Mother's loss and disappointment!! I mean, she is my mother and she wouldn't kill anyone, especially her daughter, but the horror of having to tell her I'd destroyed her grandmother's letters!

Somehow a miracle occurred. Both folders got wet, one completely soaked and no longer usable, but only one photocopy got a little wet! I was going to live to see another day (and write about it in this blog)! The original letters were laminated, but some of them were scratched and they were probably laminated 20 years ago, so I wasn't certain the letters were completely sealed. But they all survived, and so did I! Whew!

Panic aside, it was fascinating reading the letters. One was from my grandfather to my grandmother while she was in the hospital just after the birth of their first child. Grandma stayed in the hospital about a week (those were the days!) and Grandpa had to return to their home about 80 miles from the hospital (those weren't the days)! He writes about how excited he is that his girls (Grandma and Aunt Mary Jo) were coming home soon. It's the sweetest letter and I never knew that my grandfather, who died when I was five, sometimes called my grandmother Judy. I did know that she really disliked her name Jewel. Grandpa was so excited that he forgot to get another professor to cover his class the day he was to bring the girls home!

The image is a letter written by my great-Grandmother to her son's girlfriend (eventually my grandmother). My grandfather was one of ten children and was very tall, but I didn't know he was the only boy in the family with black hair and that his mother called him "her big black headed boy" (unfortunately, the copy cuts this off a bit). The letter is from 1929! Isn't that cool!

And isn't it cool that I didn't drawn it in a monsoon! (The smudged city and last name are on this copy, not the originals.)