561. What to Do With Old Letters?

At last, after five years in this house and one year of retirement, I have begun the process of going through old boxes of papers, deciding what to discard and what to keep. It all began with a search for two bundles of letters that my uncle Ted left for us after his death in 2017, letters spanning thirty years from my mother, my sister, and me—but mostly from Mum—that he had saved, tied up with string, and labeled with our names so as to make it easy for his daughters to return them. My cousin Jacky gave them to me in 2018, when I made my shortest-ever trip to England for a gathering in honor of Mum, and met her for the first time since her dad’s death. That very night in the hotel room, I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning reading all those letters Mum had written to her dear brother, in which she shared her sorrow, joys, and daily frustrations.

When I got home I started gathering together all the letters Mum had received from Uncle Ted, letters both hand-written and typed, long single-spaced letters covering both sides of the sheet of paper. I also collected all the emails from him that Mum had printed out and, before I cleared her old iMac, printed out some of the many, many emails that she had sent him. Over the years, long, frequent (and expensive) phone calls had been replaced in part by letters both handwritten and typed, written on typewriters, later on word processors and desktop computers and, after they had installed dial-up internet connections, sent as emails, a few of which I had been able to save. After Mum’s Alzheimer’s Disease made it impossible for her to use the computer anymore, or even to read easily, Uncle Ted started sending his messages for her to my email address, and I would read them out to her, greeting her in his voice—Hello Glad!—which always brought a smile to her face. I have saved those messages as well.

Of course they had corresponded ever since 1955, when Mum and Dad moved to India not long after my birth, sending long, handwritten airmail letters written on onion-skin paper to save postage, letters that traveled to and from India, then Greece, then India again, and finally, the United States. But those letters haven’t survived the many moves since, and the oldest ones in my possession are from the late 1970s. Once in the U.S., after the years in India of having to wait at least six weeks between letters, Mum far preferred the immediacy of telephone calls, when she could actually hear her the voices of her brothers and sisters. But before the days of cheap calling plans and free online calls, the cost of international long-distance calls was astronomical, and Mum and Dad, like most members of their generation, especially immigrants, were extremely thrifty. I love Dad for never having given Mum a hard time when he saw the phone bills; he knew how much staying in touch with her family meant to her. But some of those bills must have raised his eyebrows as well as making Mum feel guilty, since she herself made the effort to moderate the number and length of her calls to her siblings Bette, Rene, Len, and Ted by writing more frequently, even when she longed to just pick up the phone and hear their beloved voices. How grateful I am that she did!

After Mum died everything was turned upside-down as we had to sort through everything, dispense with much of it, and pack it up in preparation for selling my parents’ house. I knew I had saved the bundle of Mum’s letters to Uncle Ted somewhere, as well as her correspondence with all her siblings, but where, oh where had I put them? I wanted to scan some of them for my cousins before our forthcoming trip to England. Yesterday I sorted through every single one of the nearly twenty bankers’ boxes in my office closet, turning up all sorts of unexpected finds and many letters, but not that precious bundle. I was beginning to fear that they had inadvertently been recycled during one of the massive clear-outs, until I came to the hall closet in which we store my father’s un-framed sketches and two big plastic tubs labeled “precious documents” (ours and my parents’). I searched through the precious documents twice, but to no avail. Then, on the top shelf, behind some picture frames and a box of old Christmas cards (I know, I know), I found two more bankers’ boxes. One was unpromisingly labeled Art Mix, but the other was unlabeled. Standing on a stool, I moved all the intervening frames and boxes, and lifted down this last box. Halleluiah!

Again I sat up until early morning, sitting on the floor in the hall, sorting the letters chronologically, and interleaving the stray letters I had found during the day’s search and the emailed ones that I had printed out. I have several piles now: a bundle of letters from each of Mum’s siblings, the bundle from her to Uncle Ted, and a few emails and un-sent letters from her to her brother Len. Her sisters Rene and Bette weren’t on email or the computer, so I only have hand-written letters from them. I also have handwritten letters from Ted’s younger daughter, my cousin Carol, who corresponded with Mum faithfully over the years.

What to do with all these letters? I know the collection is incomplete and still hope to find a few more. Next I might combine letters sent and letters received, so that I get a sense of their conversations. So far I have only done this for two letters, excerpted below.

Only a few years after Mum and Dad had retired and bought their house out in western Massachusetts, Mum started restlessly looking for another. They were already in their mid-to-late sixties when they retired, and she was afraid that this contemporary house would be too difficult to live in and maintain, and especially to heat, as they grew older. However, moving yet again was a daunting prospect. She wrote to Uncle Ted about this dilemma in 2000, when she was not yet 73:

I’m beginning to think that we are too old and too young to make this move now, because anything that would suit us as impaired elderly people, would not suit us now, and to move twice in the next 10 years (give or take) would be too much stress and too much money.

Uncle Ted, by then 75, wrote back, ever the supportive elder brother:

I feel for your moving predicament. Your phrase “too old and too young” sums it up alright. I could add for my case “too poor, too lazy, and too indecisive.”

As I read, I saw how much this steadfast brotherly support had meant to Mum over the years. Uncle Ted’s love and loyalty never flagged. I have only just noticed a little note, a reminder, that he put on the outside of one of the envelopes after re-reading one of Mum’s 1999 letters:

Note, 2012: How lovely to read and remember how well G. expressed herself–recently, too.

***

Oh, how articulate these letters between the siblings are, and how perfectly they convey each of their personalities! My uncle Len typed at breakneck speed 100% error-free, and in a long stream of consciousness, since he didn’t take the time to breathe between sentences, let alone paragraphs. This, written one Sunday, gives a taste of it:

Lovely smell of roasting chicken coming up the apples [Cockney rhyming slang for “stairs”], and as I’ve just spent almost two hours over the big allotment (on our first dry Sunday for months) and cleared four buckets of weeds, mostly couch grass which is the most insidious of the grasses, and its roots spread extremely quickly. . .it’s high time I furnished my right hand with a glass and I’ve just dug out some beautiful cider we bought at Hereford last September. I’ve got 2 x 1/2 gallon jars—one of scrumpy, and one strong vintage. Ideal to prepare me for carving the chicken, and replace the sweat from my exertions earlier.

Auntie Bette, who wrote with great immediacy exactly as she talked, describing her long London walks in Regents Park, Primrose Hill, and Hampstead Heath, places Mum loved, and conjuring up her traditional British meals and the occasional curry-up in mouth-watering detail.

I’ve made a super Irish stew and dumplings or I love making curries especially when I have company coming, and also I think of you all the time I’m making it, such as is the gravy thick enough is it too hot?

Sure that she is the world’s expert at making curry, she writes to her baby sister: thanks for your advice, but I didn’t forget the coconut.

In one letter, written in April, 2005, she asked, referring to the wedding of Prince (now King) Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles: Did you see the wedding at all? I didn’t they say she looked very nice, what a load of fuss. My family lost very little love on the Royal Family.

Auntie Rene wrote about her own health woes and those of family members. Always the sentimental one, she caught Mum up on news of friends from the old neighborhood and evoked memories of their own mother.

I’m going to J’s school for Harvest Table on Thursday which is Mum’s birthday she loved church and this time of year so when they play We Plough the Fields and Scatter I shall sing it loud for you and Mum I know you like it.

Both aunts of course raved about their grandchildren and, in Auntie Bette’s case, their great-grandchildren.

Did I forget to mention how entertaining these letters are?

Uncle Ted loved language. He often sent Mum books and he and Mum regularly wrote about what they were reading. Here’s part of an extended rant, in 1999, on clichés and Americanisms:

While in the mood for a good moan I’ll get on my hobby horse of clichés. Basically, it’s that no-one can answer a question, begin a speech, or give an explanation, without prefacing their comment with the word “basically”. Absolutely! has replaced “yes” and “agreed” or “that’s my opinion too” and no end of other words and phrases. Regularly we hear it in response to some interviewer’s question. . . Hardly a soul opens his/her mouth without an Absolutely. And these things are infectious. All the interviewers do it. I’m catching it. The same offenders have lost the use of the brain-cell holding the word “no” and replaced it with ABSOLUTELY Not”. . . You know how on TV when a foreigner is being interviewed, he’ll speak his lingo while a translation appear in sub-tittles on screen. This fellow from Kurdistan or some such Caucasian state [Note that Uncle Ted uses Caucasian accurately, in geographical, not biological terms] was “absolutysing” away like mad. I was able to pick up the word before it came on screen. It must be universal.

And a little further on:

Then there’s the craze for add-ons. Listen to the wireless [radio] or any soap. Wait for a door-bell to ring, and the resulting, “Hi (hello is dead) Jack! Come on in.” Nobody ever says “come in” same as nobody ever meets anybody. They now only ever “meet up”. Checking has gone too. Only checking up or out or in.

***

How much of the above have I been able to discard? Absolutely nothing! Will I find some way to use these letters in telling the story of my mother and her family? I really don’t know. But in them my mother’s generation lives on, guiding me on how to maintain family relationships and navigate ageing—mine and that of my loved ones—gracefully and with good humo(u)r.

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