LOVE LETTERS TO KIM:

uncovering touching longlost correspondence

Earlier this year, a letter arrived on our editor’s desk, written by a reader, Carol Flanagan, about her much-loved elderly neighbour, Kim, and her correspondence with servicemen during the Second World War. We were so moved by Kim’s

love letters and Carol’s reflections we decided to share them in full.

I

found the letters on the floor.

I could easily have missed them, for the floor was deep in paper as though a burglar had visited

(though a burglar might well have been more careful than the officers of the New South Wales

Trustee and Guardian who were responsible for Kim’s affairs at the time).

They had sifted through the contents of her home with so much haste, or so little attention, that they had also missed an envelope full of cash, obviously Kim’s emergency funds, and Kim’s original advancecare directive, both of which lay hidden amongst the years-old receipts and correspondence.

There was a dusty letter from

Don Chipp, the former Liberal

Cabinet Minister who had left

Federal Parliament and founded a new political party, the Australian

Democrats, in 1977.

Kim had evidently written to him and he had written back to thank her:

Dear Kim,

What a beautiful person you must be …

He wasn’t wrong. Nor was he alone. Also consigned to the floor, were photos of Kim dining at a number of glamorous restaurants with a celebrated ABC newsreader of her time. She was exquisitely dressed in each. Her wardrobe was carefully stored in the front room of her Manly cottage – an entire clothes rack for long-sleeved silk blouses; another for sleeveless silk. She wore pearls and cashmere and kid gloves soft as satin. I only learned later that St Vincent de Paul was her boutique of choice.

The love letters were folded together in a manila envelope.

I picked them up and they were in such good condition that it took a moment to register how old they were – they had all been written during the Second World War. They were from four different young men. The only thing that linked them was that each one contained a proposal of marriage.

It was clear that each had been part of a long correspondence, but Kim had kept only the letters in which her correspondents had proposed.

I feel that you have been very sweet writing so often to cheer me up and I think I shall do something about it although correspondence cannot help matters. I don’t know whether you have ever thought about making any arrangements about the future but I shall be delighted if you would consider my offer of an engagement which you might prefer to keep secret while this war lasts. I feel that a girl should not be tied up to anyone who might be incapacitated but I leave this entirely to you for your decision with your good judgement. As far as I am concerned you are the only girl who has ever thrilled me and I would love to have some sort of understanding between ourselves for the future.

Lots of love …

With the letters was a photograph of a young, 16-year-old Kim, smartly dressed in hat and gloves, snapped in a city street, and one of an equally good-looking man with a note on the back: “Mostar, Yugoslavia”. I can only guess the significance of the two photos. The man was probably Rolf, the German whom she married as soon as the Second World War ended and he was released from the internment camp where he had been imprisoned as an enemy alien. The one of Kim was probably the same one which she had sent to each of her correspondents, and which they all mentioned.

Your photo has taken the place of honour in the household on top of the wireless. Incidentally it has caused quite a commotion in the family. My cousin, who does quite a bit of model work … has told everyone about it. Of course they all want a look. It is really beautiful …

The letters are, to the modern reader, astonishingly well written. Simple, direct, without spelling or grammatical mistakes, they all focus on the young men’s desire to be rid of the war and return to a life where stability and contentment are possible. It is as if Kim felt that the very act of receiving these heartfelt proposals of marriage – all of which she rejected – was some kind of crystallisation of her wartime experiences. They raise a thousand questions. What led to each proposal? What followed them? Did these young men know of each other? Did they survive the war? Did they see Kim again after they returned to Australia? How did they react when they learned that she had married a German national? We will never know. We don’t even know the full names of those ardent young writers.

I find this place a little dull after Sydney but I think that the trouble is probably due to not having a suitable companion (I think perhaps you). As regards myself, I still find myself a little dazed – we were so suddenly thrown together and yet so suddenly thrown apart and in the meantime so close that I find great difficulty in knowing what to say. However, time alone will tell plus a further intimation of your own feelings, when and where we may be able to make contact …

Lots of love

By the time I found the letters, it was not possible to ask Kim about them. She had dementia and was living in a nursing home. Kim had cared for Rolf devotedly after he developed multiple sclerosis and until she could no longer lift him. Rolf was in a nursing home when I met Kim, and she was looking for a house-sitter before heading off on a long trip. In the 1970s fifty-something women did not generally travel alone, certainly not to places like China and South America, but Kim did it with confidence and relish, and as often as she could afford. She had a formidable intellect, an enthusiasm for life, charisma and charm in abundance.

Twenty years later it was Kim’s turn to enter a nursing home. Ever organised, she had put herself on the waiting list many years before, but when the time came she went unwillingly, and I didn’t then know enough to identify and seek out more appropriate care for her.

The aged-care facility was run by one of the large churches. She suffered from a significant degree of dementia, yet security was minimal. A visitor needed to key in a security code to persuade the gates to open. However, if you hesitated at the gate, there was usually a resident around to call out the code to you. Within a few weeks of moving there, Kim escaped unnoticed. Having long since

forgotten how to cross the road safely, she somehow navigated her way through busy Manly to her beloved cottage. I’m not sure how the local police persuaded her to go back with them.

Kim, who loved nature, was in an institution several stories high with an ugly, concrete outdoor space, unembellished except for memorial plaques – hardly likely to improve anyone’s state of mind. The building sat high on a hill overlooking her beloved Manly, and for as long as she was able, she enjoyed the view out to the ocean. But I wish they had paid more attention to the individual needs of the residents in their care. I wish they’d asked Kim (or me) what made her happy. They might have learned that she loved cats, might even have done something in response. I’ve seen resident cats at other care facilities give pleasure to many. They could have listened to her singing to herself long after she’d lost the power of conversation and provided music. When I mentioned to the director of nursing that I had read an article about how music helped people with dementia, she assured me that in her experience music made older people agitated.

The young Filipino staff were caring, gentle and respectful, but the nursing management were brusque and preoccupied. There was no malice but at times a disconcerting lack of insight or sensitivity. One afternoon I came unusually early to visit Kim but could not find her in her room. “She’ll be at tap-dancing,” I was told. “Tapdancing?” I repeated in bewilderment as I was waved downstairs. There I found the residents, silent and unengaged, in rows of vinyl chairs drawn up in front of a group of staff members, security lanyards flying, awkwardly following the directions of their tap-dancing instructor. This cheerless spectacle was one of the residents’ regular activities.

My darling Kim,

You have been promoted. It’s much nicer than “My dear Kim” and as you are a darling I can’t possibly call you anything else. Does this meet with your approval? I do hope it does, otherwise I shall be terribly disappointed because

I really want you to be my darling. I expect you have known all along that I have a very soft and tender spot for you in my heart. Kim, my dear darling, I shouldn’t say this, but I love you – I know I do and I have always had the feeling that you cared for me too. Perhaps you do, a little? ...

Very lovingly …

When I was leaving after (as it turned out) my last visit before Kim died, two of the younger carers ran after me to the lift and called to me excitedly. “Kim was married!” they exclaimed, “and she told us!”

Kim’s wedding ring had long since disappeared from her too-thin hands, and it was several years since she had last had a sensible conversation. Yet that morning, while they had been bathing and dressing her, she had told them that she had been married to Rolf for many years.

I feel a bit stupid because I don’t know how to express myself and know you don’t agree with war-time marriages – but if you would be willing to wait and could stand a long engagement I would consider it a privilege for you to be my wife – how poorly that is put but you will probably understand how

I feel.

Caring for Kim often left me feeling ignorant, unprepared or inadequate. There was the time she broke her hip and lay on a trolley for two days in Emergency and another two days in the Orthopaedic Ward, uncomplaining, as “more urgent” cases were moved ahead. When I described what was happening to a doctor friend, she explained that delays such as this could compromise Kim’s recovery. But I learned this too late: the surgery was unsuccessful and she never walked again.

When I was a prisoner for almost four long and dreadful years, you didn’t forget me, darling, and for this alone I loved and admired you. If you decide to be with me always, we’ll have such fun together – playing and making plans for the future. Of course most of the time it would mean living in Siam and Malaya but you would be down in Australia every two years …

You are everything that’s nice, and to me you are precious and I love you.

After Kim had the last stroke, the nursing home staff treated me kindly.

Kim, always strong-minded and practical, had signed an advance-care directive long before they were commonplace. Anticipating her fate, she had written that if she had a stroke at a time when she suffered from another disabling condition, she did not wish to be revived or given anything other than pain relief. So the staff, instead of dispatching her to die in a brightly lit and noisefilled intensive care ward, dimmed the lights and left her peacefully in her own bed. For four days I brought flowers to her from my garden and sat with her waiting for death to come. She stirred occasionally, made small noises. The staff turned her from side to side, and washed her gently. A male nurse cradled her fragile limbs as if she were a baby while changing her nightie. It didn’t seem hard. After everything that had led to this, it felt entirely okay.

There were six of us at Kim’s funeral. I have always been puzzled as to why people arrange funerals at the crematorium – to my mind the most awful of imaginable venues. I’ve always felt that funerals should be held somewhere the person loved, but by the time Kim died I had neither the wit nor the will to fix on an alternative. So we huddled in the smallest chapel, which was way too big. Mournfully we took turns to share our thoughts about Kim. Last to speak was Kim’s god-daughter

(and my daughter), Lucinda. “Kim was my fairy godmother,” she said.

In memory of Kim, we have set up a scholarship at Manly Selective High near Kim’s old home. The Kim Berendes Scholarship for Social Justice is designed to help with the university studies of a student who has demonstrated that she shares Kim’s qualities of strength, integrity and compassion. Girls who have been awarded the scholarship have studied environmental science, nursing, agricultural economics, teaching and international relations. Kim would have been delighted by them. AWW