Carrying on the family tradition

Columnist enjoying going through old letters

I come from a line of letter writers.

I certainly remember my mother sitting at her desk writing letters to people all over this country, the United States, England and Germany.

She kept in touch with me that way for years and years. I was always the one who was far away so writing a letter was called for – in answer to hers.

She kept in touch with the people she knew in Chester, England. We lived there during the Second World War.

There was the nice lady who used to take me for walks in the park next to where we lived. There was a dear friend who, with her husband, ran a café not too far from our place, and there was my godmother who lived in Chester.

There was her dear friend who was a bit “wild” and wrote what would have been considered rather scandalous things in those days. Her husband went off to the war and “she didn’t want him back.” I have some of those letters.

There was the lovely lady who helped Mom after my youngest brother was born. She lived just over the border with Germany from our home in Echternach, Luxembourg. It was fun to listen to them talking – Mom had taken German in school but that was some time ago, so she was learning all the time. They exchanged notes and Christmas cards every year.

When one moves, all kinds of bits and pieces emerge from drawers, closets and boxes.

I just re-read my grandmother’s wedding book. It was written in 1914 and has all kinds of details about the when, the who, and the what in it.

There is an itinerary of my grandparents’ honeymoon trip to South Carolina by train.

And in the back of the book, she listed all her grandchildren and when they were born. Included in this wonderful bunch of papers is a description of her trip to see us in Echternach in 1954. It was wonderful to read what she saw and learned when she was there.

My uncle owned a weekly newspaper in, what was then called, Beamsville, Ont. He wrote books about different places and subjects over the years.

He also wrote a weekly column for many years. My delight was to learn that Uncle Bill had lived in Yellowknife and worked for Hudson’s Bay Company.

His description of what it was like was terrific. When I eventually lived in Yellowknife, I worked for a weekly newspaper as a reporter and got to write a few columns as well.

One of the better ideas I had back then was to ask my mother to hang on to any letters that I wrote to her from the North. She did and I have been going through them. What fun it has been! The ones she kept go from 1978 to 1981. They covered a lot of ground – from Yellowknife, NT, to Prince Rupert, B.C., to La Ronge, Sask. I know there were more, but these are ones she kept.

In some ways, my weekly column is a letter. It’s a letter to people I don’t always know. And it’s a letter that I certainly hope you enjoy reading.

UPDATE

After going on and on about our new Chevy Bolt EUV, it is now safely in our garage. We now need a degree in all the new technology. It involves our cellphones and emails and a screen in the car big enough to watch the TV news on.

Onward.