Letter writing, technology musings

[Moxie]

My aunt passed away a few months ago so my dad had her old family stuff that we went through over Thanksgiving.

 

My grandmother's mother married at 19 and died giving birth to her second child at 24.

 

We have many letters written to her by her sister in the few years between her marriage and death. She died in 1915 so they are 100 years old. First, the handwriting is amazing. I'd love to write like that. It was so sweet getting a peek into their lives. They wrote about the weather, their babies, what was going on in town, just everyday stuff. My sisters and I text all day. In 100 years, there will be nothing left of us. With just a few letters, I feel so connected to those two women and I actually shed a tear thinking about the Kansas sister receiving word that her sister died.

 

We also have a collection of postcards. They are just beautiful, embossed and foiled. You can tell by the postmark that they were sent from the town they lived in and they said things like "Joe, sorry we didn't make it yesterday, hope to come tomorrow". It never occurred to me that people had to mail a postcard for a note that we'd text in 5 seconds or less. Fascinating.

 

I love love love technology. But, I really think we've lost something and I don't know how to get it back.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I'm not that sentimental.  I rarely hang onto anything.  But I do have all of the letters my husband wrote to me.  He still hand writes me letters. 

 

 

[Guest]

I still write letters. Whether anyone keeps them, or if they are legible haha, is another story. I also write letters for my kids for them to read later, and keep a commonplace book with recipes and family inside jokes and stuff like that.

 

Now, I'm not tooo too attached to all of this. A fire or flood would eat them up in half a heartbeat, of course. But I admit I do like to think of my grandchildren knowing something of me and their parents as children straight from the horse's mouth.

 

There's nothing to stop you from writing to the people you care about now! Set an alarm on your phone and do it :-D

[Jaz]

I also print out emails. I'm mostly a minimalist so I have plenty of room save them. ;)

Edited November 29, 2015 by Jaz

[Storygirl]

Letter writing has become a lost art, I think. We moved recently, and as I rooted through old boxes, I found several very large stacks of letters from old boyfriends. I had a couple of long-distance relationships, and before the age of cell phones, long-distance phone calls were expensive. So we wrote many, many long chatty letters. 

 

It didn't seem right to keep them any more, so I threw them out, after reading a few. It was bittersweet to dispose of them, but my sentimental feelings were all about the loss of letter writing, not the memories of the boyfriends. 

 

I think we've lost something as a culture. Emails and texts and digital media are not the same.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Storygirl