Shutter Sisters

Grandpa’s Letters

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Long before I knew what our One Word would be for this month, I wrote the prompts for Picture Summer (the class I am teaching over at Big Picture Scrapbooking this month). The prompt for Thursday had to do with capturing in a photo, a personal treasure. Sweet synchronicity!

When I saw the above image in our classroom gallery I was stopped in my tracks. When I read the brief caption under it from the photographer Julie, I got goose bumps.

I am honored that Julie agreed to share this story with us about this undeniable treasure:

Sixty-five years. 

These letters are sixty five years old, written by my grandfather in 1945 to his young bride as he served his country as a medic during World War II.  My grandfather was deeply in love with my grandmother.  He never stopped referring to her as his girlfriend throughout their long lives together, how sweet is that?  Their young love was even sweeter. 

I am very lucky, as the oldest grandchild, to have inherited this treasure. To make it even more special, these letters were written to my grandmother when she was pregnant with her first child, my mother.  I am so grateful that my grandmother kept these letters.  They were very dear to her then as they are to me now.  Each letter was carefully opened with a letter opener and after it was read it was returned to its envelope to be stored in her cedar chest.  Today these letters call my cedar chest their home. 

My treasure. 

Image and words courtesy of Honorary Sister/Guest Blogger Julie Allaway.

Comments

  5. Julie, what a beautiful testimony to your grandparents’ love…and those incredible letters are truly a treasure…have you seen the new book by Lynne Griffin called Sea Escape? Lynne found letters from her father written to her mother…so she based the story aorund these beautiful letters…the book is already a huge summer reading hit. http://www.lynnegriffin.com

  7. what a unique treasure. a window into the past that most of us can only dream of having. thank you for sharing this beautiful photo and story.

  8. Wow. An absolutely special and amazing treasure. A lovely photograph as well. What a beautiful story to start my day!

  9. oh wow. the post yesterday was about my husband’s grandmother who lived in england during world war 2 and met her husband and american soldier fighting in the army and they too fell in love and wrote letters for years until they too could marry and she move to his home in america. your letters give me goosebumps since i have now known this kind of love in our family and each opened just as yours, with a letter opener and saved in pristine condition. so SO wonderful.

  12. I love this and it is very personal to me. My husband has been to war twice for 18 months at a time. In spite of the ability to e-mail, we have written many letters to each other which I have saved. It makes me happy to think that future generations might treasure them the way you do.

  13. oh, i love this one! so much beauty and emotion in a single image. its wonderful!

  17. one of the last things I got to do with my aunt before she died was to go though a stack of letters that her father, my grandfather had written to her mother, my grandmother before they got married. It was very intimate and special.because we knew how much they had loved each other.

  18. "synchronicity" – I need to come up with a reason to use such words in my writing. I love it.

    This is simply wonderful. I keep my own box of treasures, letters, journals, cards, memories. It is nothing like this, though. You remind me to add to it again.

  21. I do wish that the habit of letter writing was still used often…emails and tweets will not be passed along to our grandchildren…

  22. Love, love, love the letters especially the beautiful handwriting addressing them. Such a lost art, beautiful handwriting! Thanks for sharing your treasure.

  24. I am Julie’s aunt and I was touched. I just returned from a family funeral in Kansas. I didn’t realize Ike’s library was in Abilene, KS. I looked up directions on the net and found out that the Eisenhower library asks for information and personal memories about your soldier to be included in a kiosk which serves as a memorial. I am sending Julie’s picture and story as part of his bio. The timing couldn’t have been better. They also ask for a picture. I am forwarding their wedding picture as my dad was married in uniform. You were not allowed to wear civilian clothes during the War, even for your wedding.

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  27. gorgeous! i’ve actually inherited something very similar – my nano was a medic in world war ii as well and asked my nana to marry him before he left. for four years she waited for him and they only communicated through letters. now i have a big box of all his letters, which are romantic & humorous…probably the possession i am most protective of.

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