The Letter Writer

Mrs Neu was a letter writer. Even with technology making it easier to text, the handwritten letter still carries weight. 

One of the reasons Mrs Neu liked to write letters is they created a bond between her and the recipient. 

Here is how she described her letter writing in a piece for her writing class:

“I’ve been the letter writer in my family since we moved from the mountains to Stockton when I was 10. I kept up corresponding with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and many cousins through the years. There are only a handful of Portola cousins left because so many relatives have died.

But I have added some moved away neighbors of thirty, forty years ago, a couple of college friends, and a dozen school families that have never given me up. I write regularly to five German families we have visited in Germany over the last twenty-five years. They don’t understand my English and I don’t understand their German. I save their letters until I can get one of my sons to translate. At least we know that we are thinking of each other!

When I was sixteen, I wrote to Grandpa Patterson every day for a year. He was in a sanitarium in Glendale, Colorado suffering from TB. Grandma saved the letters in a scrapbook and gave it to me when he died.

Before we were married, I wrote to Dennis almost every day while he was in the army stationed in Germany. Over 1000 letters! Fortunately, he wrote back.

Last week, I got an email from a cousin in Maine. She was putting away her Christmas cards and didn;t see one from me. “Are you ok?” she asked. I think she thought I had died! Though I have only seen her three times, our letters have kept a bond between us.

Now I have been busy sending out Valentine notes. Only thirty-four this year!”

Unfortunately, the bonds break when the life of the recipient or the letter writer ends. But then the letters live on. I wish I had kept more from my mother.