Featured While emptying recycling, found these letters...

Don't get me wrong though, if folks are okay with old private letters being read by others I have no objection as it is not my call, I am STRICTLY speaking for myself and how I feel about it. I can only think of how my mum and dad would have felt about it .. and that's what I go on ... Joy.

 

I posted a few months ago about a packet of letters from my aunt's second husband to her. He was a bachelor until his 50s. They had gone to elementary school together and reconnected after she was divorced. He still lived with his mother. The letters were incredibly sweet and romantic. I'm the oldest family member left so I have about 300 postcards written by various family members to each other from 1900-1930. I can't imagine tossing them out. I plan to scan them so the information about our family for my kids.

 

Odds are those two would get a big kick out of the family reading those letters.

 

My kids have not shown any interest in my letters .. my mother wasn't too fond of me from birth and didn't hold much interest in my children because I was born a "boy" ??? Hard to believe isn't it .. but true. I loved her anyway and realize that she had some serious mental issues. Thankfully I always had a good sense of self and flourished .. my children knew unbounded love and we are very close ... Joy.

 

UMMmm ... wasn't born a boy !!! That was a really stupid slip-up in the above post ... I need to take a break ... Joy.

 

That's what I thought you meant but these days you never know.

 

I couldn't "just leave them either".

I have boxes of family letters - from the late 1800's onward; written back and forth from my Cornish grandparents family who they left in Cornwall. It is hard to read them... scrawly script and misspellings and all...but I "CAN'T" get rid of them. Some talk about how things were in Britain during the blitz; lack of food, rations, air raids, family deaths because of...and their responses to my Grandmother after receiving care packages with simple things like a few tea bags, a lb of flour, dried fruit, 1/2 lb of sugar, hand me down shoes... enough to break your heart.

I have one I cherish from my grandmother's teacher in Cornwall - circa 1900's; written shortly after Gram's fam moved to the Upper Peninsula ...talking about how much she missed her and her sister and hearing them run down the cobbled streets to come to class.

I also have some historic letters from my own notable instructor; to and from her students - including myself... I'm not sure what to do with them. I was "gifted" them by the instructor.

I have a small stack of letters I purchased at an antique store...written by a man in the navy during WWI to his sweetie...not romantic (in my way of thinking at all)... although he states that he sure does miss her. It talks about brawls and when he was fired upon. They are "fairly" local family; but, I don't know if any family still exists in the area.

The upshot is: I think time is the important factor in addition to content. There are some things that should truly be kept private; particularly if they are "intimate" letters. Yet, things that shine light on history, what things were like from day to day - are important to keep as documents.

Eventually, our own family letters will probably go to the Cornish archives at the Van Pelt and Opie Library of Michigan Tech. (My daughters made it clear that they will throw them out - unless I specify where they will go.) They are the largest Cornish archives in the US and have already accepted 30+ boxes from my Mother's 40+ years of research. This did include many letters. We read all of the letters and sent only the ones that really DID discuss mostly genealogy; rather than family health or personal info.

In time; the immediate family, of say, the man who was in WWI will have passed away - and perhaps all that will remain of this gent who served will be these letters and his descendents. At that point; perhaps a local museum would LOVE to receive them and in 50 years when his modern descendent's are researching their family; they may cherish finding letters written by him. As I said; they aren't particularly intimate.

My teacher's correspondence; will eventually make it to the archives of the groups she was involved with.

I had always hoped to find a way to make money off these letters - but as yet, my conscience has not found a way to make that happen...my conscience has also not let me just discard them.

My own opinion on all this, of course. I'm sure some of you may disagree...that's ok. I don't think there is a clear answer re: this issue.

Leslie at the Northern Lights Lodge

 

Interesting! Thanks, Leslie.

Still have all these letters up in a box, untouched. I have a dear friend who loves this kind of thing -- a story emerging from the past, so waiting for her next visit. I would say she is obsessed/fascinated with old stories in letters, etc. The friend lives 1000 miles away, so might be months/years before I get to them. (Although, had to laugh, when I texted her about the letters she wrote back, "I'll be there in six hours...")

Who knows what's in the letters? The one I glanced at was pretty bland, talking about the weather, etc., but only read a few sentences. Anything sensitive we would put away/discard. So remains a story untold!

 

reported

 

My great-grandmother was a Cornish immigrant too who ended up in the UP. It sounds like a bunch of Yoopers have Cornish ancestry. I'd always guessed as much but never knew for sure. My guess is the mining industry was a draw.

 

Yes, definitely! My Mom's father, John, came as a young man to Ironwood and mined BRIEFLY. He came from a family of miners and apparently hated being "down the mines". He ended up at Ford in Detroit and later Saline, Michigan. (As a point of interest: He was the 2nd child in a family of 21 kiddos...and the only one to come to the US!) My mother's grandfather on her mother's side was an assayer and foreman in the mines in Cornwall. He originally came to Montana (where Gram was born in 1893); then went back to Cornwall - and re-immigrated to Ironwood. It was in Ironwood where my Gram met John, and they became part of the farming community in Saline. The Finn's also immigrated in numbers to the UP; but most of them came as logger's as my husband's family did. And as so often happened... the Finn's and the Cornish married...as in the case of my husband and I. Interesting history! Have you been to the "da Yoop"?

 

Never. I only got as far into Michigan as Detroit. Oddly, I had some distant relatives in Montana too on great-grandpa's side of the tree. I never knew them either and have no clue how they ended up in Montana. My triple-great grandparents got off the boat in New Jersey, and there they stayed. My dad's grandmother died in 1948 and I wasn't born until 1966, so I couldn't exactly ask her much! She was born around 1878 if I remember correctly, and emigrated here when she was four or five.

 

If you watch Law & Order you'll see them take trash to find evidence and they always say if it's in the trash, it's public. I think that's true. As far as these letters, it's possible the person had no relatives to take them and the staff tossed them. Or, the relatives took a look and decided they didn't want them.

I recently came across a trove of love letters from my Aunt's second husband to her from the time they were dating. They were both in their 40s and very prim and proper. The letters are amazingly tender. I've considered making them into a book. People just don't write to each other any more.

 

If it's in the trash, it's fair game. You just can't trespass to get it.