My mom is known far and wide for, and because of, keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances from around the world spanning many decades. At 93 years of age, she happily exchanges emails and messages via social media with countless numbers of people. Despite this, she still frequently sends letters and cards through the post office.
I am aware of pen pals with whom she has maintained communication for 60 years and even longer.
Only this last weekend did I get a clearer understanding of just how many people she’s corresponded with, for how long, and the detailed records she’s maintained documenting those exchanges.
I asked mom how and when she began corresponding with people she had not yet met in person. She replied it began when she was a teenager.
Her eldest brother purchased a subscription for her in the late 1940s to American Girl magazine (published by the Girl Scouts from 1917-1979), although mom was actually in the Camp Fire Girls.
The August, 1949 issue published an excerpt from the upcoming novel by Ruth Adams McKnight, It Might Be You which told the story of a Japanese American girl returning home from the incarceration camps. The magazine excerpt was titled Girl Without A Country. The girl in the story, named Rosebud, faced racism and abuse very similar to what my mom suffered.
As a 17 y.o., mom saw herself in the story and wrote a letter to American Girl sharing the similarities between the girl in the story and herself. She bemoaned the fact that the story did not have a happy ending. Her letter was published in the November edition.
She received a handwritten letter from the author, Ruth Adams McKnight. She and the author exchanged cards and letters for several years. She has saved these letters. Here was the first one she received from the author:
Mom received several letters from other subscribers to American Girl from around the country (and at least one from overseas) in response.
One girl, Phyllis from Virginia, responded to mom’s letter, and mom and she began corresponding. Mom finally met Phyllis face to face after exchanging letters for 20 years. In 1969, when my family was on its way to Europe, we stopped to meet her. Although they never met in person again, they kept writing letters for at least 50 years until Phyllis’ death.
Ever the archivist, mom has kept photographs, letters, greeting cards, and newspaper clippings for decades. As I asked her about her collected trove of correspondence, she pulled out three binders. One was for births and graduations, the second was for weddings, and the third was for deaths.
I thumbed through the third and memories washed over me as I saw newspaper obituaries, memorial programs, letters, and photographs of people whose lives intersected our family’s journey from before I was born. I saw names of people I had not thought of in 40-50 years. Vague memories and images reappeared in my mind’s eye from when I was in grade school.
Then mom showed me her card file.
A single drawer was crammed full of index cards carefully sorted by name. Each card contained a single name and the date of every letter sent to or received from them. My wife and I marveled at the diligence and discipline it took for mom to maintain these records for over 80 years. I remember as a little boy seeing this metal card drawer on mom’s desk at home and I recognized it immediately. I had no idea what the contents were until this last weekend.
Today it is so easy to contact someone. It is relatively easy to look people up and reconnect online. You can hold a video chat with multiple people internationally for free. Some of us can remember when overseas phone calls were costly and the sound quality iffy. Pictures and stories are shared and reshared instantly across social media platforms. Remember how long it took to receive an answer in the mail?
Despite the ease, speed, and low-cost means of communication technology offers us, many people still feel isolated and disconnected. We are constantly bombarded and interrupted by updates from family, friends and acquaintances online via our phones in our pockets and sometimes even from watches on our wrists.
Receiving an actual letter or card in the mail, an ever rarer event these days, is such a treat! You can hold something physically in your hands that was handled by the sender. You observe a unique font — found on no computer — in the hand of the writer.
Few of us send or receive letters or cards in the mail. But my mom diligently sends out cards and letters to friends and family around the world remembering birthdays or simply letting people know she is thinking of them. I truly think her efforts to reach and stay connected are one of several of her secrets to remaining a healthy and vibrant nonagenarian.
Although I heavily rely on email, I still occasionally will type a letter on a manual typewriter — my handwriting is so difficult to read, something typewritten makes it all the better for the recipient to see and decipher. Each typewritten letter compresses the paper or cardstock allowing one to tactilely feel the words by running a fingertip across the text.
Some say I have inherited my mom’s unique knack for staying in touch. I think my efforts to maintain connections across time and space are dwarfed by hers, but they nonetheless bring me joy. Whenever I think of someone, I try to contact them – usually through email, text, or a phone call. But sometimes I am moved to pull out the typewriter.
It takes effort to pull out stationery, write something, address and stamp the item, and send it. But I believe the rewards for both sender and receiver far outweigh the exertion.
Blatant Calm 