Do not leave old correspondence around for my adult children to try to decode.
I’ve spent the evening continuing to plow through these boxes. It’s been interesting. I have no idea what to do with the box full of 78s (is that right? they’re singles) and reel-to-reel tapes, let alone the small pile of cassette tapes that were thrown in with them. Some of the singles were for singers/bands I recognized, but most of them weren’t.
But the box that I’ve spent the last 4 hours on (and I’m only 3/4 done) has my father’s correspondence from 1955 to 1957 while he was back in college. They appear to start about the time he separated from his first wife (for the final time based on some of the things I read), went through their divorce, finished his Masters degree, started teaching, met my mom, and married her.
They are, of course, only the stuff that people mailed to him; so I have to make assumptions of what he was saying. It’s been an education reading this stuff.
1. There’s a handful of letter from the ex (who went back to TX) that seem welcoming enough.
2. There’s letters from friends asking what he’s up to and commenting somewhat negatively about the ex being too sensitive.
3. There’s letters from women – including one from Kentucky who Girl is calling Stalker Lady – who speak of wanting to get him in their bed in order to “eat him up” I’m not making that up and that was only a month or two after I think the ex left.
4. A long correspondence with someone in Mexico in Spanish (that I didn’t know he knew). And between the cursive and the age/smearing it was too much for Girl to decode. But among other letters I found where he tried to getting a teaching job in Puerto Rico (the rejection was in Spanish) and a review of what he wanted to do his thesis on, which included world politics connected to Mexico.
5. But the bulk of the correspondence is from my grandparents. Telling him a) how proud they are of him continuing his education. b) how much he needs to come home and visit more (they were in Phily, while Dad went to Chicago for college.) c) the details of their continuing buying and selling of property to live in – but when he or his brother (stationed in Japan for the AF) come back home, they will get a good apartment with rooms for them – my dad was nearly 30 at this time. d) now that he has separated from his first wife he needs to find a nice girl (read Jewish) this time. e) how much they should have sent him and his brother to Hebrew school as a children.
But the truly kick in the guts revelation was their response to my uncle marrying a Japanese girl and planning to bring her home. Oh MY! It set off a six month mess. From what I can put together, my dad knew about it ahead of time. One of their sisters found out and had a hissy fit at my dad. Finally my uncle wrote to his father, who flew off the coop (uncle sent the note on to my father, so we have it to see) causing the Jewish chaplain in Japan and uncle’s commanding officer to write him back. Grudgingly, grandpa decided to accept it (with input from my father) and he finally told grandma – who had such a strong reaction she had to be sedated and then didn’t even write my father about it until weeks later.
I guess it’s no surprise looking back that uncle, his wife, and all four kids ended up living with my dad and mom for quite a while (and no it wasn’t in Phily).
And I still have most of ’57 to finish reading – what I do know of the year is that my parents were dating from about late ’56 on, sometime in ’57 they decided to get married, but broke up. They ended up married in January of ’58 with my brother born in October. (Mom once admitted to me that she had morning sickness during her honeymoon.) All I’ve found so far is a letter to my dad from his mom dated Dec. ’57 where she says that he’s not too old to find a nice girl who will bless their old age and supply him with children.
Of course with both grandparents and parents gone, I’m mostly connecting dots- which is quite frustrating. I would love to pick my dad’s brain about all of this…
if he would have talked. I didn’t even know about the first wife until I was nearly in high school.
And aside from what I have left in this box, there’s only 6 more boxes.
Sounds like you could write a novel out of that stuff. Wow!
My mother told me all my life never to put anything in writing that I did not want the whole world to see. I guess that’s why. How strange it must be to learn things about your parents and not be able to ask them about it. Are there any other relatives (aunts/uncles) who could help clarify things?
LOL – and I try to use that policy too!
My uncle is still alive (the marriage didn’t last, he moved home to Phily, and married a “Nice Jewish” girl in the end. Though they did try.) and I’ll probably contact him after I finish going through them all. I am curious about what he’ll have to say.
I can’t imagine what I’ll find in the last six boxes at this rate.
I agree that there is a novel in there. But then I’ve recently read a novel with Tigger that had excerpts from the author’s father’s letters in it (from the war) and we saw a play based on the playwright’s grandfather’s letters. So I guess I’m seeing what great things come from letters!
That sounds like a pretty exciting story. Who knows what you are going to do with them, but it sounds like a fascinating job going through them.
Wow, I am so jealous of the “window” you have into your past. I am a product of a bitter parental divorce and therefore don’t have any memorabilia/stories to link me to life prior to my own memories.
Although I’m sure some would consider the contents of those boxes to be “skeletons,” I think they’re worth their weight in gold.
[...] just was discussing my Dad’s stuff that I was going [...]
Meg,
How did you feel when you learned about your dad having been married before your mom? Did you wish you had at least been told about it when you were little so it wasn’t such a shock?