It was an evening in July of 1982 when I opened the door to my apartment to find my mother standing before me in tears. “Mama has passed away,” she said.
We immediately arranged to make the trip to San Angelo, Texas, where family members were gathering for my grandmother Leona’s funeral service.
As often is the case, many members of the family traveled from long distances to pay their respects. Fortunately, we had time prior to the service when my mother and I, along with aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, spent hours catching up on marriages, births, graduations and reminiscing about “the good ol’ days.” It was a bittersweet time.
The morning following the funeral, when the extended family had returned home, my mother, her two sisters and their brother began the task of sorting through my grandmother’s belongings.
Leona cherished her family. Over the years, she had assembled boxes of photographs, newspaper clippings and several scrapbooks. She had saved birth and wedding announcements, birthday cards, reunion notices, even several poems written by her mother — my great grandmother.
My mother and her siblings faced a flood of memories as they discovered photographs of themselves as small children, and of relatives long ago. I sat nearby, watching and listening, as they laughed and traded stories about their lives, their mother and growing up.
The precious time together quickly slipped away, and before long, time came for everyone to leave. The siblings divided their mother’s belongings, each taking items that held special memories.
Chance discovery?
Preparing to return home, I took one last walk alone through my grandmother’s bedroom. I began daydreaming about the nights I had snuggled with her in her big four-poster bed. I recalled the times she sat with me in front of the three-tiered vanity dresser while I tried on her jewelry and pretended to be all grown up. I circled the room, running a hand over each piece of furniture, remembering the softness of my grandmother’s hands that had touched these same pieces daily for years.
When I came to the bureau, I noticed an old tattered cigar box that appeared to have been overlooked. I opened the box expecting to find more photographs or newspaper clippings. Instead, I found a small window into the past: letters neatly bundled together and tied with a ribbon, written in the year 1909 by my great grandparents.
After carefully thumbing through them I realized the letters had been written during the spring, summer and fall prior to my great grandparents’ marriage. Standing with the box in hand, I began to read the letters — each one complete with its original envelope. Without realizing what I was doing, I slowly slid to the floor next to my grandmother’s bed and sat completely immersed in the letters. As I read, I found myself returned to a much simpler time — a time when long-distance communications meant a handwritten letter. No typewriter, no computer, no spell check.
I’m not sure how long I stayed there reading this courtship by mail, but when I finished, I felt very close to two people whom I barely remembered. They were no longer “Big Mama” and “Big Daddy” (names given to them by their family). They were two young people, living in rural Texas, who over a period of months grew to love each other very much.
No one knows how Leona became the keeper of these letters. Her siblings had not been aware of them, and she had never revealed their existence to her children.
I don’t believe my finding the box with the letters was accidental. My grandmother knew my passion for recording and keeping our family history. I believe she knew I would cherish and respect the story the letters told as much as she did. She also knew that I would do what needed to be done with the letters to ensure future generations of our family would have the opportunity to know and love these two people.
As I think back to that day, I can imagine my grandmother’s smiling spirit sitting next to me as her children laughed and reminisced. And I know it was her who beckoned me to her room one last time, so that I would find the gift she had left for me to discover.
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