Sunday, November 24, 2013

Letters As Time Travelers


“I’d reached the end of the first page but didn’t turn it over. I sat motionless, as if I were listening very carefully to something, and I was, I suppose; for the little girl’s voice had drifted from the shoebox and was echoing now in the shadow-hung hollows of the room. I’m in the country now...they call him Daddy...there is a tower, and three sisters...  

"Letters are special like that. Conversations waft away the moment they’ve been had, but the written word prevails. Those letters were little time travelers; fifty years they’d lain patiently in their box, waiting for me to find them.”  Kate Morton, The Distant Hours

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Letters from a young mother who journeyed with a young child to the gold mining fields in California  to join her husband and brother (before it was California), letters from a young newly-wed man serving in France in World War I, letters from a father and mother to their children  - all these, and more, patiently wait in boxes - stories and voices of our family. These time travelers are treasures. 

Image - letters written by  my parents



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