Do you like to read love letters?
Well, certainly if they’re addressed to you.
But what if, as an historian, you’re reading someone else’s love letters, say a husband to his wife during a war?
I’ve written about this issue before and, frankly, it feels intrusive.
The question still remains in my mind: “Is it research or voyeurism?”
Look at the picture above. That’s a copy of the actual letter and a photocopy blown up 150%.
It’s not exactly a love letter, it’s a love note, but you can tell the handwriting is a challenge to someone–me–who is not used to reading it with loving eyes familiar with the hand.
I’m “translating” it because I need to know what’s inside for the book I’m writing. I have to admit I’m squirming, though, knowing how private this couple was.
So I’ll reflect on my own life, instead.
Women will tell you the joy of receiving love letters from a husband, boyfriend, lover, far from home–particularly during a war.
A military wife’s reaction
I remember the shock of getting an envelope in my Connecticut mailbox one afternoon when my husband had been out to sea for too long.
As a submariner, he couldn’t send mail unless he was in port. He disappeared under the water and I generally did not hear from him again until I saw him on the pier at his return.
I was on my own with small boys in an old house in the woods with a car that didn’t always work and no neighbors except the US Naval Subase.
(They weren’t bad neighbors–the Navy never came over to borrow a cup of sugar, but then, the Navy played the Star Spangled Banner at 8 o’clock every morning on loud speakers.)
Anyway, on that day, I opened an envelope addressed to me in a hand I didn’t recognize.
A Polaroid photo fell out and a short note:
“Mrs. Ule, I saw your husband and he asked me to mail this to you when I returned home.”
That’s my hero, topside, USS Skipjack; with the periscope in camouflage
My heart lurched and sang.
It was a picture of my husband!
My eyes filled with tears, my mouth gaped in joyous surprise and the excitement that welled through my body is inexplicable.
All I could think was, “he’s alive!”
Of course he was alive, I just hadn’t seen him or heard from him in so long–it was like opening a book I loved and reuniting with a long-lost hero.
A hero just like my guy.
No love letter, but a love photo.
I pressed it to my heart until the boys wanted to see Daddy, too.
I will never forget that moment.
Old handwritten love letters
This morning as I sat at the kitchen table deciphering the 100-year-old handwriting–which gets easier the more you try to read it–my now retired Navy guy sat at my elbow, kibbutzing.
“What do you think this says?” I tried.
His answer was silly and not really repeatable.
“There are a lot of references to ‘my darling.'”
He smiled.
I may have to dig out a few of those Connecticut love letters later today . . . to remember.
The notes I’m examining today are short and thirteen in number.
Oswald Chambers wrote them
Oswald Chambers wrote and dated them from a YMCA hut in Egypt during World War I.
He sent them home to Biddy in England with instructions to open one a day as soon as she got on the SS Herefordshire to join him in Egypt.
In 1915, enemy submarines lurked under the waters around England, France and throughout the Mediterranean Sea..
Biddy, her two-year old daughter Kathleen, and her friend Mary Riley, sailed on a steamship out of Liverpool to Port Said with 22 other passengers.
She knew God called her on the dangerous voyage to join her husband in his YMCA ministry to the ANZAC (Australian, New Zealand Army Corps) troops.
Her husband was thrilled she was coming.
His love letters indicate how much.
They were apart less than three months–which to this “retired” Navy wife doesn’t seem like much at all, even during war.
But those love letters–beckoning, coaxing, thrilling, calling her onwards–would be enough for anyone.
Just like my photo of my guy.
Biddy Chambers outlived her husband by 49 years.
She lived with his letters, notes, words, and lectures every day.
She could remember his love, his affection, his tenderness anytime she opened a piece of paper.
Why would she consider marrying again?
Write your loved ones a letter. They’ll always be glad you did.
Tweetables
Love letters: historical research or voyeurism? Click to Tweet
The power and reassurance of a love letter. Click to Tweet
When apart why not write love letters to affirm and give hope? Click to Tweet
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